My argument is simply that it ought to be within the government's power, as part of border security, to do this sort of inspection and, sometimes, impoundment (not permanent seizure) for more detailed inspection.

Would you argue that the government should have the power to impound your wallet without suspicion? How about a woman's purse? The cloths on your back? Is there a line that should not be crossed?

And there are lots of people who wish us harm who are outside our borders. The borders are, therefore, the logical place at which we should crank up security

That's not logical at all. At your bank, is the security cranked up at the front door, or at vault? Imagine a bank with a very secure front door, and a wide open vault, would you trust them with your money? Even if you would trust them with your money, would you be willing to go through vault-level security to perform simple banking operations?

I think part of the difference here may be between people who use a laptop a lot, and those who don't. I have no problem with security looking through my luggage, doing pat-down searches, etc. I do have a problem with them taking my laptop.

For those who use a laptop a lot, taking it away is extremely intrusive. A laptop functions almost like a "virtual office". Taking it away can amount to essentially locking you out of your home and/or business office for an indefinite period of time.

If they could just copy the data quickly, say in 30 seconds, I would have less problem, though I still think it to be unreasonable search. That's because the degree of privacy violation incurred by searching my laptop is at least an order of magnitude greater than that incurred by searching my luggage.

Indeed, is there any evidence whatsoever that laptops containing the 9/11 plans came into the US with those who would become the hijackers?

Indeed, it would help your case if you had any actual evidence, beyond simple conjecture, that seizing the laptops of citizens for no other reason than that they have been out of the country, actually saved lives.

Your argument is predicated on facts not in evidence.

And yes, US citizens have rights by our very existence as US citizens. Indeed, as I recall, our key founding document asserted that our rights preceded government and that, indeed, the purpose of government was to protect those rights.

But, we appear to disagree on those counts.

Also: the notion that majority support for an action confers rightness upon that actions is problematic (ask, for example, generations of slaves, to note a rather obvious example). I know that more citizens agree with you than agree with me--that does not, however, mean that you (or they) are necessarily correct about either the philosophical basis of your position or in the efficacy of the policy prescriptions in question.

And of course, the reason I said that "it starts" with the preamble is because pretty much the rest of the Constitution is designed to create the mechanics and working rules of the three coordinate branches of government who each have roles to play in, among many other policy matters, border security. You're quite right to refer to "police powers," but that's a term that I know you know has a broader meaning than just describing what a cop on the beat can or can't do.

You keep assuming that you have "rights" here that are being violated, as in the phrase "reason to violate people's rights." You have no such rights. No one ever has, not when crossing the border. Of course if you start from the premise that you do have such rights, it's easier to get to the conclusion that the violation of those "rights" is outrageous. But entering the United States, even for its citizens who've left it temporarily, is a privilege, and it has always come with the condition that you submit to such security measures as the country, through its elected officials, have seen fit to legislate.

You say this permits fishing expeditions "for no reason whatsoever." To the contrary, it's fairly easy to establish that many people, including sometimes American citizens returning, do so as part of the commission of crimes or carrying materials that are illegal to possess here. It may not seem to you to be a sufficient reason. But a majority of your fellow citizens disagree, or the laws and policies would be changed.

And you continue to ignore entirely in your arguments the fact that the world outside is fundamentally different that the world inside our borders. We aren't sovereign there. Bad guys can and do find places outside our borders from which to craft and then execute plans to create havoc inside them.

America was complacent about its border security before 9/11. When we examined how that tragedy happened, border security was by far the single most obvious place where stricter procedures enforced aggressively might have prevented the whole thing. And it's the place where future incidents can be prevented most efficiently, without having to abrogate our internal domestic rights on an every-day basis.

If you choose to go into a business that requires you to cross America's borders frequently, you make that choice knowing that border security today is tighter, and more burdensome even to the entirely innocent, than it used to be. If you choose to vacation outside the U.S., it should, again, be with that knowledge. If you carry a laptop, you ought to back up all the data on it, so that you can minimize the inconvenience if you're deprived of it for a time while it's impounded. That's life the way it is, in the very dangerous and non-utopian world in which we actually live.

My argument is simply that it ought to be within the government's power, as part of border security, to do this sort of inspection and, sometimes, impoundment (not permanent seizure) for more detailed inspection.

I'd be entirely in favor of rules and procedures that encouraged DHS employees to make such rational decisions as to let (a) U.S. citizens who (b) are former military officers (even first generation) with (c) security clearances who've (d) just been vacationing (e) somewhere touristy (not, say, Pakistan) to cut immediately to the front of the line and proceed on their merry way, laptops in hand.

