Never take a laptop with you when travelling to the US - or at least never take a laptop with you that contains a harddisk.

The U.S. gets power to seize laptops, iPods and mobiles in new anti-terror measure.

They are also allowed to make copies of your files and even hand them out to private companies if they are:

(a) encrypted and they can not decrypt it
(b) are in a foreign language
(c) for "other" reasons, which opens the door for virtually any random reason you could think of

So, even without having done anything wrong, your laptop might be seized or mobile phone or iphod...for example if the officer at the customs has a bad day or has always wanted to own such a device. People have reported their laptops have not been returned even after months....

If you happen to have nude pictures on your laptop (of your girlfriend or whatever) you might even be arrested if she is younger then 21 (in some states) or what also could happen is that those pictures end up on a porn website as the officers sell them to other organizations...there is no control and anything could happen (and it does!)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1040812/Airport-threat-laptop-U-S-gets-power-seize-iPods-mobiles-new-anti-terror-measure.html

that is just mad!

Remind me why Americans are so afraid of communism?
1984 wasn't fiction, it was an aspiration.

I'm off to the US in October, I think I'll leave my laptop behind then... I've had two fail on me already, rather not lose a third one because of 'anti-terrorist measures'

Their data protection rules are more lax than ours so if you have a job where there may be something politically sensitive or top secret on your laptop just leave it at home cos if they get hold of it the whole bloody world will know by lunch time.

Sounds like mp3 players, pmps and phones are fair game too so best leave those here too. And then get back and find you were burgled while you were out there.

One odd and only slightly connected thing I've read of late is that the scanners are somehow causing some batteries to discharge. Stops those ones being any use on long journeys.
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In the year of 9/11 my friend got married in Florida in October.

It was brilliant, there were no queue's at any of the theme parks. All the popular tourist destinations were empty so we had all the best seats. The worst thing was the immigration officer at the gates in Boston. He was very arrogant, they say please but never mean it.So rude.

Reminds me of how the yanks dispose of hard discs that contained secret information.
The wipe the disc obviously, then expose it to very powerful magnetic fields, then grind off the magnetic layer, melt the remaining disc down and store them in a secure vault in Nevada.

Which means that in the event someone figures out how to retrieve data from ingots of former discs, they will know precisely where to find them.

While we do the same upto the last, where we then sell it off to scrap metal dealers and it ends up as part of some cheap and nasty bridge or reinforment for concrete somewhere.