Know Your Rights: Don't carry sensitive information across borders

Orin Kerr at the Volokh Conspiracy discusses how "[t]he Ninth Circuit has (finally) handed down United States v. Arnold; the court ruled that there is no Fourth Amendment requirement of "reasonable suspicion" to search a laptop computer at the border."  From the opinion:

Arnold has failed to distinguish how the search of his laptop and its electronic contents is logically any different from the suspicionless border searches of travelers’ luggage that the Supreme Court and we have allowed.

Many business travelers who regularly work with classified documents, trade secrets and other sensitive information while traveling are aware of the risks of carrying such information across international borders.  But for those of you who are not aware, let this case teach you that pretty much anything you bring across a border is subject to search - even when entering the USA as a citizen of the USA.

That's why it's common to travel with a clean travel computer that has no sensitive information on it.  If you need to access sensitive information while traveling you should find a way to securely access the information remotely without requiring the information to stay on your travel computer.  The risk of disclosure from a search at the boarder (not to mention theft) rarely justifies traveling with the information on your computer.