Sanchez’s bill would bring more routine to the search process. The bill requires the government to draft additional rules regarding information security, the number of days a device can be retained, receipts that must be issued when devices are taken, ways to report abuses, and it requires the completion of both a privacy impact study and a civil liberties impact study. Travelers would also have the explicit right to watch as the search is conducted.

Spooky? Well, this is a new Dell (DELL, Fortune 500): a little more attentive online, and a little more paranoid. When Michael Dell took back the reins of his company in early 2007, one of his first acts as CEO was to give its web strategy a kick in the pants. The computer maker had plenty of hairy business problems to deal with - financial irregularities, a stagnating stock, profits down 28% in a year - but perhaps the most embarrassing was the thrashing its brand had taken online. On tech blogs and consumer forums, Dell had become almost a byword for lousy customer service.

Absentminded travelers flummoxed by airport security leave 12,000 laptops in airports every single week. Only 30% are ever recovered.