[antognini]

If terrorists decided to put bombs in laptops, it's not clear (to me at least) how putting them in the hold would make anyone safer. I mean, maybe someone in the cabin could put it right up against the side of the plane and make it more likely to blow a hole in it, as a Somalian bomber did in 2016. But it's not obvious to me that something like that wouldn't be noticed by the other passengers and stopped before any serious damage was done (like with the underwear bomber).

At any rate, the burden of proof rests on the administration to show that the threat is real, not imagined, and that the proposed restrictions are narrowly tailored to prevent the threat. None of this has happened yet.

[panzagl]

Luggage is chemically scanned for explosives, carry-ons are not.

[pgrote]

How is that accomplished? I know sometimes when I go through the security line they take a white, circular pad, wipe my laptop, bag, etc. and put the pad in a sensor.

Do they do this with every piece of luggage going into the hold?

[panzagl]

Probably more like a statistically relevant sample, but I believe so.

[techdragon]

My carry on is randomly swiped for chemical residue.

Leave X-ray, asked for chemical residue test, proceed to counter, open bag let them swipe the cloth in my clothes a little, and then the inside of my bag a little as well, test passes and I zip my carry on back up and I'm on my way to the gate. This is pretty routine when flying in Australia. I'm pretty sure we stared doing this for catching drugs and regular non terrorist illegal stuff in the 90s or even earlier, and just decided it was a sensible idea to buy stuff that can also detect explosives as well.

[antognini]

Wouldn't it be less disruptive to perform a chemical scan on the laptops then rather than banning them from carry-ons entirely?