International travel can be an adventure, a professionally worthwhile growth experience or it can be a nightmare. The biggest threat to your privacy and your company's proprietary data may not be Osama Bin Laden, or hordes of thieves around the world. It might be US Customs or similar agencies. In the very recent case of US V Arnold wherein the issue before the court was:

"We must decide whether customs officers at Los Angeles International Airport may examine the electronic contents of a passenger's laptop computer without reasonable suspicion." [1]

In the court of common sense you would think that lack of suspicion would be against the Constitutional right against unreasonable search and seizure which states:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." [2]

While time and space do not permit a complete discussion of the case, the bottom line is that the court sided with the government's argument that border searches are different. In a related development, Computerworld ran an article discussing the Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE) warning to its members about limiting the amount of proprietary business information they carry abroad. [3]

Our advice is simple "take only what you need" if you can. If you will need frequent or repetitive access to sensitive or proprietary information across borders, work with your IT department to develop a practical means to accomplish this. Solutions might include VPN access to specially encrypted files among others.

As always, we stand ready to assist in any way we can.

On Behalf of TAL Global,

Larry Dietz

TAL Global Corporation
http://www.talglobal.com/
info@TALGlobal.net