Not content with taking your shoes and confiscating your water, now
the Department of Homeland Security is gunning for your laptops.
As the Washington Post
reported yesterday, Border Patrol and Customs agents can now “detain”
laptops “for a reasonable period of time” to “review and analyze
information.”
They don’t need probable cause under the new policy. Doesn’t matter
if you’re a U.S. citizen or foreign visitor. Officials can hold the
laptops indefinitely. Or hard drives, flash drives, cellphones, iPods,
pagers, beepers, video and audio tapes. Ditto papers, documents, books,
pamphlets, even litter.
“It’s not our intent to subject legitimate travelers to undue
scrutiny, but to ensure the safety of the American public,” wrote
Jayson Ahern, U.S. Customs deputy commissioner, in a recent policy paper.
Arguing that border searches of laptops have already uncovered
intellectual property rights violations, extremist Jihadist literature,
video clips of IEDs and child pornography, he pledged the government
would never disclose confidential information “without lawful
authority.”
The policy has been on the books for awhile, but just confirmed
under pressure from civil rights and business groups worried about
increasing reports of laptop confiscation.
“Truly alarming,” said Sen. Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.). Added
sci-fi blogger Annalee Newit, “Who will defend the rights of the
detained laptops?”
I wonder how many laptops the border security end up keeping, and how many of those searched contained materials that were cause for capture -Ninehand