So much for "change we can believe in"...

i was one of the first victims of this odious policy... on 1 june 2006, my laptop, digital camera, memory card, dvd's, flash drive and cd's were seized by the ice in san francisco on my arrival from frankfurt... they held them for three weeks before sending them back... reason...? forensics... HA...!

The Obama administration will largely preserve Bush-era procedures allowing the government to search -- without suspicion of wrongdoing -- the contents of a traveler's laptop computer, cellphone or other electronic device, although officials said new policies would expand oversight of such inspections.

The policy, disclosed Thursday in a pair of Department of Homeland Security directives, describes more fully than did the Bush administration the procedures by which travelers' laptops, iPods, cameras and other digital devices can be searched and seized when they cross a U.S. border. And it sets time limits for completing searches.

But representatives of civil liberties and travelers groups say they see little substantive difference between the Bush-era policy, which prompted controversy, and this one.

"It's a disappointing ratification of the suspicionless search policy put in place by the Bush administration," said Catherine Crump, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union. "It provides a lot of procedural safeguards, but it doesn't deal with the fundamental problem, which is that under the policy, government officials are free to search people's laptops and cellphones for any reason whatsoever."

i retained the receipt i was given by the ice so that i could pull it out on the off-chance it ever happened again... i kept it in my laptop case which, during a visit with the family of friends in salta, argentina, was peed in by the family cat... needless to say, i had to get a new laptop case but i still have the receipt, complete with vile cat pee smell, in a sealed baggie in the new laptop case... every time i pass through u.s. customs, it's at the ready... i eagerly await the wrinkled nose of the customs officer when he opens that little bag...!

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