The government of Israel has more freedom of speech and control over the US than voting citizens do.

Not directly, no, but they’ll build a file for what they consider extremist views. Just look back to the Civil Rights Movement era for the list of things people said that would get them an FBI file - we have a long and storied history of surveilling anyone and everyone who says things that go against what political power desires.

That being said, I do think any cabin crew pitching a fit over such a hotspot name is absolutely in the wrong. That’s not a threat, that’s personal opinion, and it’s not the hotspot owner’s fault the crew conflates Zionist ideology specifically with Jewish Faith in general like an ignorant fool.

Not sure why this is downvoted. This was an example from the same article.

And the answer is that the FBI wasn't involved. That was a threat the pilot made, which comes psychologically from the same place as terrorist bomb threats (and also "eat your vegetables or you'll die early" parenting). You want to control someone's behavior so you threaten maximalist retaliation.

The "Palestinian" movement _invented_ airplane hijacking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_hijackings_an...

So yes, the FBI will get involved in this case. In this context it is something to worry about.

Imagine getting your jimmies this rustled over expressing antipathy for a genocidal regime, and sympathy for an oppressed people.

An aircraft is not really public. The Captain and FO have a tremendous amount of power they can wield to make sure a flight passes without incident. A plane is not the place to make statements.

If you ever take a course on private security one of the subjects is how to identify real threats.

There are other techniques, but lets say you get a phone call threatening that you must evacuate a building, because there is a bomb. Your first action should be immediately to joke with the caller, show you don't believe the threat, start laughing.

The real terrorist, and with a real bomb in place, will hang up right away....

If the bluetooth speaker is named "bomb", its more in the domain of calling Swat, because somebody might be reading a Python book. They might have some snakes on board...

I guess they assumed there were two scenarios:

1. It was unintentional; someone had a bluetooth device called BOMB for some reason that made sense before boarding the plane. They would turn it off.

2. It was intentional; someone wanted to send a warning and chose this channel - they would leave the device on.

It was a bomb speaker: https://hellottec.com/product/bomb-portable-bluetooth-speake...

You can't rename most Bluetooth speakers. "Bomb" was the name the selling brand gave the speaker.

By making everyone turn off their Bluetooth, the kid whose speaker had turned on probably couldn't even see the device broadcasting the name. People linked to one by a company made Hellotec but Hama has a similarly named device, and plenty of other speaker manufacturers try to make a pun out of "boombox" by naming their devices "bomb" (iJoy, ZEB-MUSIC, and presumably other such brands).

Maybe if someone asked the passengers if anyone knew about this "bomb" Bluetooth device the kid would've remembered, but in this case I can't blame them. On the other hand, asking passengers if they know something about a bomb is probably the quickest way to cause a panic.

The entire thing seems like a ridiculous overreaction. What kind of terrorist would call their bomb "bomb"? This is "Al Qaeda Free WiFi" all over again.