Basis needed for searches

You expect a search warrant to be necessary for authorities to search your home, including your computer.

But if the computer’s not in your home … if in fact you’ve taken it out of the country …

Two U.S. Customs agencies have announced policies allowing the agencies to confiscate laptops being brought into the country and allowing them to be held for unspecified lengths of time.

That may sound reasonable, but here’s the kicker: This private property can be confiscated even without suspicion of wrongdoing, according to the policies.
The policies were already in practice. The two agencies — U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — simply decided to admit to them following controversies over several seizures of laptops, cell phones and other electronic devices. The policies also cover books and paper documents.
In at least one case, a traveler’s property was taken and held for months.

“They’re saying they can rifle through all the information in a traveler’s laptop without having a smidgeon of evidence that the traveler is breaking the law,” said Greg Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology. Notably, he said, the policies “don’t establish any criteria for whose computer can be searched.”
Authorities say they need the freedom to take and hold information-storage devices as part of the war on terrorism.

We got that.

Nobody wants U.S. authorities to let suspicious characters — or their equipment — slip through customs.
But authorities should not claim the right to confiscate private property without suspicion.