You Will give me your laptop NOW AKA Sie geben mir Ihren Laptop sofort Schwein

This is unbelievable. The gummint can arbitrarily take your laptop when you return to the country for 'a reasonable time'. They are supposedly 'protecting us from terrorists and child porn'. Noble indeed my dear sir.

However, the hideous part of this is that they don't need to have any reason or suspicion to sieze your property. The ninth circus court has upheld this (if the ninth circus say's it's OK, you know is is a ***** Bad ***** idea... Make that a ****HIDEOUS**** idea.

They can take any device including ipods, memory sticks, cameras, hard drives, you name it.

You have to give them any passwords or they just take it and keep it.

We are planning an overseas trip and I find this to be worrisome. First of all, we are a small business with limited financial resources. Also, the government most likely would not step in to help if THEY allow my client's confidential information to be compromised and we get sued. Yeah, when pigs fly.

Here are the major problems as I see them,

1. There is something in that often ignored document called the US Constitution about "unjust taking" or "taking without compensation". OK folks, When you confiscate my laptop for an 'indefinite period" I am now without a laptop. That means that all of my information, programs and configuration is on that laptop. I now cannot work as efficiently and in some cases cannot work at all. My alternative is to purchase a new laptop for a thousand dollars, Purchase all my software for about 2000 and spend about 20 hours reconfiguring everything (about another 2000 in time I can't bill.). If a citizen steals 5 grand, that is a felony. When the Gummint takes 5 grand from you ... shut up and move on. We can thank the morons on SCOTUS with stupidity like the Kelo decision.
2. I blogged before about the possible compromise of data. If my laptop were to be detained I would have to change our passwords and those of our clients for hundreds of sites. Do I get compensated for that?? Nope.

So, How will I handle my upcoming trip. Here are some thoughts

1. I'm going to have to purchase a cheap computer and install the minimal amount of software, probably as much open source as possible. This isn't a bad idea anyway.
2. I'm going to leave a machine back in the office running go2mypc. If I have to do anything, I'll do it remotely. That way, the sensitive info stays at home
3. I'll take my files with me on an encrypted drive.... Something like the black armor drives they sell at Staples now. That will provide access to my data for those times when I can't get a decent internet connection. Before coming home I'll either wipe the drive with a utility or possibly just destroy it and trash it before coming home. You could go one better and purchase an extra drive for the laptop with an OS like Linux and remove and destroy the original drive and your external drive and put in the Linux OS.
4. I'm going to set up an FTP so I can FTP any pics home prior to returning. We are taking the trip to get info and pics for a travel website. We bloody well can't launch the website if the info is moldering in some gummnint office somewhere. So, I'll get home and the info will be there. If the gummint is interested in pics of restaurants they can intercept the data as it comes over.

Now for the rant part

1. Arent' our gummint officials supposed to follow the US constitution?? Shouldn't they go to jail if they violate it?
2. What planet or alternate universe did the ninth circus court come from?? Methinks they do inhale.
3. How the hell does this make us safer from terrorists when we ignore a bunch of imams who want seatbelt extenders, spout anti American Rhetoric etc (BTW - If you don't think a seatbelt extender is a helluva weapon, you aren't thinking)..

I understand Russ Fiengold is looking into this. I'm not a fan of him considering the McCain Fiengold monstrosity. However, I do support him on this. Let's make sure that the government follows the rules and we don't have "You Vill Hand over der Laptop PLiss - SCHELL SCHWIENHUNT"

Write or call your congresscritters and tell them to look into this and make sure that our rights are protected. As Ben Franklin said when asked what form of govenment the constitution gave us "A Republic IF you can keep it"