Hands off the laptop, big bro

The LA Times reports that federal agents are randomly seizing laptops at customs:

U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents said he had been chosen for “random inspection of electronic media,” and kept his computer for about two weeks, recalled Hogan, 55, a freelance journalist from Falls Church, Va.

Fortunately, it was a spare computer that had little important information. But Hogan felt violated.

“It’s not an inspection. It’s a seizure,” he said. “What do they do with it? I assume they just copy everything.”

Nice. Maybe the feds just wanted to see if he was current with his Windows updates. Maybe they did a complimentary upgrade to Firefox 3.