Another really good news gem today that should be of
interest to the list!
http://travel2.nytimes.com/2006/10/24/business/24road.
html
By JOE SHARKEY
jsharkey (at) nytimes.com
October 24, 2006
A LOT of business travelers are walking around with laptops
that contain
private corporate information that their employers really do
not want
outsiders to see.
Until recently, their biggest concern was that someone might
steal the
laptop. But now theres a new worry that the laptop will be
seized or its
contents scrutinized at United States customs and
immigration
checkpoints upon entering the United States from abroad.
Although much of the evidence for the confiscations remains
anecdotal,
its a hot topic this week among more than 1,000 corporate
travel
managers and travel industry officials meeting in Barcelona
at a
conference of the Association of Corporate Travel
Executives.
Last week, an informal survey by the association, which has
about 2,500
members worldwide, indicated that almost 90 percent of its
members were
not aware that customs officials have the authority to
scrutinize the
contents of travelers laptops and even confiscate laptops
for a period
of time, without giving a reason.
One member who responded to our survey said she has been
waiting for a
year to get her laptop and its contents back, said Susan
Gurley, the
groups executive director. She said it was randomly seized.
And since
she hasnt been arrested, I assume she was just a regular
business
traveler, not a criminal.
Appeals are under way in some cases, but the law is clear.
They dont
need probable cause to perform these searches under the
current law.
They can do it without suspicion or without really revealing
their
motivations, said Tim Kane, a Washington lawyer who is
researching the
matter for corporate clients.
In some cases, random inspections of laptops have yielded
evidence of
possession of child pornography. Laptops may be scrutinized
and subject
to a forensic analysis under the so-called border search
exemption,
which allows searches of people entering the United States
and their
possessions without probable cause, reasonable suspicion or
a warrant, a
federal court ruled in July. In that case, a mans laptop was
found to
have child pornography images on its hard drive.
No one is defending criminal possession of child pornography
or even
suggesting that the government has nefarious intent in
conducting random
searches of a travelers laptop, Ms. Gurley said.
But it appears from information we have that agents have a
lot of
discretion in doing these searches, and that theres a whole
spectrum of
reasons for doing them, she added.
The association is asking the government for better
guidelines so
corporate policies on traveling with proprietary information
can be
re-evaluated. It is also asking whether corporations need to
cut back on
proprietary data that travelers carry.
We need to be able to better inform our business travelers
what the
processes are if their laptops and data are seized what
happens to it,
how do you get it back, Ms. Gurley said.
She added: The issue is what happens to the proprietary
business
information that might be on a laptop. Is information
copied? Is it
returned? We understand that the U.S. government needs to
protect its
borders. But we want to have transparent information so
business
travelers know what to do. Should they leave business
proprietary
information at home?
Besides the possibility for misuse of proprietary
information, travel
executives are also concerned that a seized computer, and
the
information it holds, is unavailable to its owner for a
time. One remedy
some companies are considering is telling travelers coming
back into the
country with sensitive information to encrypt it and e-mail
it to
themselves, which at least protects access to the data, if
not its
privacy.
In one recent case in California, a federal court went
against current
trends, ruling that laptop searches were a serious invasion
of privacy.
People keep all sorts of personal information on computers,
the court
ruling said, citing diaries, personal letters, financial
records,
lawyers confidential client information and reporters notes
on
confidential sources. That court ruled, in that specific
case, that the
correct standard requires that any border search of the
information
stored on a persons electronic storage device be based, at a
minimum, on
a reasonable suspicion.
In its informal survey last week, the association also found
that 87
percent of its members said they would be less likely to
carry
confidential business or personal information on
international trips now
that they were aware of how easily laptop contents could be
searched.
We are telling our members that they should prepare for the
eventuality
that this could happen and they have to think more about how
they handle
proprietary information, Ms. Gurley said. Potentially, this
is going to
have a real effect on how international business is
conducted.
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