A highly debated issue on this week’s agenda is the set of rules for the airport routine searches when returning to the United States. The issue regards the level of intrusion for the luggage verifications, as airport officials have the right to check every detail considered relevant, including the contents of the travelers’ laptops.

Up until now, the careful searches were considered to be in the people’s best interest but many feel that the right to examine and copy the contents of a person’s cellphone, BlackBerry, video camera, laptop or any other device represents an abuse from the authorities.

Many people, which are frequent flyers, such as businessmen, doctors and lawyers oppose the measures as they indeed carry valuable and sometimes confidential information, but which doesn’t concern in any way national security and such an intrusion should not be supported by the country’s officials.

The explanation for the meticulous process is strengthened by the Fourth Amendment, which clearly states that any check is considered reasonable under its rules. One of the government’s explanations pointed out the efforts for identifying and stopping child pornographers but this is far from enough to convince people of the law’s benefits.

The searches are being conducted by an agency affiliated to the Department of Homeland Security and there is no data on how long the information is being kept in the bureau’s logs or what is it used for.

Senator Russ Feingold was quoted by the Los Angeles Times addressing the problem at a congressional hearing held today, where he explained that at the time that the laws were registered, no one thought that one day thousands of people would come in and out of the country with huge stocks of their personal information and that apart from the cases when indeed the measure is highly needed, under the suspicion of criminal or terrorist activity, the rest of the intrusive searches must be put an end to as soon as possible.

The reason why such a law interpretation is considered highly inappropriate is because it allows the authorities to extend their actions way beyond the classic luggage check and actually open the people’s laptops, view their photos and video clips, access their documents and e-mails and also check the Web sites visited, all this without a clear suspicion of any sort of wrongdoing.

Under a similar note, two civil liberties groups, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Asian Law Caucus, have filed a lawsuit, demanding the government to provide additional information about the policy on border searches of laptops, MP3 players and the rest of the digital gadgets verified.

The agency responded through its deputy commissioner, Mr. Jayson P. Ahern, who actually failed at offering a clear answer in the matter, saying only that the agency’s actions no not invade the people’s privacy rights and also wanted to underline the fact that the involvement of the Homeland Security’s department was decisive in the enforcement process of more than 600 laws connected to the border issue, including intellectual property, child pornography, terrorism, contraband and narcotics.