Did you know that U.S. agents can seize your laptop, your pda, your cell phone or just about any other device that holds your personal data? Did you know that if you’re crossing into or out of the United States, U.S. agents have declared the right take your electronic gear and data from you without so much as a warrant? If the government makes its seizure on the border, it has decided it may keep what it takes indefinitely, and there is no regulation over what the government can do with whatever data it finds. There isn’t even any requirement for the government to tell anyone about what it’s done, not even to inform the person whose property and private information it has confiscated.

To bring information about these warrantless seizures to the light of day and provide some accountability for what the government does, last year Rep. Loretta Sanchez introduced H.R. 6869, the Border Security Search Accountability Act. If it had been passed, Sanchez’ bill would have required:

* sensitive, proprietary and/or personal information to be protected under current laws applying outside the border;
* searches to be done with supervision by commanding officers and the individuals whose gear has been seized;
* receipts for seized items, a procedure for complaints, and disclosure of any sharing of seized information by the government (with a national security exception)
* time limits on how long the U.S. government could keep objects and information without a warrant of probable cause;
* reports to Congress regarding the frequency, and implications for privacy and civil rights of such searches, as well as indicating how often such searches actually led to prosecution or conviction.

In short, Rep. Sanchez’s bill creates some initial limitations on the government’s border search powers while collecting the information necessary to raise awareness and address the problem in a systematic and informed way. It’s a step in the right direction.

The Border Security Search Accountability Act did not pass in the 110th Congress, but Rep. Sanchez has recently reintroduced the bill as H.R. 1726 in the 111th Congress.

Step one in making preservation of your rights an issue is raising the issue. To date, the bill has received no notice either in the newspapers or online. If you are interested in issues of privacy, protection from warrantless seizure and government transparency, please do what you can to spread the word in your own words and in your own way: by blog, by e-mail, or by letter to the editor.

Also consider asking your member of the House of Representatives to support this bill through cosponsorship. Including Rep. Sanchez, 19 members of the House to date have signed on in support of H.R. 1726. They are:

Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-CA, District 47) — principal sponsor
Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-MO, District 3)
Rep. Andre Carson (D-IN, District 7)
Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-NY, District 11)
Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY, District 17)
Rep. Bob Filner (D-CA, District 51)
Rep. Charles Gonzalez (D-TX, District 20)
Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ, District 7)
Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY, District 22)
Rep. Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX, District 15)
Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA, District 9)
Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY, District 18)
Rep. Brad Miller (D-NC, District 13)
Rep. James Moran (D-VA, District 8 )
Rep. Solomon Ortiz (D-TX, District 27)
Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX, District 14)
Rep. Janice Schakowsky (D-IL, District 9)
Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA, District 9)
Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS, District 2)

If you don’t see your member of Congress on this list, look him or her up and make a call with a request to cosponsor this productive bill.