The Government's Puzzling Laptop Prohibition

The U.S. government has announced that if you are flying directly to the United States from one of 10 listed international airports in the Middle East and North Africa, you may not carry a laptop into the cabin, for security reasons. All the airports are in Muslim-majority countries.

There is no ban on carrying laptops (and similar items) on U.S.-bound flights from other airports.

If someone is savvy enough and dedicated enough to contemplate bringing a potentially destructive laptop to the United States on a direct flight from one of the 10 airports, might not he (or she) be bright enough and flexible enough to fly indirectly to the United States, changing planes in Paris, for example?

Is this the work of a revived Secretary of Symbolism from the Carter era Garry Trudeau, or has Andy Borowitz become a regulation writer for the Department of Homeland Security?

Or am I missing something?