This is why I travel with a netbook that has full-disk encryption. If the government wants my laptop, they can have it for as long as they want. $300, whatever. If they want to compel disclosure of the passphrase, though, that's not as easy. Then judges and the Constitution get involved.<p>What I've learned from reading cases (and watching Law & Order, heh) is that if the police have evidence against you, it's easier for them to get what they want from the courts. "We already saw the child porn, we just want to check for more."<p>If all they have is a disk they can't read, it's going to be hard to get any judge to compel you to produce the key, especially if they can't prove you have the key. (And, in the US anyway, there is some precedent that you can't be compelled to produce the key anyway.)<p>The government wants more power, but the people have the power to take it away. It's just a checkbox away in your favorite OS's installer. (Well, in Debian anyway.)<p>With talk of 20 year prison sentences for ordering manga from Japan or talking to people on Myspace, I think it's pretty insane to not encrypt your disks. Who knows what someone else will think is illegal? I would rather not find out.
The TSA has posted an official reply to this:<p>That's the Customs and Border Control's Job not ours. You can tell the difference because their uniform is NAVY blue and ours is more of a ROYAL blue. (I'm paraphrasing here but only barely. THEY ACTUALLY POINT OUT THE UNIFORM COLOR DIFF).<p>I wish/hope this was/is a joke:<p><a href="http://www.tsa.gov/blog/2010/01/can-tsa-copy-your-laptop-hard-drive-and.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.tsa.gov/blog/2010/01/can-tsa-copy-your-laptop-har...</a>
From the article: <i>[4th amendment] protections do not disappear merely because one happens to be at a real - or imaginary - border.</i><p>Ah, but they do. It's called the 'border search exception' and it has been consistently upheld by courts, based largely on the 5th act of Congress passed in 1789 which set up the US Customs Service. Not only are searches of laptops and storage devices considered reasonable in this context, but so is opening mail and just about anything short of a strip search.<p>This has been argued over on a variety of grounds quite recently but the courts have stood firm on it. So like it or not, it's better to avoid carrying any storage device containing data that might be construed as suspicious.
It's worth nothing that CBP cannot compel you to give them your password(s), and can't really refuse entry to a US citizen, so as long as you encrypt everything your laptop should be secure. They can of course confiscate the machine to image it - and you may not get it back while it's still worth anything - but, what can you do.<p>The iPhone is trickier, mAdvLock is the only thing I know of that would most likely work even if it was confiscated.
Nobody disputes, or should dispute, the right of a sovereign nation to perform invasive searches at international borders. What is most serious and egregious in the DHS/CBP behavior is the slippery slope of trying to change the definition of an international border. The 4th amendment in no way protects you from a border search, but saying that 100 miles inside the country is an international border is ludicrous.