Originally Posted by
BigFlyer
I'm talking about a situation where you have already decided that you will not give up your password, and will basically tell the customs officer to go pound sand. So, raising suspicion is not the issue. The question is whether legally they can seize a laptop which has no data in it. (I'm also not talking about hiding the drive either, but keeping them separate to emphasize that they are two separate things.)
I think by doing that, the argument can be made that the computer is essentially a container. If you give them the "contents" of the "container" there should be no reason to confiscate the container. It'd be interesting to see how that holds up in court.