My strong hunch is that a lot of the people who fit categories like that, or even close to that, get targeted (if at all) based on policies which encourage more randomness in inspections, which in turn are prompted by purported civil libertarians who oppose "profiling."

Why it is so unreasonable to suggest that there ought to at least be a reason, apart from travel abroad, to allow the government such broad latitude is beyond me. We seem to have allowed 9/11 to bring to the fore this notion that generalized fear itself is a sufficient reason to violate people's rights.

This is beyond drug-sniffing dogs or looking in my bags to make sure I don't have cocaine in my dirty underwear, or even a metal detector to see if I am packing heat. To seize a laptop is to potentially take into possession personal financial, legal (potentially privilege, in fact) or other documents that the government has no business obtaining unless there is a reasonable suspicion of a crime. Further, it could mean the inappropriate access and distribution of that of that information by persons who have no right or need to it. Really, it allows the government to go on a fishing expedition into ones affairs for no reason whatsoever save "security" because I had the temerity to leave the country.

BTW-pursuant to an issue in one of your other comments: when did I claim that I would be able to assert US constitutional rights to the Mexican authorities? I fully understand that my legal rights, such as they are, are quite different when I am elsewhere. But of course, that is makes elsewhere elsewhere, so to speak. I would like to think that the USA is, in fact, as different in a positive sense as we like to claim that she is--however, if the bottom line is that I should expect no better treatment in the US than I do in a developing state of marginal democratic quality with a known law enforcement corruption problem, then I guess America isn't all that she is cracked up to be, which is rather sad.

It starts here (italics mine):

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

The bottom line is that inside the U.S., "we the people," through our elected representatives, have sovereignty. And at our direction and with our approval, the law enforcement agencies established, funded, directed, and overseen by those elected authorities maintain, in general, a level of security and domestic tranquility in which we calibrate the tradeoffs between privacy and security at particular levels. One important level -- so important that, as you point out, it's written into the Fourth Amendment -- is the right to be secure against unreasonable searches and arrests. And our internal domestic laws are calibrated to protect those interests, with the requirement of warrants, or for certain circumstances where warrants are impractical, court-made requirements like a showing of "exigent circumstances" and "probable cause." We sometimes let the demonstrably guilty walk away in order to protect the privacy interests served by those rules.

But outside our borders, we don't have the sovereignty or the practical ability to maintain those same levels of security and tranquility. And there are lots of people who wish us harm who are outside our borders. The borders are, therefore, the logical place at which we should crank up security -- subjecting our citizens (including, yes, even decorated veterans of our military) to invasions of privacy that we wouldn't and don't tolerate internally.

No one's every promised you anything different or better than that. You have no reasonable expectation of privacy as you're crossing the border. Maybe you wish you did, which would require a major change in our laws. I don't join you in wishing that, because especially post-9/11, I think border security is a legitimate concern that ought not be short-changed merely to promote anyone's personal convenience.

Not only am I a passport-holding U.S. Citizen with no criminal record, I'm a second generation combat veteran, second generation Top Secret security cleared, individual. There's not even reasonable suspicion, much less probable cause, that I'm an Islamist terrorist or smuggling cocaine.

So, yes, I find it insulting to be subject to hours of inconvenience and intrusive questioning to demonstrate that I'm not a danger to my country's security.

I don't think the issue of searching for illegal materials at the borders is covered by the Fourth Amendment and from my p.o.v. searching at the borders is less disruptive of civic unity than say cop cars driving through cities with infrared detectors pointed at residences.

That said, whether it is a cost-efficient secruty procedure seems very doubtful to me.

Indeed, the closest the document comes to any of this is "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

That seems to be more on my side of the argument than yours, but as James notes, that doesn't mean that the courts necessarily agree with me.

The bottom line with your position, and where our fundamental difference lies on this and other issues--I have no problem with the government seeking to protect us, I just think that they need to have some evidence to use in seizing private property (even the private property of non-citizens who are otherwise engaged in regular activities).

The notion that they should be able to do whatever they want just because they are "protecting" us is highly problematic, especially since the government, in general, is not known to be the most efficient or most accurate of entities.

This kind of thing always gets me: conservatives will decry the ability of the feds to deal with social welfare policy and the like, and yet somehow think that they will be quite good at security policy, especially the kind that requires guesswork.

And, just to make sure I am clear, I am not insulted by your comment, but simply by the overall notion.

The policy issue here seems to me the Star Wars assumption of technology. Remember where information had to be transmitted by the rebels by physically passing data via robot. If only some means to transfer technology electronically existed!