Originally Posted by FWAAA
Until very recently, you're right. But the USA-bred Paranoid Fantasy World Air Security Mechanism has inspired many other locales previously seemingly immune to our collective paranoid fantasies to adopt the "laptops out" rules.
Dunno if the Idiots in Charge of the TSA have browbeaten the security professionals in other countries to do this (under threats of "we won't let your airplanes land in the USA if you don't") or if they decided out of the blue to begin requiring it.
Well, seeing you you have to go through security after clearing customs/immigration if you have a connecting flight, I don't think that would really matter.
It just seems to me to be a pretty big inconvenience to pull the laptop out of the case, put it in a seperate bin, and then try to get it back in the bag after security, while trying to put on your shoes and get out of the way of other passengers trying to do the same thing. Sometime I feel like I need three of four arms at the security checkpoints. I don't ever begrudge the TSA screeners, though. No use in making their lives miserable, and they are merely following instructions. I also act very friendly to the screeners and 19 times out of 20, they respond in favor.