I am not sure where to ask this question, but I am sure that many of you out there will have an answer. In the past I have packed my laptop with my checked baggage so I would not have to go through the bother of getting it out at security. This time I took it in my carry on and when I asked a couple different security people why they needed to take it out and look at it I got a different answer every time. How does turning a lap top on tell them if it is or is not a security threat? One security person said that the reason for the difference in security checks between checked laptops and carry on laptops was that I had access to a lap top in carry on, but unless they checked every program in the lap top how does looking at the lap top make us more secure? I know there is a logical answer to this and I hope someone out there will take the time to enlighten me.

The only possible thing I can think of (I would welcome comments on this.) is that the laptop battery is so large and difficult to scan that they want to make sure it has not been removed and replaced with something else.

I have always had my laptop scanned out of the bag, in a tray of its own. I have never been asked to turn it on...yet.

Back before 9/11, in the days of beepers, I had to make mine "beep" for them. What does that mean? If someone turns their beeper into a bomb, there is no way to reconfigure it to still beep? I doubt it.

Last time we flew back to the states a corkscrew was taken away at AMS by security but my nail scissors were deemed not a threat. When we arrived in MPLS and cleared customs I had to take them out of my carry on and put them in the checked baggage before getting on the next flight. I guess I will never understand about lap tops either.

The explanation I have heard is that because laptops are so "dense" electronically, they are difficult to see through on the x-ray. With multi-layer circuit boards, hard drives, etc. it might "hide" something. By removing them from a bag it eliminates having to x-ray through the power supply, mouse, network cable, etc.

Now if it were a laptop bomb in checked baggage instead, not sure how you would be safer.

Check the Travel Safety and Secuity forum and you will probably find more on this topic.

Back in the day of the beeping the beeper, though, the beeper didn't actually get xrayed, but rather passed around the metal detectors.

Some times, in some countries, they won't even let you take your laptop in check on with its batteries, because they claim you can make a bomb out of them, which is true, I suppose, but ridiculous just the same.

Side remark- the title to this thread was happy trails, and I know it is the posters name, but this is not at all what I though the post would be about with the title happy trails.

The X-ray machines used to screen checked baggage are often very different, leaving aside the other types of screening also used in some places.