Today I read that the Americans are claiming (or rather, have always claimed) the right to search any and all electronic devices at their border crossings. As usual, this is all to prevent terrorism.

Words cannot express how completely ridiculous this is. Anyone who wants to hide electronic data will do so quite easily in a fashion that the border guards will never be able to access.

Primarily I think this will serve to irritate scores of innocent travelers who have their devices searched looking for incriminating evidence of... anything remotely incriminating.

For the sake of reductio ad absurdum, here is a list of ways you could get data into the States without being discovered.

- Encrypt your files
- Mail them to yourself on a CD
- Email them to yourself
- Place them on a micro SD card and hide it
- Use stenography
- Retrieve the files over a VPN

Although some are rather elaborate and overly complicated, I think even the most inept of people can manage to successfully mail themselves a CD or place files in an online email account. If they do catch anyone by randomly search laptops and cameras, it will likely be someone with all the competence of Inspector Clouseau.