Which is why the security agent is spending a lot more attention on you while you're powering stuff up and entering passwords than they are on what's happening on the screen. In TSA checks the chefs themselves, imperfect as they may be, are the point. At Tel Aviv its the responses and behaviour of the people being checked that's the real focus. Not that the checks are totally pointless, they are perfectly capable of catching amateurs or the incompetent, but don't imagine for a second that Israeli border guards are just as clueless as the average TSA agent.

Depends how smart the "average terrorist" would be. Because you would catch the ones stupid enough to just gut out the laptop, rendering it inoperative (unless of course for that last one blaze of glory… hem).

Presumably these terrorists would also be caught by the system that catches the slightly smarter terrorists that only gutted the battery, or swapped out the CD drive, or just shoved a bunch of explosives under the palm rest. I mean, those things would be picked up, right?

Asking people to turn on their computers is like a doctor taking your temperature with the back of his hand on your forehead.. right before actually using the digital thermometer anyway.