Any company with traveling, laptop-toting employees has reason to worry. Border guards don’t need even a reasonable suspicion to search the laptops of Americans re-entering the country from abroad.

That’s the upshot of a ruling by the U.S. Ninth District court says which may extend to any electronic device — a Blackberry, PDA or even cell phone.

Companies whose employees travel overseas are complaining about the inspections, saying that the search of electronic devices could hurt their businesses.

The federal government says the searches are necessary for national security and for legal action against people who bring illegal material into the country.

“If you asked most Americans whether the government has the right to look through their luggage for contraband when they are returning from an overseas trip, they would tell you ‘yes, the government has that right,’ ” Senator Russ Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, said Wednesday at the hearing of a Senate Judiciary subcommittee.

“But,” Mr. Feingold continued, “if you asked them whether the government has a right to open their laptops, read their documents and e-mails, look at their photographs and examine the Web sites they have visited, all without any suspicion of wrongdoing, I think those same Americans would say that the government absolutely has no right to do that.”

There have been reports of laptops and other electronic storage devices being seized by customs officials without apparent cause. Some travelers are being questioned about their political views.

Susan K. Gurley, executive director of the Association of Corporate Travel Executives, said the seizing of laptops could hurt people who travel overseas for business.

“In today’s wired, networked and borderless world, one’s office no longer sits within four walls or a cubicle; rather, one’s office consists of a collection of mobile electronic devices such as a laptop, a BlackBerry, PDA, and a cellphone,” Ms. Gurley said in prepared remarks.

She said the searches meant that “you may find yourself effectively locked out of your office indefinitely.”

Ms. Gurley said a concern was the lack of published regulations explaining what happened to data when it was seized and who had access to it.

Tim Sparapani, senior legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, said in an interview, “You can’t go into my home and search my computer without a warrant, but simply because I’m carrying my computer with me as I travel, you can search it.”

No one from the Department of Homeland Security showed up at the Senate hearings to defend these warrant-less, no-reason-needed searches.

Which begs the question: Who will be doing these searches, what safeguards will there be for device-owner data and just how long can customs agents hang onto a traveler’s hardware? What criteria will be used to impound electronics or remove its files?

In short: What protections do travelers have that their system and its data won’t be at risk when the government starts rooting through it.

Your thoughts?

Tags: customs, data, files, laptops, search, security