Customs Agents Seize Laptops

As more and more people travel with laptops, BlackBerrys and cellphones, the government's laptop-equals-suitcase position is raising red flags.

The U.S. government has argued in a pending court case that its authority to protect the country's border extends to looking at information stored in electronic devices such as laptops without any suspicion of a crime. In border searches, it regards a laptop the same as a suitcase.

- A U.S. citizen flew in from from Jordan last December, was detained at customs and her cellphone was taken from her purse. Her daughter, waiting outside San Francisco International Airport, tried repeatedly to call her during the hour and a half she was questioned. But after her phone was returned, Mango saw that records of her daughter's calls had been erased.

- A tech engineer returning from a business trip to London objected when a federal agent asked him to type his password into his laptop computer. "This laptop doesn't belong to me," he remembers protesting. "It belongs to my company." Eventually, he agreed to log on and stood by as the officer copied the Web sites he had visited.

- A marketing exec with a global travel management firm in Bethesda, said her company laptop was seized by a federal agent at Dulles International Airport because the agent stated she has a "security concern" with her. The exec is a British citizen, and was basically given the option of handing over her laptop or not getting on that flight. The agent copied her log-on and password and asked to see her email. A year later she has still not received her laptop, nor has she been given any explanation.

The reason for a search is not always made clear. The Association of Corporate Travel Executives, which represents 2,500 business executives in the United States and abroad, said it has tracked complaints from several members. ACTE last year filed a Freedom of Information Act request to press the government for information on what happens to data seized from laptops and other electronic devices.

At least two major global corporations, one American and one Dutch, have told their executives not to carry confidential business material on laptops on overseas trips.

In Canada, one law firm has instructed its lawyers to travel to the United States with "blank laptops" whose hard drives contain no data.

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