I travel with a MacBook, its power cord, and a retractable cable lock. When I went through the first wave of security at LAX on Tuesday, no one cared, as usual. During the hand search of carryons, the security guy pulled out my cable lock with puzzled look and asked me what it was. The security people then decided it was too dangerous to be placed within my reach on the aircraft because I could throttle someone with it.

Ironically, they let me keep my MacBook's power cord, which has a long section of narrow, plastic-coated wire that's almost exactly the same size as the laptop locking cable and would make an equally dandy garrote. I think they confiscated the laptop lock only because they didn't know what it was.

The lock was sealed in a plastic bag, put somewhere secret by the crew, and returned to me when the plane landed.