Customs Can Take Your Laptop

I was with some friends over the 4th that hadn't heard about US customs inspecting and sometimes seizing laptops of US citizens reentering the country. I had heard about this for months and knew that a US federal court had upheld the practice. They can take the laptop, copy all the data, and even keep the machine for a few weeks (I think I remember one case of 2 months before it being returned). And you have no recourse and they need no warrant or even probable cause.

Today's New York Times has an editorial on this, The Government and Your Laptop. "The Association of Corporate Travel Executives says that of 100 people who responded to a survey it conducted this year, 7 said they had had a laptop or other electronic device seized." The Christian Science Monitor also has an article on this today, U.S. defends laptop searches at the border. They point out that the Department of Homeland Security publishes no rules about the topic, such as what they do with the data, how long they retain copies, what third parties they give it to, or even reporting how many laptops are seized. The LA Times had an article a couple of weeks ago and you can see a lot of the info has been repeated from that. It followed the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Property Rights hearing on the topic. Senators. Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) have both urged Customs to reconsider their policies.

I think this is a place where customs (and the law) should differentiate between bits and atoms (to borrow a phrase from Negroponte). My laptop is like my luggage in that they can look through it for hiding physical contraband like weapons, explosives and drugs (without a warrant); but they can't search through my data (aka papers) looking for stuff. As a few people have pointed out, laptops are like offices or entire homes, they contain a lot of information (financial, business, medical, etc.). The argument that this had caught child pornographers doesn't hold. If the government looked through every computer in the US I suspect they'll catch some child pornographers, it's still not a good idea, nor is it legal.