Senators object to laptop searches

US SENATORS are telling their own Customs and Border Protection services to back off from searching laptops and other electronic devices without the need for reasonable suspicion of a crime or probable cause.

Senators Russell Feingold and Patrick Leahy, both Democrat, want the policy, which has been backed by the courts, to be scrapped.

Feingold said that US residents would not believe this sort of thing would go on in the Land of the Free.

Two witnesses told a senate subcommittee how the searches of electronic devices at borders meant that data copies and devices were sometimes confiscated for weeks.

The confiscations are selective, too. One Muslim US tech vendor has been subjected to border interrogations at least eight times since early 2007. The assumption is, that since he had not accepted Jesus into his life, his laptop must be packed with terrorist plans.

Apparently Muslim travellers get their laptops and mobiles confiscated if they say they do not like the current batch of US presidential candidates, so it's better to lie and say you like one of them.

Seven per cent of the Association of Corporate Travel Executives said they've had electronic devices seized at the US border and it could take weeks to get them back. µ

L'Inq
InfoWorld