Airport security theater: forgetting to remove laptop from bag

At the security checkpoint, they usually tell you to remove your laptop from a bag and put it in a bin to be xrayed separately from the bag. And to take your shoes off, etc.

Yesterday they didn’t tell me to do that, and I’d forgotten about it, so I just sent my entire backback including laptop through the scanner.


I was expecting them to pull one of my bags aside for manual screening, because it contains a CPAP machine, and they always manually screen those now. (I have no idea why, as a CPAP machine isn’t the least bit dangerous, nor does it look particularly strange on an xray.) But because of the laptop, they had to manually screen both of my bags.

They removed the laptop from the backpack and swabbed it. Then they ran the backpack (but not the laptop) through the xray again.

I can’t think of any rational basis for the manual screening of CPAP machines after they’ve been xrayed, nor why a laptop must be xrayed separately from a bag. I’m fairly sure that this is just another case of “security theater,” trying to make the public feel like something is being done to protect them, even if the so-called security measures are actually silly.

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