The Los Angeles Times has reported that, in the last year and a half, civil liberties groups and business travel leaders have complained about United States Customs & Border Protection (“USCBP”) officers’ broad authority to search and seize laptops and other electronic gadgets carried by international travelers. Recent data obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union (“ACLU”) details the extent to which this has happened.

Debate over the searches picked up steam in July 2008 when USCBP issued a policy directive, clarifying that its officers at airports and ports of entry could look into electronic devices without first establishing suspicion of wrongdoing. In a recent nine-month period, USCBP searched or seized 1,644 devices from travelers entering and leaving the country, according to data the ACLU obtained through a lawsuit.

Of the searched or seized devices, 582 were cellphones, 398 were laptop computers and 259 were digital cameras. The rest included MP3 players, flash drives, hard drives and DVDs. The ACLU’s data doesn’t indicate how many travelers crossed the borders during that same period, but USCBP estimates that 22 million travelers enter the U.S. per month.

The new data was included in the nearly 900 pages of documents obtained by the ACLU through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed in June. The civil liberties group disclosed the information in January and expects to collect more this month.

The ACLU insists that border agents should be required to establish a suspicion that a traveler is breaking the law before they can search electronic devices. The Association of Corporate Travel Executives, a nonprofit group that represents 2,500 members worldwide, also objects to the searches.

The original LA Times article appears here.