Under the Obama administration, law enforcement agents have aggressively used this power to search travelers’ laptops, sometimes copying the hard drive before returning the computer to its owner. Courts have ruled that such laptop searches can take place even in the absence of any reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing.
Marlinspike first began experiencing increased scrutiny about two months ago during domestic flights.
He found he was unable to print out a boarding pass either from his computer or from airline kiosks at airports. And when he approached ticket agents, they were blocked from producing a boarding pass for him without first calling a Secure Flight number at the Department of Homeland Security. Secure Flight is a program that requires airlines to submit passenger names and birthdates to DHS in advance of a flight, to be checked against watchlists. Marlinspike said ticket agents told him he was on a federal watchlist.
via www.wired.com
A well-known and respected computer-security researcher was detained for several hours Wednesday night by border agents who searched his laptop and cellphones before returning them to him.
