Turn over your iPods, cell phones and flash drives

You didn’t want the 4^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution Bill of Rights, did you?

Jason Mick at Daily Tech and Judy Aron at Consent of the Governed write of a new government policy passed on July 16^th that grants federal agents the power, without any suspicion of wrongdoing, to seize travelers’ information storage devices, including hard drives, flash drives, cell phones, iPods, pagers, beepers, and video and audio tapes, as well as all papers and other written documentation. “After seizure, the materials may be taken off site. The contents of the laptops can then be shared with other agencies and/or private entities for language translation, data decryption or other reasons.” The policy was enacted for our protection, Judy explains.

The discussions on privacy rights and concerns over medical data are worth a read.