US Customs, Border Patrol Copy Hard Drives Of Travelers' Laptops
 Thursday, June 26th, 2008

Well here's a definite "did you know" of the day: Did you know that the United States Customs and Border Patrol can - and does - copy the entire contents of the laptops of travelers entering the US? No wrongs must be committed, no suspicion of unlawful activity arisen...the practice is based solely on the authority to do traditional border searches.

Travelers are required to turn over any passwords or encryption keys that might be needed to unlock the computer and its files. Business secrets? Bank account balance? "Personal" photo collection? Too bad! It's all free game.

While we're glad this practice is done only for noncitizens, it still raises a lot of questions. First off, computer memory certainly isn't free, and to copy the full contents of these machines would take a hell of a lot of storage space. Not only that, but those who review the contents - we're assuming somebody must, or what would be the point? - are on taxpayers' payroll as well.

And what is ultimately done with this information? Who knows?

Geez, talk about a price to pay to get into the US! I mean, really. If we're not going to properly secure our borders, than this is pretty ridiculous, is it not?

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