flying--airport security and Inspiron

"Kevin" wrote in
:

Make sure you are familiar with the operation of your laptop. You
will be asked to start it up and show the desktop. You will be asked
to remove the battery. Exposure to magnetic fields would be a bad
thing. X-Rays are not an issue.

I travel regularly (almost weekly) with a latitude C640. It's been *YEARS*
since I've been asked to power one up.

You'll almost certainly be asked to remove it from the carrying case and
run it through the Xray by itself. And there is no option for manual
inspection, you MUST run it through the Xray. This is harmless.

- FM -

"Tom Scales" wrote in
:

Just curious where you fly? I've flown roughly 3,000,000 miles around
the world and haven't had to power on a computer since roughly 1992.


Ditto. The last time for me was '94 or '95, bringing an ancient sewing-
machine-size Compaq "Portable II" back from a construction site in the
middle east (Dubai). I went Dubai-Frankfurt-Atlanta-Orlando, and Customs in
Atlanta had me turn it on. I got everything but a BCS in Atlanta. I'm
guessing they just wanted to see if I'd gutted the Compaq and replaced the
internals with contraband.

- FM -

Fred Mau wrote:

"Tom Scales" wrote in
:

Just curious where you fly? I've flown roughly 3,000,000 miles around
the world and haven't had to power on a computer since roughly 1992.

Ditto. The last time for me was '94 or '95, bringing an ancient sewing-
machine-size Compaq "Portable II" back from a construction site in the
middle east (Dubai). I went Dubai-Frankfurt-Atlanta-Orlando, and Customs in
Atlanta had me turn it on. I got everything but a BCS in Atlanta. I'm
guessing they just wanted to see if I'd gutted the Compaq and replaced the
internals with contraband.

Ah, the good old days of worrying about contraband! g

Notan

Notan wrote in :

Ditto. The last time for me was '94 or '95, bringing an ancient
sewing- machine-size Compaq "Portable II" back from a construction
site in the middle east (Dubai). I went
Dubai-Frankfurt-Atlanta-Orlando, and Customs in Atlanta had me turn
it on. I got everything but a BCS in Atlanta. I'm guessing they just
wanted to see if I'd gutted the Compaq and replaced the internals
with contraband.

Ah, the good old days of worrying about contraband! g

Notan



Funny this is - there's no harm telling it now - I actually *WAS*
carrying contraband.

In Dubai, I'd picked up half a dozen 12oz cans of R12 Freon for my car,
which I had stashed in my luggage. R12 had been banned in the US a year
or two earlier (except to certain licensees, which I wasn't) but was
freely available elsewhere in the world.

When I came through customs in Atlanta, they sidelined me and examined
every single item I had. They sent every piece of clothing and every
shoe through an X-ray. They thumbed through every magazine and notebook
in my briefcase. The whole thing took over an hour.

All during this, I'm trying to play it cool but my insides are doing
flipflops, thinking I'm going to end up 5 years in the Jug for illegally
"importing" Freon. Yet they looked right at the cans in my suitcase,
even held them in their hands, and let them slide without ever saying a
word.

Go figure...


- FM -

Fred Mau wrote:
"Tom Scales" wrote in
:


Just curious where you fly? I've flown roughly 3,000,000 miles around
the world and haven't had to power on a computer since roughly 1992.



Ditto. The last time for me was '94 or '95, bringing an ancient sewing-
machine-size Compaq "Portable II" back from a construction site in the
middle east (Dubai). I went Dubai-Frankfurt-Atlanta-Orlando, and Customs in
Atlanta had me turn it on. I got everything but a BCS in Atlanta. I'm
guessing they just wanted to see if I'd gutted the Compaq and replaced the
internals with contraband.

- FM -
From the TSA web site

http://www.tsa.gov/public/interapp/e...orial_1254.xml

This should help.

Nicholas Andrade wrote:
I've had it swabbed twice in the last four years (since Sept. 11, 2001)
out of roughly 50 or so domestic flights (~4% of the time); it's not a
big deal at all -- only takes a second.

Yeah, maybe it was co-incidence, or my name, but for a while I was
getting The Swab on my laptop case every single segment of every
single flight. Makes me wonder what bit got toggled in my computer
record, but eventually it went away. They consistently claimed it was
random, go figure.

Only takes a few seconds, and you've got that to spare. No biggie.

"William P. N. Smith" wrote:

Nicholas Andrade wrote:
I've had it swabbed twice in the last four years (since Sept. 11, 2001)
out of roughly 50 or so domestic flights (~4% of the time); it's not a
big deal at all -- only takes a second.

Yeah, maybe it was co-incidence, or my name, but for a while I was
getting The Swab on my laptop case every single segment of every
single flight. Makes me wonder what bit got toggled in my computer
record, but eventually it went away. They consistently claimed it was
random, go figure.

Only takes a few seconds, and you've got that to spare. No biggie.

Back in college (the early 70s), in the height of random drug searches
("Please open your bags and empty all your pockets, sir."), I was
searched on 13 out of 14 flights that I took.

Clearly, I "fit the profile." g

Notan

DaveJohnson12@nomail. wrote:
I've heard on the news channels that [radiation] accumulates over the years and
if you accumulate enough exposure your chances of getting cancer are increased.

Google for "hormesis" or non-linear radiation dose response. Don't
believe everything you hear on the news, or in Usenet news, for that
matter, and yes, that includes this post. Do your own research, and
make up your own mind.

Kevin wrote:

Make sure you are familiar with the operation of your laptop. You will be
asked to start it up and show the desktop. You will be asked to remove the
battery. Exposure to magnetic fields would be a bad thing. X-Rays are not
an issue.

That sounds like old procedures - the last few times I've flown (2003 &
2004), the checkers wanted to see the laptops out of my luggage (didn't
have to turn anything on or remove the battery).

DaveJohnson12@nomail. wrote:

snip

Good pronunciation. I've heard on the news channels that it accumulates over the years and
if you accumulate enough exposure your chances of getting cancer are increased.

Like sun exposure, yet how many people still sit in the sun?