Interesting point. I've always suspected that the real reason laptops have to come out while PDAs, cameras, mp3 players, DVD players, batteries, phones, chargers, cables, camcorders, et cetera don't have to be removed is that nearly everyone carries a laptop on a plane. Perhaps more people carry phones, but they usually can get to the phone quickly, whereas reaching your laptop is always difficult because you've put it in the center of your bag to protect it from jostling.

Hence, TSA gets maximum disruption of the traveller's life, and therefore maximum theatrical value, by picking on that item. It's all for show, but it's important to make people feel safer and paradoxically people see the fact that they are personally inconvenienced as proof that they are safer.

I'm not so sure that I would go that far. My point was that if they are worried about some nutcase wearing a bomb, the combination of shoe removals, loose outer clothing removal (and additional wanding/pat downs), laptop ETDing, and BP ETDing should reach out and touch just about everyone and effectively enable TSA to pretty much keep explosives off planes. Yes, body cavities are still an issue, but that should be dealt with through extra ETDing.

And FWIW, ORD isn't doing anything different as of last night.