Originally Posted by BarkinJ

I have a general policy about these things:

It's the FA's job to enforce FAA and AA regulations. It is not my job to enforce any regulations.

Sure. I get annoyed...

...when the guy sitting in the bulkhead puts his bag on the floor and tries to hide it by putting it behind his legs. (Actually, this happens pretty typically with women and their purses.)

...when the guy in front of me has his seat reclined during takeoff or landing.

...when the lady next to me clearly has her iPod on in her pocket (so that the FA can't see that it's on).

...when someone gets up to use the lav when the seatbelt sign is still on. (Although, in my experience, FA's seem to tolerate this in F and J if they're already up in the galley.)

But it's none of my business. The FAA isn't going to fine me for failure to enforce regulations. And, as far as I know, none of these things (or the OP's description of a laptop in the seatback pocket) endanger anyone's safety.

Yeah yeah yeah... We live in a world of rules, and when no one bothers to follow those rules, society as we know it breaks down into utter chaos.

Whatever. We'll all live if the plane takes off with a laptop in a seatback pocket. And the last thing the FAs need is some snotty tattle-tale passenger telling them how to do their job.

I think air travel would be a lot more pleasant if people just went about their business and followed basic rules of common courtesy. And IMHO, tattling on a fellow passenger isn't common courtesy.