You may eventually remember last September’s outburst of blog entries and online articles criticizing laptop seizures at the Sudanese border.
This measure was intended to prohibit entrance of "inconvenient contents", such as pornography etc. into Sudan.
However, the following article explains that a similar policy is also being applied at the US Border, under the "border search exception to the warrant requirement". I.e.: laptops can be confiscated for an indefinite period of time and without explanations from US customs officers.
The Association of Corporate Travel Executives and the American Bar Association have been especially preoccupied over this policy and have expressed some concerns.
It may at first just solely increase the use of remote accesses through VPN or the use of encrypted ways of data storage on portable devices. Whatever the case will be, this issue would be only partially solved by means of new technologies, as the following question remains open : whether a laptop, a Blackberry or a storage device user will be able to deny access to their devices to US customs services officials ?
It seems that the officers have the time and the law with them, if someone ever refuses to collaborate.
An interesting point of view by ComputerWorld shows how issues of legal prohibition of technologies often produce some quite surprising results. In some cases, it only resulted in scientific research outsourcing. In other cases, it led to internal market growth in specific technology areas, such as privacy protection, data storage and transmission, etc.
http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;1018323284