Search of Laptops and other Devices at Border Permitted
07/25/2008...Thanks to Michael Timothy Arnold, a math teacher from California who was allegedly caught with child pornography on his laptop, it is now permitted to search laptops, cameras, and any other device that can be used to store personal information at the US border.
How far is the country willing to go in the name of protection of our children? Will the few child child pornography image possessors being caught over the course of a year be worth 300 million citizen's lack of feeling trusted and secure within their own country?
Failing to comply or agree with this newly permitted search might look suspicious, but it's likely that people just think that our government has turned into too much of a Big Brother, making US citizens feel as though nothing is allowed to be private anymore. There are many things that can be stored on such devices that are not harmful, or criminal. (Remember the First Amendment?)
Said Lee Tien, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, "People keep their lives on these devices: diaries, personal mail, financial records, family photos. . . . The government should not be able to read this information." (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-laptops26-2008jun26,0,4415017.story)
"For the children" is a refrain that could quickly erode many of our traditional rights if we are asleep at the wheel as the government encroaches on our freedoms.
