Originally Posted by etch5895

I would think that it would make sense to let passengers coming in who had connecting flights to catch enter the main terminal directly after clearing customs. I would consider customs a sterile area in just about every airport I've been in.

Originally Posted by LostInAmerica

"Laptops Out!" uses the same flawed logic as "Shoes Off!". Unfortunately both are now so ingrained in "security" procedure that neither are likely to go away any time soon.

Originally Posted by etch5895

Why do laptops have to come out of the bags?

That isn't meant to be a smart-a@# question, I really don't know. I'm fairly certain that a laptop inside a carry on still looks like a laptop with the x-ray, so is there another thing that is being looked for?

Originally Posted by htb

I would like to add the "Camcorders Out!" (but it's OK to keep the almost identical looking digital camera in the bag). And with compact digital cameras you can shoot video as well. I get frustrated each time...

Anyone here can explain to me the focus on camcorders?

HTB.

Originally Posted by SJCFlyerLG

But oddly enough, the rest of the world doesn't seem to share this concern.

Originally Posted by andrzej

Many of you youngsters think this is a new TSA thing and are you wrong. No one worried too much about electronic devices in carry-on baggage until the 1989 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. The device that destroyed that plane—and killed 270 people—turned out to have been hidden inside a boom box.

After this incident, Congress briefly considered banning electronic devices in the cabin. Instead, the FAA asked airlines and airports to exercise more scrutiny over cell phones, radios, alarm clocks, computers, and other electronics. As a result, many travelers were asked to turn on their laptop computers at screening checkpoints, to prove that they functioned normally. (Some airports made powering up a computer mandatory; others required it only for travelers who were afraid to send their computers through the X-ray machine.) Laptops with dead batteries were sometimes taken to a special room and plugged in. By 1993, the process had become enough of a hassle that one company released a program called "Airport Shut Down"; it put your computer to sleep—rather than turning it off completely—in advance of the screening.

So taking out a laptop for x-ray screening is childs play when compared what some of us elders had to go through 20 years ago.

Originally Posted by GUWonder

A growing number of places in Europe have jumped on the bandwagon in the past few months in regards to laptops.



Some government authorities worried about electronic devices in carry-on luggage and in checked luggage going back to at least the summer of 1985.

It's correct that the powering on of laptops has diminished in the past 7 years at many US and international airports, but for the better part of the 1990s even laptops going through the X-ray resulted in requests for the laptop to be powered on.

One of the last major incidents I personally had with a laptop was in 1996 outside of the US (on a non-US airline) when I was told that "no carry-ons" (i.e., my laptop included) were allowed on certain flights. A few calls while at the airports got that sorted out and I got my laptop on board. (I had no blind faith in the laptop ever getting back to me in one piece otherwise.)

Even at places in South America and in Europe, US airline's retained security overseas had from time to time been requesting laptops be powered on even after 9/11. The last time I saw that with relation to a US airline's flight was in 2002-2003 at EZE, CDG, AMS, and FRA. At some of those places it was a rather frequent request if someone was selected for the dog and pony show of haraSSSSment/proto-haraSSSSment.

Originally Posted by cpx

Not really, you are allowed to carry things in your checked in bags that
you are not allowed to carry on in your hand bags. There has to be
a security to re-check in after the customs.. unless the customs
is done at the final destination.. which is not the case for US.

Originally Posted by andrzej

regardless, I believe you will agree that running the laptop separately through x-ray machine is a vast improvement over the way things were done in the "old" days..... :)

Originally Posted by Superguy

I've heard that at BWI and ORD. When I've ignored it, it got thru most of the time. :rolleyes:

Originally Posted by txrus

While I can't explain it (nor, I suspect, can anyone @ TSA, but that's another story), I can tell you that an extensive, indepth study last summer w/mine revealed that if I took the cartridge & battery out of it, no one so much as blinked when it went thru the x-ray, but if one or both were in the camera where they belonged, the screener had a fit every time.