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U.S. Customs has long asserted the right to inspect all electronic devices carried by travelers coming into -- or leaving -- the "homeland." The 9th Circuit Federal Court upheld those powers in 2006 in a case in which a gay man was sent to prison for 15 years for porn that he'd browsed on his computer, deleted, but which the Feds "unerased." With border inspections and seizures ongoing, privacy activists and a few politicians had demanded that the Department of Homeland Security -- Customs's parent -- explain itself. On July 16, the agency came clean over how they're going to use that right to inspect travelers' electronics. The answer is: any way they care to.

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Customs's policy statement, dated July 16, confirmed that border agents need have neither suspicion nor reasonable cause before they can "analyze the information transported by any individual attempting to enter, re-enter, depart, pass through, or reside in the United States." It could be a laptop computer, a cell phone, an iPod, a CD, or a memory stick. The traveler could be a U.S. citizen or a foreign national. No matter -- Customs says it can inspect and copy any data it finds and share it with other government agencies. If no evidence of a crime turns up -- such as illegally-copied songs -- the devices in question are supposed to be returned, with any copies of the data destroyed. But authorities have decided they can keep forever any notes they've taken on the material they examined.

With the wrong sex stories, cartoons, or photos putting travelers to the U.S. liable for decades in prison, the policy "clarification" has only stoked travelers' fears.

"It's one thing to say it's reasonable for government agents to open your luggage," said David D. Cole, a law professor at Georgetown University, told the Washington Post. "It's another thing to say it's reasonable for them to read your mind and everything you have thought over the last year. What a laptop records is as personal as a diary but much more extensive. It records every Web site you have searched. Every email you have sent. It's as if you're crossing the border with your home in your suitcase."

Some 400 million travelers enter the U.S. every year -- many carrying personal electronics, so most people's computers, phones, and MP3 players aren't getting seized.

But anecdotes suggest some categories of travelers are especially targeted -- including people of Arab descent, anyone who has recently traveled in Islamic areas or has Islamic or Arabic writing, single men arriving from countries known for sex tourism, or anyone who's ever had a brush with law -- especially over sex.

Thinking about what you carry, encrypting data, clearing web caches, wiping free space, and sending sensitive files to yourself over the net and then deleting them from your hard drive are all ways to protect yourself.

"This is a disturbing new policy, and should convince anyone taking a laptop across a border to use encryption to thwart DHS snoops," says Cnet.com columnist Declan McCullough. "Encrypt your laptop -- with full-disk encryption if possible -- and power it down before you go through customs," he advises on a guide to customs-proofing your laptop, available at Tinyurl.com/customproof.

Author Profile:  Bill Andriette
Bill Andriette is features editor of The Guide
Email:	theguide@guidemag.com