Arbitrarius Maximus

I've been rather busy traveling the world lately (possibly more on this later) so I haven't had much time to scour the intertubes for the usual randomness and inanity that I try to provide.

However, this week, something caught my eye that I couldn't resist talking about simply due to its (as I would call it) "WTF factor".

I follow the TSA's Twitter feed simply due to the amount I travel (especially in the USA).  Usually it's a heaping pile of monotony about what not to bring to the airport.  However, this week something really caught  my eye.  There has been a lot of controversy lately about what electronic gadgets need to be removed from your back while you're clearing security.  With devices such as the Kindle and iPad rising in popularity, the definition of "what is a computer" is becoming somewhat gray.  The TSA blog team set out to clear this confusion.  They stated that the official TSA policy (see here) is "Electronic items smaller than the standard sized laptop should not need to be removed from your bag or their cases."

To me, this raises the question of "What defines a standard sized laptop?"  Does this apply to netbooks?  What about smaller laptops, such as the new 11" MacBook Air?  Apparently I was not the only one confused.  The TSA blog team again tried to clear things up.  In this post they stated the following: "So with those rules in mind, the 11” model of the MacBook Air is fine to leave in your bag, and the 13” model must be removed prior to X-ray screening."

And that is when my "WTF alarm" was set off.  The TSA has come out and said that two (essentially) identical pieces of electronics which only differ in that one is slightly larger are to be treated completely differently.  How is it that an 11" MacBook Air (measuring 11.8" x 7.56" x 0.56" - 49.956 cubic inches) provides so much less of an opportunity to hide drugs/weapons/explosives/other contraband than a 13" MacBook Air (measuring 12.8" x 8.94" x 0.56" - 64.082 cubic inches)?

It just doesn't make sense to me...