No Fourth Amendment for your hard drive

At the border, that is.

From U.S. News and World Report:

The extent of the program to confiscate electronics at customs points is unclear. A hearing Wednesday before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary's Subcommittee on the Constitution hopes to learn more about the extent of the program and safeguards to traveler's privacy. Lawsuits have also been filed, challenging how the program selects travelers for inspection. Citing those lawsuits, Customs and Border Protection, a division of the Department of Homeland Security, refuses to say exactly how common the practice is, how many computers, portable storage drives, and BlackBerries have been inspected and confiscated, or what happens to the devices once they are seized. Congressional investigators and plaintiffs involved in lawsuits believe that digital copies—so-called "mirror images" of drives—are sometimes made of materials after they are seized by customs.

What does the government do with the data it copies from the computers and cameras of journalists and business executives? If history is any judge, pretty much anything it wants.