USA travellers beware

[Darren Wheeler]

TheDibb July newsletter tipped me off about this little nugget that appears to have passed unnoticed.

It has been ruled by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that any electronic item you carry such as laptop, PDA, MP3 player, phone etc etc. is subject to the same searches as normal luggage.

One of many sources

[Nottingham Nick]

I had read about it, but assume (and sincerely hope) that any such searches will be targeted, intelligence led affairs rather than - pick a random holiday maker / business person.

To be honest, I had always thought that they would have such powers for use in their more thorough examinations anyway. [:I]

Nick

[Darren Wheeler]

I'd hope so too, but as we all know DoHS officials are known to be a little 'erratic' at times.

[HighFlyer]

There was a thread on FlyerTalk a while ago from a traveller who was subject to such a search. It resulted in an interesting debate, particularly for those who may be carrying intellectual property or developmental work on their machines. I'll try and find it out as it was rather interesting.

Thanks,
Sarah

[mcmbenjamin]

Note to self: Keep current copies of 18 U.S.C. 2257 statements of all performers' images stored on my hard drive...

There was an article in the Guardian recently about this (sorry, can find it in the on line service). The writer said that his approach was to carry a laptop with a minimal operating system image, downloading data to it from a server once in the US.

Paul