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Save/ShareAre you traveling internationally with time-sensitive—or just sensitive—information? It’s a good idea to email or send a copy on ahead of you. For several years U.S. customs officials have been inspecting the contents of electronic devices such as computers, digital cameras, and phones at the border, in some cases keeping them for several weeks before returning them to their owner.
Journalist Bill Hogan, for instance, had an old laptop of his taken for two weeks when he landed in Washington, D.C., after a trip to Germany. "It's not an inspection. It's a seizure," he told the L.A. Times. "What do they do with it? I assume they just copy everything."
In 1979, the Supreme Court ruled that at border crossings, the government does not require a search warrant for random searches of luggage. There is more protection against a strip search, which requires "probable suspicion," than there is for examining the contents of a laptop.
Federal hearings are underway that may result in changing the way Customs goes about its job, but in the meantime it's worth keeping in mind that anything electronic could conceivably be searched—and seized for a time—when re-entering the country.
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[Editor's note: We've corrected a spelling error above.]
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Great...my notebook requires my fingerprint to boot up, then there are encrypted folders on it too.
Sure they can hack it, but how long would that take ?
When you can have GB usb keys, and certainly send data...why bother ?
Posted By mike on July 3, 2008, 3:02 PM
"suspician"...really? From a "professional" writer...sad.
Posted By TJ on July 5, 2008, 1:26 AM
I am so tired of our civil rights going down the drain. Life is the former USSR was better than now.
Posted By Fr. Walsh on July 5, 2008, 8:18 AM
Welcome to America!
P.S., On the spelling error, it was nice of you to fix it, John, but we still got the point. No "writer" is so professional that he/she can't nor won't make a mistake especially since humans are not perfect. Perhaps you should go where the perfect people are, TJ, and leave us regular folk alone. Sad!
Posted By Mimi on July 7, 2008, 6:06 PM
This is absolutely disgusting - what is the difference between this and what the Communist Chinese government does to monitor its citizens' use of computers? I can't believe that this occurs in this country where freedom supposedly reigns. But if we want it to reign, we must take it back from the Fascists running our government, and all freedom loving Americans must contact our Senators and urge them to ban this practice.
Posted By CEM on July 7, 2008, 9:53 PM
My laptop was encrypted from the operating system with 256 bit AES. Customs seized it in Miami in May of 2007. I refused to give them the passphrases and they can't crack it. They kept the laptop and never even completed the paperwork as to why they seized it. In April of this year as I passed through Miami on my way home for Easter, they got upset and started calling my employer telling them that I could have been smuggling something in an encrypted laptop (from the year before!) including child pornography and did my employer really want someone like me on the payroll who wouldn't cooperate and give them the passphrases to inspect the computer. I was terminated two weeks later. I have a lawsuit going against one and all, but this is how our government operates against its own citizens. After all, we're so much easier to harass and imprison then going after real criminals and terrorists. I'm going to become a permanent expat at first opportunity!
Posted By Al on July 10, 2008, 12:55 PM