Law Students

Federal Agents Allowed to Take Your Laptop: Is This a Necessary Evil?

By Michael Law

Crimes committed via cyber transactions have ben rising at an increasingly alarming rate, hence many feel that random inspections and detentions of laptops and other electronic devices are ethical in the name of security. The Department of Homeland Security has released recent security information about the legalities of allowing federal agents to take, search and share information found on a traveler’s laptop or other electronics, without being deemed a violation of privacy, during border searches.

These agents can, accordingly, take these electronics from travelers for any amount of time, be transported to any place for inspection, and be subjected to processes such as language translation and data encryption if authorities observe anything suspicious. The power to detain suspicious devices and materials is supported by the July 16 policy released by DHS agencies U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Devices or materials that have the capability to store information in either digital or analog forms are covered in this policy. Items falling under this policy include flash drives, cellphones (mobile phones), beepers (pagers), hard drives (hard disks), video and audio tapes and even MP3 players (Apple iPod, iPhone, Microsoft Zune, Creative Zen). Physical paper based materials, including written forms of documentation such as books and scrap papers, are also licensed to be withheld for the same reasons. The security policy does require that authorities be reasonable and use delicate handling of information that may be involved in business and confidential data between lawyers and their clients. However, it is still unclear as to the procedures for personal data, like a traveler’s medical and financial records.

copies of the suspected information are made and after investigation found to be okay, the policies strictly impose that these copies be destroyed and those that have been sent to non-federal entities must be surrendered back to the DHS immediately for destruction as well.

This new security imposition has been understandably met with mixed emotions by the public. In a USA Today published opinion piece, the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff expressed that the measures aim solely to protect the citizens, since dangerous information, including illegal pornography and terrorism documents, can easily be stored in laptops and other electronic devices. He stressed that only under a “certain level of suspicion” will travelers be required to undergo this “thorough examination” to ensure the safety of the yearly 400 million travelers. Not thoroughly checking passengers that may be carrying dangerous information, he added, could potentially be fatal - a high risk they are not willing to take.

Even United States citizens are to be subjected to this inspection, as it’s not just a process that only tourists and foreigners entering the country have to do. Officials supporting this plan feel that terrorism can never be taken too lightly and these practices to avoid attacks have been ongoing for a long time already and have saved many lives.

Sen. Russell Feingold expressed alarm over the introduction of the new policies and vowed to amend this act to make it clear that race, religion, and origin biases should not factor into who is being searched as well as to impose more specific instances and conditions that are considered suspicious during these border searches.

Legislatures in other states, such as the U.S. Court of Appeals in the 9^th Circuit of San Francisco, have already begun placing these rules into motion, although there are still many civil public liberty groups that have requested further clarifaction and full disclosure of the policies and procedures that are stipulated.

Do you feel these search and seizure laws are necessary to ensure the safety of citizens or are they a breach of privacy?

Related Posts:

• Audit Finds That the FBI Broke the Law in Use of the Patriot Act
• Snooping On You: The Embarq ISP Spying Scandal
• Privacy Policy Lawsuit Leads to Multimillion Lanham Act Award
• Journalistic Prison: National Intelligence Opinion on Shield Laws
• Adult Age Verification Gets Struck Down By a Federal Judge

Full post as published by Law Vibe on January 28, 2009 (boomark / email).