All of the contents on a laptop can now be searched without wrongdoing or suspicion from U.S. Customs agents according to a recent federal appeals court ruling (PDF).
Expect the same level of privacy when visiting other countries as well.
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Now, what are you going to do about it?
Here are some ideas and products to help you...
• Have a travel laptop. No data on the hard drive.
• Keep only necessary data on a secure USB stick.
• If you must keep sensitive data on your drive, encrypt it...
-- TrueCrypt 6.0 - The latest version of the free drive-encryption tool can shield sensitive data from prying eyes at home and abroad. Bonus - There is no way to prove that a hidden encrypted volume even exists on your drive unless you volunteer that information. TrueCrypt 6.0a is available now for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux systems, including Windows Vista. (review)
