Why You Shouldn’t Enter the US With Your Laptop

Apparently Homeland security agents can confiscate your laptop at any port of entry—without any sort of reasonable suspicion whatsoever! Even worse, the agents can “share copies of the laptop’s contents” with other people for a variety of reasons. These two facts are already pretty bad (goodbye privacy, visitors to the US). What’s even much worse are reports that seized laptops take weeks, even months to recover.

Two things that are really bad for gadget geeks everywhere. You’ve got confiscation of a beloved technological tool. Then you can’t get anything significant done, as you wait for the stereotypically long American bureaucracy to return your laptop, even if they’re interested in doing so in the first place. Read on for the “rational” reasoning behind this policy, which amazingly applies to US citizens as well.

According to an article by The Washington Post:

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff wrote in an opinion piece published last month in USA Today that “the most dangerous contraband is often contained in laptop computers or other electronic devices.” Searches have uncovered “violent jihadist materials” as well as images of child pornography, he wrote.

With about 400 million travelers entering the country each year, “as a practical matter, travelers only go to secondary [for a more thorough examination] when there is some level of suspicion,” Chertoff wrote. “Yet legislation locking in a particular standard for searches would have a dangerous, chilling effect as officers’ often split-second assessments are second-guessed.”

What about us Mr. Secretary? What’s to protect us from gaming-starved DHS agents who set eyes upon our gaming laptops, and decide they need a rig for a few rounds of Unreal Tournament? You can pry my laptop when you take it from my cold, dead hands—or at least until you threaten us with a beating.