Laptops at U.S. border: What privacy rights?
A lot of business travelers are walking around
with laptops that contain private corporate information that their employers
really do not want outsiders to see. Until recently, their biggest concern was
that someone might steal the laptop. But now there’s a new worry: the
laptop will be seized or its contents scrutinized at customs and immigration
checkpoints upon entering the United States.
New TSA uniforms
A lot of business travelers are walking around with laptops that contain private corporate information that their employers really do not want outsiders to see.
Until recently, their biggest concern was that someone might steal the laptop. But now there’s a new worry: the laptop will be seized or its contents scrutinized at customs and immigration checkpoints upon entering the United States.
“They don’t need probable cause to perform these searches under the current law,” said Tim Kane, a Washington lawyer who is researching the matter for corporate clients. “They can do it without suspicion or without really revealing their motivations.”
Laptops may be scrutinized and subject to a “forensic analysis” under the so-called border search exemption, which allows searches of people entering the United States and their possessions “without probable cause, reasonable suspicion or a warrant,” a U.S. court ruled in July.
In one recent case in California, a federal court went against the trend, ruling that laptop searches were a serious invasion of privacy.
That court ruled, in that specific case, that “the correct standard requires that any border search of the information stored on a person’s electronic storage device be based, at a minimum, on a reasonable suspicion.”
I think it’s time we completed the transition to Imperial Democracy. New uniforms for the 27 flavors of police required to keep everyone in line should be the first priority for our next Congress.
Posted: Wed - October 25, 2006 at 07:00 AM