Originally Posted by txscreen
Laptops and DVD players do not have the same components (educate yourself before posting nonsense).
When you have a laptop and all your other electronic crap that goes with a laptop in the bag together we can not see through it all. If you didnt have to remove the laptop then we would have to do it after xraying the bag, then rerun it through the xray, thus making everyone else delayed because of you.
Just because you dont have the knowledge necessary to understand the reasoning does not mean that there is no reason. Security procedures make sense, you just dont understand them.
Welcome to FlyerTalk, txscreen.
DVD players often contain a sub-set of components found in laptops. However, laptops do contain many components that are not found in DVD players.
As for the requirement that laptops be removed, I understand perfectly why we are asked to do so. However, the question was posed why it is done here and not abroad. Obviously, other countries' travelers have the same electronic devices that travelers in the US do, so there's no difference in the contents of the carry-on.
I have posted links to images of produced by x-ray examination of laptops. I agree that there are a couple of dense components (e.g. a transformer) that could potentially obscure other devices. However, the Europeans, Asians, et.al. seem to handle this problem just fine. Could it be that their x-rays function differently than US x-ray machines, peering through such components? Almost certainly not, as the laws of physics function the same no matter where you are.
So, it comes down to two (obvious) possibilities: 1)Screeners in other countries are better trained at identifying objects or 2)The x-ray machines somehow image objects in multiple dimensions/directions making identification of components in carry-ons a non-issue when a laptop is in the carry-on.