And in the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth. Hair endath the lasson...........

Thats why we/you/they have a Constitution.....not perfect but people/s actually work and live with it.

I feel a song cummin on.........the british are cummin...circa 1700 something......or the "Hills are alive with the sound"......your choice.

Gotta run.....

Good point. Ask a victim of a bad case of identity theft how much of a nightmare that was...

Noel

US - Laptop Searches in Airports Draw Fire at Senate Hearing... [2008-06-26 NY Times]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/26/washington/26airports.html

US - The Government and Your Laptop... [2008-07-10 NY Times]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/10/opinion/10thu3.html

July 10, 2008

EDITORIAL

The Government and Your Laptop

The Department of Homeland Security is routinely searching laptops at airports when Americans re-enter the United States from abroad. The government then pores over or copies the laptop’s contents — including financial records, medical data and e-mail messages. These out-of-control searches trample the privacy rights of Americans, and Congress should rein them in.

There have been widespread reports of the government searching — and often seizing — laptops, BlackBerrys, iPhones and other portable electronic devices at airports. It is not clear how often these searches occur, and the government will not say. The Association of Corporate Travel Executives says that of 100 people who responded to a survey it conducted this year, 7 said they had had a laptop or other electronic device seized.

This goes well beyond examining a piece of luggage. Because of the enormous amount of private information people keep on their laptops, the searches are more akin to rifling through someone’s home and reading every letter, financial record and personal journal.

At a Senate hearing last month, civil liberties, civil rights and business groups testified about the harm the program is doing. Some groups have additional concerns. Businesses object that their trade secrets are being jeopardized. Lawyers and journalists say the government should not have access to their confidential communications with clients and sources. Muslims contend that they are being singled out for particularly intrusive searches.

Laptop owners rightly complain that the program violates the Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches and seizures. Their legal objections, however, have not fared well. In April, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco upheld a laptop search at Los Angeles International Airport. After this disappointing decision, Congress needs to act.

Congress should pass a law that allows the government to look at data on laptops and other portable electronic devices only when it has a reasonable suspicion about the specific person being searched — something the law does not currently require. To copy data or seize devices, the government should be required to show probable cause, an even higher standard.

Congress should force the government to spell out the rules governing its searches and report on how many it conducts. The law should also require the government to destroy data that does not lead to criminal charges.

The government has the right to take reasonable steps to control what comes into the country, but the laptop-search program’s invasions of privacy go far beyond what is reasonable.

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Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company