Electronics through security
 

I traveled from Toulouse to Boston on Sunday, and while changing flights in Paris at CDG, I had to go through security. I was told to take all electronics out of my carryon luggage and put them through separately.

Up till now I have just taken out my laptop and left everything else in the bag. But they insisted on putting through all cables, batteries and chargers separately.

Is this happening other places? It would make a difference in how I packed; I really had to take apart my whole bag to do this.

You aroused suspicion. The terror alert was hightend on Sunday, beacause of some "stupid Al Quaida" threats against next weeks German election. That should be the main reason. There are police with machine guns at many stations and airports today. No need to worry.

Security rules have become so whimsical, I am tempted to open my carryon and just dump the entire contents in a plastic tray. My backpack was opened and searched this weekend in Schipohl because I had two travel umbrellas in it. When I got home, I discovered I had inadvertantly packed an entire bottle of gel shampoo -- and nobody noticed.

I generally dump anything with wires into the plastic tray, plus anything with a funny shape.

When I got home, I read a news story that a pilot on the airline I was flying was arrested because years ago, he had flown planes in Argentina that pushed people out mid-air to "disappear" them for political reasons.

I had this happen to me recently in two US cities; I think one was in LAX and another CVG but not 10% sure. Totally random. I prepared to take all of them out at the next airport's security check point and it wasn't necessary.
We had four flights within Europe recently and it never happened.

Monday we had all our glass containers and wine glasses checked which I had purchased in France, both at CDG and Washington Dulles. They wanted to be sure nothing was inside of the glass.

Today at CVG they did new tests on bath salts, a new test by the TSA official, they said.

Security is indeed very high right now.

At CDG Monday we had extra security for each passenger when boarding the plane.

We cane through last month Lisbon to Phillie with a whole bag of the stuff and I only had to remove my netbook.
So who knows from one day to the next or one city to the next.

I've always found that when "whimsical" security checks are involved, it's always with flights to/from the US

I don't think I particularly aroused suspicion. They were requesting all passengers going through this security point to do the same thing.

It was not just flights to the US, it was everyone going into terminal 2E at CDG.

This did not happen at my connection in the other direction, which was in Amsterdam. It also did not happen in Boston or Toulouse.

I wasn't flying to the US. I was flying from the Netherlands to Italy.

I had to empty my camera bag last time I went through Schiphol - but that was because it was so full of stuff they couldn't see it all clearly on the x-ray. having carefully deposited a few thousand euros worth of gear in plastic trays I watch it all like a hawk, with my husband standing by to help guard it while I repacked it all.
His laptop bag stuffed with cables, ipods, gps gear, chargers, and a laptop went through just fine though.
It sounds like CDG are upping their security for some reason. It may be connected wth the clearing of the camp by Calais - maybe they fear reprisals.

http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_p...a/pa_3241.html

And the reason for it all is this youg Hippie, saying he'll kill everybody in Germany except for those with the right faith, they should not leave their homes for the next 2 weeks.

The Hippies are back, don't visit Oktoberfest. :D, they'll have a party there.

logos that would explain heightened security in Germany but at CDG? And not at Schiphol for instance?

Those "sleepers" come from a neighboring country to not be detected that easy. They need to move to put bombs in place. There's highened security all over Europe.
Still, why would a Hippie place a bomb somewhere, times must have changed. (Watch the video and tell me this is not one.)

I doubt this has anything to do with sleeper cells or heightened security. This has been the standard at CDG since at least May. As I noted in another thread, I was asked to remove the following for screening:

- computers
- cables
- power bricks
- cameras
- camera lenses
- any small electronic devices
- liquids in a bag

I've had similar requests at ZRH, but not consistently. Haven't had this level of dumping from the bag anywhere else.

I flew out of CDG 1 to Bangkok last week and just took my netbook out of my bag. All of the cables, transformer, camera, etc., stayed in my carryon bag with no problem.
Same thing going back, except that in Bangkok they make you take off your shoes, too.

I flew out of terminal 2E this past Monday. It took only about 10 minutes to go through security but they were asking some people to take off their shoes and pretty much empty everything out of their carryon. Most went through with their shoes on and only taking lap tops out.

The reason it took only 10 minutes at security was because passport control was really slow with 1 person for EU passports and 1 person for all others. It took only 25 minutes but it seemed endless at the time.

At the gate for our flight to Dulles, they spot checked a few passengers without causing any delay.

At CDG a couple weeks ago we had a pair of blunt-ended manicure scissors taken away.

These things have been through a BUNCH of different European and US airports without any problems whatsoever...chalk what happened to you up to the Airports of Paris folks....