Keep It Private, Keep It Off Your Laptop
Laptops are becoming a less appealing place to store data. The fact that they can be lost and stolen is just the start. If you travel outside the US, you should understand that border officials can search the contents of your electronic devices without warrant and without suspicion. An it's not just personal devices, two recently publicized cases involved password protected corporate laptops.
The Electronic Freedom Frontier published an open letter signed by a number of other groups, urging the House Committee on Homeland Security to look into Dept. of Homeland Security practices.
This issue is particularly critical in light of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals' recent decision in United States v. Arnold, which permits customs officials to search laptop computers at the border without any suspicion or cause.1 Despite reassurances that border patrol agents are well trained and supervised,2 the public has been unable to learn through open government laws which policies and procedures Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) has in place to protect travelers against arbitrary or abusive searches. Therefore, Congress must exercise oversight to ensure that border searches are not overly invasive or discriminatory, and establish appropriate safeguards to protect any information collected and maintained by the government.
Given the current string of Democratic primaries and the upcoming November presidential election, Congress isn't likely to make changes to DHS practices that opponents could argue curtails the governments ability to protect the country.
I'd rather take my chance and store intellectual property encrypted on server I can access over the Internet rather than leave it on a laptop.
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