NYC judge asked to throw out border search lawsuit

Maybe because nothing of value to terrorist can be found on a lap top? If they are looking for "terrorist files" there is something called the internet that can transfer unlimited information anywhere.

A quick scan of the laptop or phone for explosives should be enough. Its just another example of the gov using the fear of terrorism to have more comtrol over its people.

You mean the Judicial branch of government is in Kahoots with the Legislative branch for the evil purpose of controlling your brain waves?

Just wear a tin foil cap and you will be ooooooooookayyyyyyyyy

Sigh.

All they could possibly hope to get at is Amateur Terrorists' files. Professionals would either encrypt the sensitive stuff, or even better, hide it. (The average 5-year old laptop contains 50,000 files. Saving your terrorist buddies' names somewhere else than the home directory, in a file with a name reminiscent of some system files goes a long way already.) Or both.

The government can't possibly expect a border officer to be all that proficient with computers. At the end of the day, this is simply undue infringement on citizens' basic rights.

If I was a terrorist I would do what most terrorists are known to do. Any security expert will tell you that heavy encryption and security are implemented by terrorists. I mean hell, I've been hiding things attached to JPG's for YEARS using the command prompt trick copy /b filename 1 filename 2 filename_end

One line of code and you can hide Gigabytes in one small image and no one would know if you hid it.
I'm more worried about where to hide my weed...stupid government :-< trying to steal my porn.

I suspect that all a terrorist may need to do to hide their files from the border cops would be to use a non-standard OS. Linux or BSD or Haiku, have it set to open in CLI mode... I doubt any of the TSA Luddites could make their way into any files of any real meaning.

Then again,if i were a terrorist trying to smuggle in/out documents it would be very easy to just upload them to a secure server using SSL or some other encryption, or save all my documents to a small usb drive and condom/swallow it. They don't check phones, you could save all the important info to the phone's memory stick, they could then also hide the memory stick within the phone it's self.

One could also save the info on the computer, then delete it and rely on an "undelete" program to recover the "lost" files. Then unless they're copying bit-by-bit the whole drive they'll not even know the files are there.

If really concerned my thoughts would be thus:

Disable startup from CD, USB, and other external devices in the BIOS

Password Protect BIOS (conveniently forget password if asked)

Startup into the CLI (command line) Mode for your OS (Pick a non-standard OS).

Do not automatically mount the Partition with your sensitive informaiton.

Encrypt the Partition with your sensitive data.

Rename, copy into, or otherwise hide your data to look like it is data of another type (Picture like previously suggested, an innocent looking text file, etc etc).

There are many other OS or File System spesific "Tricks" you can do to hide your data, i would always suggest using a variety of these on data you wish to keep secure from prying eyes.