Telegraph : US officials given power to seize British visitors' laptops

US officials given power to seize British visitors' laptops

Visitors to the United States face having their laptop computers and other digital devices seized after federal agents were given new powers to protect America's borders.

By Alex Spillius in Washington | August 1, 2008

In a move that could affect thousands of British business travellers and tourists each year, the Department of Homeland Security will be allowed to carry out seizures without suspicion of wrongdoing and can hold devices for a "reasonable period of time".

Customs and border staff have been empowered to share the contents of seized computers with other government and private agencies for data decryption and translation.

The policies cover hard drives, flash drives, mobile phones, iPods, pagers, and video and audio tapes - as well as books, pamphlets and other written materials.

US government officials told the Washington Post that the policies applied to any of the 400 million people entering the country in a year, including US citizens, and were needed to prevent terrorism. About four million British people travel to America each year.

The measures are already in place but were only disclosed under pressure from civil liberties and business groups, who were acting on reports that increasing numbers of overseas visitors had been stopped and had their electronic equipment confiscated and analysed.

The policies require federal agents to take measures to protect business data and privileged legal material. They stipulate that any copies of the data must be destroyed when a review is completed and no probable cause exists to keep the information.

The Democrat Senator, Russ Feingold, described the new measures as "truly alarming". He intends to introduce legislation to require reasonable ground for suspicion before equipment is confiscated.

From the beginning of next year British people entering the US without a visa will have to register with the American government online up to 72 hours before they leave.

Under the existing visa waiver programme, which applies to 27 countries including Britain, travellers must fill in an immigration form while they are on their way.

But a new advance screening system which was launched - initially as a voluntary programme - will become obligatory from January.

Under a deal struck between Brussels and Washington, US officials can also potentially look at travellers' credit card and email accounts.

Information released under the Freedom of Information Act earlier this year disclosed how the Department of Homeland Security can ask for "additional information'' on top of the "Passenger Name Record" (PNR) data which airlines must already provide to be allowed to fly to the country.

Officials can now demand the right to inspect other transactions on the credit card used to book a flight, for example, or view emails on the account given to the airline.

But British and US officials are also working on a scheme to speed up the process for frequent flyers between the two countries.

Shami Chakrabarti, director of the human rights group Liberty, said: “It is one thing to look for drugs and explosives, another to conduct data trawls without suspicion.

“If the authorities don’t behave with reasonable proportion, airline travel will seem more punishment than pleasure.”