On Sat, 3 May 2008, Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote:
Well, I've never had a laptop checked so far (and indeed it'd be crazily
long lines if everybody with a laptop got checked).
This is not very new .. has always been the case, but reaffirmed by a
ruling I think. Earlier, the TSA was being blamed for it till they
clarified that this was a US CBP issue, nothing to do with them at all
Coming back in June from a trip to China, Sri Lanka, and Thailand, I had a
border agent ask for my digital camera, and he proceeded to walk through
every photo, about 800 pictures, asking me questions about where I had
gone and what I had done. He didn't ask for a second memory card, though,
nor check my laptop. I don't think I could go completely non-local-data
while travelling, but frequent backups and memory cards in oddly packed
places are probably not a bad idea. I just bought an 8 gig micro-SD card
for $50.
Brian
