Does Your Laptop Need To Be Customs-Proof?

because they might have proprietary, or customer information, because the current guidelines that are “apparently” in place are sufficiently vague enough to allow searching AND copying of data with no recourse or cause in basis of Law.

i myself would backup all personal and business data including music, programs, videos, documents, etc…. onto a usb pen drive then copy that to another usb pen drive and ship them separately to myself. then i would use harddrive eraser two to four times on my harddrive. our government is not finding anything in regards to possible terrorist attacks on the laptops the check. they are only finding personal and business information on them. anyone with any real intelligence and wanting to get plans into this nation for attacks against us is going to encrypt the data and then upload it to one of the online storage services. then they are going to make their trip here.

Well, there IS that pesky thing called the Fourth Amendment… I’m not a constitutional scholar, nor do I play one on TV, but in reading “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects…”, it seems that the computer would (at the very least) fall under the word “effects”, if not “papers” - for paper was the most significant manner of recordkeeping at the time, as computers have become today.

The argument ‘If you’re not doing anything illegal, what do you have to hide?” doesn’t wash. Besides - ‘Nothing-I just don’t have anything I particularly want to show you!’ is a Perfectly Valid Answer!!

For a legal perspective on the specious (at best) ‘nothing to hide’ argument, please see Daneil Solove’s excellent essay “‘I’ve Got Nothing to Hide’ and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy” at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565

“Give me six lines written by the most honorable person alive, and I shall find enough in them to condemn them to the gallows.” - Cardinal De Richelieu: 1585-1642

What could they do with 120GB?

If you’re carrying sensitive data, a thumb drive (encrypted) can ride in your pocket through the metal detector, or stuffed in a trash-picked cigarette packet (the foil would obscure the outline somewhat) through the x-ray machine. If it’s too sensitive for that - Mail it.

Well send your laptop overnight through fedex or something like that, if you don’t want to be held up.

Any responsible computer user should be backing up data and taking important security precautions, regardless of whether you use your computer strictly in a personal capacity or for your business life. If you are in any way passing along sensitive information via your computer (bank account information, credit card information, employee names, social security numbers, proprietary information), you need to make sure it is secure and safe. I think it’s a bit alarmist to believe that your computer will be held up above all others in an airport (and I would actually like to see the frequency with which this type of thing takes place as well as how many people total have actually had their laptops held for many weeks), but if you are regularly backing up data and storing important information in alternate locations (and not transporting a computer that is the ONLY one with important data on it), you are doing what you can to protect yourself.

USA = police state