Agreed. This comes off as self-absorbed and entitled - 'how dare the security team not recognize my ascended morality and technical genius! Suppose an evil hacker does plan to disrupt the event - the only thing that stops a bad guy with a Flipper Zero is a good guy with a Raspberry Pi running wireshark!'

There's no legitimate purpose in bringing crayons and a coloring book, or a box of paperclips, either.

We should probably see to it that nobody brings any of those things in, as well.

>There's no legitimate purpose in bringing any of those to a high-profile political event.

I've carried a flipper zero with me to use as a copy of my key when I misplaced my original.

Next it will be smart phones which can do many of the things these devices can do when rooted the right model.

Not hard to make a walking stick that can do wireless shenanigans, that gets overlooked by all.

Oh well, be mobile free zoning soon at this rate.

I don’t disagree with you in general, but:

> Presumably, the cops are aware of previous disruption with these specific devices, or threats thereof. And it's not like they're going to say exactly what, nor should they, lest it give people ideas...

I don’t think this is necessarily true. The TSA bans all sorts of crap solely because they feel like it, and not in the name of any kind of actual security. It is entirely possible that the NYPD “heard” these terms in media and got spooked, so here we are.

>Presumably, the cops are aware of previous disruption with these specific devices, or threats thereof.

You're presuming a lot for a single board computer that's less powerful in every way than your laptop - even as a blunt object. Sometimes authorities make arbitrary and capricious rules: that's why they are celebrating an inauguration, not a corination. If things like this never happened, we would have no need for regular elections. :-)

> beach balls are prohibited too.

Clearly these should be banned based on capability. Am I allowed to bring a yoga ball?! /s