Some people like to compare confiscation of laptop to confiscation of luggages. This to me is a flawed logic because one cannot clone your items in your luggage. They can search your luggage right there which would not take more than half an hour. And if they cannot find any suspicious item material they will need to let you go .
-kartal
Not necessarily so.
What constitutes "suspicious" is in the eyes of a beholder.
I had a business acquaintance get detained because his luggage got stolen from his hotel and he attempted to board a flight out of Denver, CO without it.
When he explained what happened, and a call to the hotel couldn't get anyone there to acknowledge that the theft had occurred, he made the fatal mistake of demanding to talk to a manager.
According to airport security, this "incident" had the following "threat factors":
1. Subject is a "young man" (actually he's in his early 30s)
2. Attempting to board transcontinental flight without luggage (it was stolen)
3. Aggressive demeanor (i.e. got pissed about how he was being
treated, demanded an explaination)
4. Uncorroborated explaination of missing luggage (i.e.suspicion of
lying to TSA agents)
He missed his flight and lost most of the day before his "story" could be verified. When they let him go about 20 hours later, rather than offer anything like an apology for the misunderstanding, it was suggested he be "more careful" next time.
Now if this can happen to a US citizen on a domestic flight, how hard can it be to confiscate a laptop entering the USA?