Can US Customs Search & Seize Your Laptop Computer Without Cause? YES They Can!

Ninth Circuit Court Decides that US Customs and Border Patrol Agents Can Search & Seize Electronic Equipment Without Cause

Most people would blame September 11th for this shocking news, but it has very little to do with Homeland Security and everything to do with child pornography and almost nobody knows about it.

On July 24, 2006, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decided that US Customs and Border Patrol Officers had the right to search and seize a person’s laptop computer, computer discs and other electronic media.

Nowhere has this information been broadcast. Millions of travelers know nothing about this ruling. Yet the word has begun to find its way out into public view. During the last week of October, 2006, an international conference of travel executives issued a warning, informing their members of this ruling and its implications. It was not until The Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE) warned their members that under a new law, US Customs and Border Patrol Officers may search and seize a person’s laptop computer, computer discs and other electronic media when that person arrives in the US from abroad or departs from the US for a foreign country, that word finally got out.

Business travelers are advised to be cautious when carrying proprietary information in and out of the United States. According to ACTE, 86 percent of those surveyed said that the court’s decision to allow Officers to examine, download and/or seize the contents of their laptops would limit the kind of proprietary information they would normally store in their laptops.

Most ACTE members attending the conference in Spain had no prior knowledge of this new law.

Why is this happening?

On February 1, 2004, a man named Stuart Romm was caught with child pornography on his laptop computer. Stuart Romm flew from Las Vegas to British Columbia. Once in Canada, Border Services questioned Romm and learned he had a criminal background. An agent searched his laptop and found child porn sites in Romm’s internet history list. Canadian officials sent Romm to Seattle to be questioned by US Customs agents.