It's been my experience that when passing through environments where pilferage is high or confiscation is a risk, disassembling expensive electronics and separating the parts largely protects them from theft and/or confiscation.

It turns out a remarkably large percentage of the population can't recognize components of common electronic items. Further, many people can't re-assemble such things and find it bewildering that anyone else can or would. They might think you're a bit of an odd duck for hauling around "broken" things, but they won't try to take such "junk".