Does a new laptop ruling challenge privacy rights?

[Commentary] It's pretty obvious that we as a society are now made up of two groups. There are those who, for better or worse, have moved their lives into the digital realm, and those who haven't. US District Judge Edward Korman has ruled, sweepingly, that the federal government had a right to confiscate laptops at the border without probable cause. In other words: You are traveling overseas, with your laptop, tablet or smartphone. As you re-enter the United States, a federal official, for any reason or none, can take it away from you and look through it, and there's nothing you can do about it. The taking of a laptop today is a striking act of confiscation almost without an equivalent 25 years ago.

Today, Nosy McPatterson, your local TSA staffer, or Roscoe the border agent who got up on the wrong side of the bed that morning, can rummage through and capture all your personal data saved there in an instant. They can paw through your photos and email during their lunch hour. And anyone present with a 13-year-old's understanding of computing can easily and unnoticeably make a quick copy of it onto a device that slips easily into a pants pocket. I wanted to find a smart legal mind who'd considered the issue. I finally found someone who had. He came up with a simple encapsulation to prevent this sort of intrusion into our private lives for no reason: “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's the Fourth Amendment, of course.

[Komando is a columnist for USAToday]