Information is "imported" can now be intercepted without a warrant

Shameless copy paste from http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb/blog/2008-07/2008-07-10.html

FISA and Border Searches of Laptops
10 July 2008

There's been a lot of attention paid recently to the issue of laptop searches at borders, including a congressional hearing and a New York Times editorial. I've seen articles with advice on how to protect your data under such circumstances; generally speaking, the advice boils down to "delete what you can, encrypt the rest, hope that Customs officials don't compel production of your key, and securely clean up the deleted files". If you need sensitive information while you're traveling, the usual suggestion is to download it over a secure connection, per the EFF:

Another option is to bring a clean laptop and get the information you need over the internet once you arrive at your destination, send your work product back, and then delete the data before returning to the United States. Historically, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) generally prohibited warrantless interception of this information exchange. However, the Protect America Act amended FISA so that surveillance of people reasonably believed to be located outside the United States no longer requires a warrant. Your email or telnet session can now be intercepted without a warrant. If all you are concerned about is keeping border agents from rummaging through your revealing vacation photos, you may not care. If you are dealing with trade secrets or confidential client data, an encrypted VPN is a better solution.

But is it?

When a laptop is searched, the customs agents are not looking for drugs embedded in the batteries or for whether or not the connectors have too much gold on the contacts. Rather, they're looking for information.

In that sense, it would seem to make little difference if the information is "imported" into the US via a physical laptop or via a VPN, or for that matter by a web connection. The right to search a laptop for information, then, is equivalent to the right to tap any and all international connections, without a warrant or probable cause. (More precisely, one always has a constitutional protection against "unreasonable" search and seizure; the issue is what the definition of "unreasonable" is.)