Haft of the Spear

She said the federal agent copied her log-on and password, and asked her to show him a recent document and how she gains access to Microsoft Word. She was asked to pull up her e-mail but could not because of lack of Internet access.

… and better, because, you know, cyberspace is so safe:

Udy has changed all her work passwords and no longer banks online. Her company, Radius, has tightened its data policies so that traveling employees must access company information remotely via an encrypted channel, and their laptops must contain no company information.

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 …one law firm has instructed its lawyers to travel to the United States with “blank laptops” whose hard drives contain no data. “We just access our information through the Internet,” …

Very sophisticated reasoning going on here:

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 a laptop without any suspicion of a crime. In border searches, it regards a laptop the same as a suitcase.

The problem with that is:

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

“It’s one thing to say it’s reasonable for government agents to open your luggage,” said David D. Cole, a law professor at Georgetown University. “It’s another thing to say it’s reasonable for them to read your mind and everything you have thought over the last year. What a laptop records is as personal as a diary but much more extensive. It records every Web site you have searched. Every e-mail you have sent. It’s as if you’re crossing the border with your home in your suitcase.”

If the government’s position on searches of electronic files is upheld, new risks will confront anyone who crosses the border with a laptop or other device, … “Your kid can be arrested because they can’t prove the songs they downloaded to their iPod were legally downloaded,”… “Lawyers run the risk of exposing sensitive information about their client. Trade secrets can be exposed to customs agents with no limit on what they can do with it. Journalists can expose sources … “

There are ways to do this quickly and in a forensically sound manner (you know, in case you end up going to trial instead of just spiriting the subject away to who knows where) but apparently the cost-effective and legally dicey approach wins out again.