The year was 1999. At the airport security check in Orlando they had a piece of tape exactly 3” from the edge of the luggage scanning equipment. When it was your turn you emptied the contents of your pockets into a little bowl and security would look everything over and return it to you on the secure side. If you had a pocketknife, they opened it and checked the blade length against the tape. If it passed, they closed it, handed it back to you, and you carried it on the airplane.
When I landed in Brussels, Belgium, I went thru customs. From there, I was flying to England, so had to go thru security again. I put my knife in the bowl, walked thru the scanner very confidently because everything was always fine in the USA. By the time I cleared the walk thru scanner 4 security guards were ready to whisk me off to the bowels of the airport for interrogation. It was like something out of a movie. They set me down on one side of a table with a reflector light hanging from a cord. Every time they asked me a question one of them would grab the light and shove it in my face. It was hard not to laugh at first, but it became apparent they were not kidding! Their main concern was the fact that it had a lock blade. I explained that was for safety so it could not fold and cut me when I used it as a tool only. They put my knife in an envelope and added it to checked baggage on the flight to England. They also told me to buy a Swiss Army knife if I wanted to carry a tool on an airplane.
The envelope showed up at my hotel about 4 days after I was in England. It went in my checked baggage on the flight back to America 