Senators question border laptop searches

IDG News Service - Two U.S. senators called on the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency to back off its assertion that it can search laptops and other electronic devices owned by U.S. citizens who are returning to the country, without the need for reasonable suspicion of a crime or probable cause.

Sens. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) both urged the CBP to reconsider a policy that apparently has led to frequent searches of laptops, digital cameras and handheld devices at borders.

"If you asked [U.S. residents] whether the government has a right to open their laptops, read their documents and e-mails, look at their photographs and examine the Web sites they have visited, all without any suspicion of wrongdoing, I think those same Americans would say that the government has absolutely no right to do that," said Feingold, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Property Rights. "And if you asked him whether that actually happens, they would say, 'Not in the United States of America.' "

Two witnesses at a hearing before the subcommittee Wednesday described widespread CBP searches of electronic devices at borders, with data copies and devices sometimes confiscated for weeks. One Muslim executive at a U.S. technology vendor has been subjected to border interrogations at least eight times since early 2007, said Farhana Khera, president and executive director of Muslim Advocates.

Other travelers have been asked why they are Muslim, been questioned about their views of U.S. presidential candidates, and had laptops and cell phones searched or confiscated, Khera said. "Innocent Muslim, Arab and South Asian Americans from all walks of life have had their electronic devices searched by CBP agents, or have been interrogated by CBP agents ... all without any reasonable suspicion that the individuals were engaged in unlawful activity," she said.

In a February survey, 7% of members of the Association of Corporate Travel Executives said they have had electronic devices seized at the U.S. border, said Susan Gurley, executive director of the trade group. It can take weeks to have those devices returned, and the seizures can disrupt the owners' work and require companies to buy costly replacements, she said.

Half of the survey respondents said a seizure of an electronic device could damage their standing within their companies, Gurley said. "These devices constitute the offices of today," she added.

But other witnesses at the hearing suggested that laptops should be treated no differently than luggage, which CBP can search without reasonable suspicion or probable cause. U.S. courts have recognized that there's a less restrictive standard for "routine" searches and seizures at U.S. borders than police searches within the nation, said Nathan Sales, a law professor at George Mason University and former official at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.