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Last year, the department reiterated that claim, saying laptops and electronic gadgetry can still be seized and held indefinitely. There's no requirement that they be returned to their owners after even six months or a year has passed, though supervisory approval is required if they're held for more than 15 days. The complete contents of a hard drive or memory card can be perused at length for evidence of lawbreaking of any kind, even if it's underpaying taxes or not paying parking tickets.

The corrupting effect of power seems to be unlimited. You just cannot make this stuff up.

So if I lived out of a tent, I could have my portable computer wrapped up in that as I came over the border and they’d need a search warrant to get at the computer, but if I have a home and the computer is not there, they can take it to try to find something “on me?”

You were saying ...

The Justice Department invoked a novel argument--which White dubbed "unpersuasive"--claiming that while Hanson was able to enter the country, his laptop remained in a kind of legal limbo where the Bill of Rights did not apply. (The Fourth Amendment generally requires a warrant for searches.)

Yeah... in years past, I've heard of these "novel arguments" by various authorities, too ...

One was where the authorities didn't arrest a guy, but "arrested his cash" and confiscated it. He wasn't charged, but apparently his "cash" was guilty and since "cash" doesn't have any rights, there was no problem keeping it ... LOL ...

There was another one where a guy wasn't arrested but his plane was ... another big "yuk-yuk" ...

So now it seems that the authorities have been working on this new and novel way of handling "crime" -- they don't arrest you, they just arrest your house, your cash, your plane, your car, your boat -- and let you go ... hoo-boy!

Oh, and since your house, cash, car, boat, etc ... "doesn't have rights" ... there's nothing you can do about it ... yeah... right!

This, by the way, has been going on through the last several administrations, Republicans or Democrats...

Every single person who has been arrested as a result of these Port of Entry laptop seizures, without exception, has been charged with child pornography. I have been told that some of the child pornography involved murder.

They are not arresting people for smuggling virtual banned agricultural products. They are arresting the vilest of the vile.

I really don't have a problem with these searches and seizures. They are not seizing people's laptops randomly, they are intercepting people for whom they have justifiable, reasonable suspicion of heinous crime. When you go overseas, you are leaving the protection of our Constitution, and it is no more unreasonable for them to search a laptop than it is for them to search a suitcase when you are re-entering (but have not yet re-entered) the country.