Hearings begin on laptop border searches

Miffed that, if you return home from travel overseas, U.S. Customs can decide to search, and even seize, all the files on your computer, your camera, and even your cell phone? So is Senator Russ Feingold, who opened Congressional hearings on the matter last week with a scathing indictment on the practice.

In Feingold's published opening remarks (full transcription here), he begins by saying that most Americans are probably not even aware that the practice is now commonplace here. In fact, it's been going on for at least two years; a full seven percent of business travelers now report having electronic equipment seized at the border.

Feingold does a great job at outlining the legal and regulatory situation we've gotten ourselves into. Laptops and other electronics are in a legal limbo-land that aren't well described and defined by current rules. While the Department of Homeland Security sees looking inside your laptop as no different than looking inside your suitcase, citizens almost universally feel differently. While one would never dream of carrying a briefcase full of medical records, photographs, and private correspondence on a trip overseas, few would consider painstakingly deleting all of this from a computer before traveling. (Not to mention: Who would risk losing valuable files in such a way, backups being imperfect.)

As Feingold states: "The question is not how the courts decide to apply the Fourth Amendment in these uncharted waters. I guarantee you this: neither the drafters of the Fourth Amendment, nor the Supreme Court when it crafted the 'border search exception,' ever dreamed that tens of thousands of Americans would cross the border every day, carrying with them the equivalent of a full library of their most personal information."

Feingold also lambastes racial profiling that has come along with these searches and lashes out against the DHS for its refusal to cooperate in hearings. That's pretty par for the course: DHS won't even explain or publish its rules on border searches so citizens can understand what they're getting into should they deign to step foot into Vancouver.

Are there limits to what should be fair game for the government to snoop into at the border? Sound off in the comments.