No Warrant Necessary to Seize Your Laptop: Via Freedom to Tinker.

The U.S. Customs may search your laptop and copy your hard drive when you cross the border, according to their policy. They may do this even if they have no particularized suspicion of wrongdoing on your part. They claim that the Fourth Amendment protection against warrantless search and seizure does not apply. The Customs justifies this policy on the grounds that "examinations of documents and electronic devices are a crucial tool for detecting information concerning" all sorts of bad things, including terrorism, drug smuggling, contraband, and so on.

Historically the job of Customs was to control the flow of physical goods into the country, and their authority to search you for physical goods is well established. I am certainly not a constitutional lawyer, but to me a Customs exemption from Fourth Amendment restrictions is more clearly justified for physical contraband than for generalized searches of information.

The American Civil Liberties Union is gathering data about how this Customs enforcement policy works in practice, and they request your help. If you've had your laptop searched, or if you have altered your own practices to protect your data when crossing the border, staff attorney Catherine Crump would be interested in hearing about it.

Meanwhile, the ACLU has released a stack of documents they got by FOIA request.
The documents are here, and their spreadsheets analyzing the data are here. They would be quite interested to know what F-to-T readers make of these documents.

ACLU Queries for F-to-T readers:
If the answer to any of the questions below is yes, please briefly describe your experience and e-mail your response to laptopsearch at aclu.org. The ACLU promises confidentiality to anyone responding to this request.
(1) When entering or leaving the United States, has a U.S. official ever examined or browsed the contents of your laptop, PDA, cell phone, or other electronic device?

(2) When entering or leaving the United States, has a U.S. official ever detained your laptop, PDA, cell phone, or other electronic device?

(3) In light of the U.S. government’s policy of conducting suspicionless searches of laptops and other electronic devices, have you taken extra steps to safeguard your electronic information when traveling internationally, such as using encryption software or shipping a hard drive ahead to your destination?

(4) Has the U.S. government’s policy of conducting suspicionless searches of laptops and other electronic devices affected the frequency with which you travel internationally or your willingness to travel with information stored on electronic devices?

Read Original Article:(Via Freedom to Tinker.)