Travel Technology - USB Flash Drive information

I now travel with an ASUS EEE computer for weight reasons. All the information I need is kept on a separate USB flash drive.

When I look at the information from the USB flash drive on my EEE, but never permanently transfer it, would that info be available to anyone looking at the computer without the flash drive attached? Say, should the EEE be confiscated at the border?

Once it's viewed, is there now a record of it on the EEE itself?

Or what if I transfer info from the USB flash drive to a removable SD card? Would that stuff be visible without either attached?

I hope I made myself clear.

Remember the days of the floppy drives? Think of our usb flash drive as a floppy - your laptops reads files on your floppy/flash. Nothing remains on the hard drive once you remove the floppy/flash.

Btw, if you're concerned about having your laptop search (for whatever reason) by immigration/customs, they in theory can also ask to see your flash drive, SD cards, any other media cards.

If you want to be safe, better to upload to server site to access your data, eg email to your gmail or yahoo account.

I have to disagree slightly. While no information is stored on the computer in the long run, most times you open a file, say a word doc, a temporary file is written somewhere on the hard drive so that you can edit it. These of course are deleted and usually get written over, though as with all data, some image could remain even after you restart your computer.