The Constitution of the United States of America ensures, among other things, the protection of an individual from unreasonable search and seizure. In order for the government to conduct a search and/or seizure of yourself or your property they much have reasonable cause. Right?
Nope. That's no longer the case. May as well just burn that old piece of parchment because it seems to be meaningless these days.
The Department of Homeland Security has enacted new policies that allow customs officials as a routine matter of course and without reasonable cause to seize computers, cell phones, iPods, and other electronic devices, scan and copy their contents. This is presumably being done to detect terrorists, drug smugglers, and people violating copyright or trademark laws.
Firstly, this is an obvious Constitutional violation. Is there any doubt of this? Well, according to a US Federal Appeals Court, it's perfectly ok for them to do this.
Secondly, since when do copyright or trademark laws fall under the jurisdiction of either Customs or DHS? What gives there?
Thirdly, how long do they keep our property once it's seized? According to the many articles I have read on this new policy, there doesn't seem to be a time limit on this one. They can keep your stuff as long as they feel they need to keep it. Isn't that nice?
I think the whole 'homeland security" thing is getting way out of hand. Yes, we need to take reasonable precautions to protect the nation and it's borders, but outright ignoring the Constitution and seizing people's private property and personal records without cause or warrant is not reasonable by any sane standard.
Some of our elected representatives also see this as way out of bounds and plan to introduce legislation to put a stop to it, while other elected representatives are actually defending this crap.
We The People need to voice our displeasure of our government tossing out our Constitution and employing such invasive and unreasonable tactics. We The People need to stand up and demand our rights back.