Homeland Security violates 4th Amendment with warrantless laptop searches

This ties in with airport security "losing" thousands of laptops. Count on it.

How is this legal? How is traveling to another country probable cause for a "reasonable" search and seizure? Homeland security has destroyed what is left of our rights and given us no privacy. The government is too powerful and needs to be stopped.

The US government is known for its laxness when protecting its own data.

What guarantee do you have that it the data on your laptop or phone won't be sold to CNN or Fox News.

Some of that information could fetch a very hefty price when sold to the right or the wrong people.

It isn't just a question of privacy it is a stupid idea.

A criminal access to that data would be very profitable indeed. How do we know that wasn't the idea in the first place.

Its just ridiculous that the Dept. of homeland security can even claim to have this right to search my laptop. We all have to do something about this so they stop overstepping their bounds.

guess my laptop and cell phone batteries are gonna be missing when i go thru the gates

People should give these security guys a laptop riddled with viruses and trojans stored on a crippled hard drive that contains questionable _looking_ data.
Waste my time and I'll waste yours.

That is absolute garbage, the only way to be private is to be hidden away in the middle of nowhere. Suddenly everyone's private life is "public", I can't believe that the closest way to being treated like a celebrity is having your information sifted through. There seems to be a never ending cycle of "Homeland Security" testing the boundaries of how much and to what degree they violate American and foreigners' rights.

HS is just being abusive to look tough in the eyes of the right-wing. They know at any foreign cyber cafe, you can upload your data before entering the country. Thus there probably cause is invalid unless the person is actually on their list of suspects. As for American citizens, the 4th says you need both probably cause and a warrant. Since the department of Justice is corrupt, no one will stop them until/unless a new non-GOP president is elected or if the Dems in congress get the balls to impeach the entire DOJ and the Bush Admin.

The laptop is a home. The home's privacy is sacred. Thus, by reasonable deduction, the laptop's privacy is sacred.

Sounds like an even better reason to use encryption on your laptop, if they're going to force people to take stronger measures to protect privacy then people have to take them.Tell them to get a warrant if they want the passwords to the encryption.

Catch bad guys!
This stuff is nothing to worry about.

Kennedy and Johnson were notorious for wire taps i dont understand why when W does it all of a sudden something is wrong with it.

This is going beyond invasion of privacy. It's easy to keep files off the computer. Are they going to start confiscating memory disks and going through your camera too?

We didn't have a Homeland Security under Kennedy and Johnson pretending to catch imaginary terrorists.

By the way, dual Israeli-American citizen Michael "Mossad" Chertoff has deemed all Americans terrorists, while he released over 200 Mossad agents rounded up in a post-9/11 FBI dragnet. What do you say about that Americans?

Thats a little far and if it doesn't get checked soon they'll take even more (of our) liberties.

Look into encryption if you're carrying sensitive/private/pirated material and planning on traveling.

One by one, the Bill of Rights die. If Americans fought for the Constitution the way the NRA fights for the Second Amedment, Bush and Cheney would both be impeached by now.

some laptops contain vital information of companies or new technologies in development. with such data the government can just copy paste it and claim it. and thats not right i think.

This is quite simple. If this continues I will not travel anymore connecting with the US.

Really, North Americans are everyday giving me the impression they are weak for not stepping up.

I do, highly accept and encourage laptop checks for "as it was a bomb". Nothing else.

It things like this that make me think the government is trying to kill the airlines by making it impractical and violating to fly.

Thank god Bush is on his way out. He is slowly turning the Dept. of Homeland Security into his own private storm troopers. The new and improved "SS". What's next? Will airport security start waring black uniforms, black leather coats and jack boots? Does Bush want to create a forth reich? It's clear that he is intoxicated with power.

Let's all welcome big brother into our lives!

Airport Security is a joke laced with lies and illiterate American people for letting it pass.

"The Department of Homeland Security contends these searches and seizures of electronic files are vital to detecting terrorists and child pornographers."

Child pornographers? Since when are child pornographers a threat to national security? I don't agree with child pornography, I think it's pretty sick, but I don't rank it in the same category as terrorism.

Can't wait to see which group is added next.

it will be funny when historians look back at the once great America, and realize that their leaders' oppressive nature was evident for a long time; and we stood by and let them take us from a Democratic Republic, to a closed nation with denizens living in utter fear of their gov't.

sad day in the world when we lose all our basic civil liberties in the sake of protecting us from ourselves.

I say that what the criminals who are running this government and most of the world have done is to create the illusion of a war against terrorism, then bilked the tax coffers of everything not tied down, and accepted huge loans from countries they have no real obligation to pay back, countries who's religion, or none there of, and politics they don't agree with.

Declared war on totally destroyed, and defenseless countries, gutted their infrastructures killed and scattered their people, and at the same time destroying the infrastructure of this country, destroying it's financial structure, and stripping the general public of all of it's safety nets regarding civil and human rights.

This leaves no one safe but the super-rich, super-powerful warmongering elite who have systematically filled their pockets with the spoils of gutted companies and exorbitant price gouging .

Laptops, computers, the internet, etc. are just part of a bigger scheme. What will be left after all of this is a country full of poor, hungry, and defenseless people begging for another "White" Republican leader to get them out of this mess..heheheh. Then someone with the psyche of a Hitler can step in and blame a group of "certain" people for the problems. The rest is history!