I recently returned to San Fran from a vacation in Thailand. After getting my bags, I was told to go to a counter and wait for a customs officer. After talking about my trip for a few minutes, the officer told me to put my laptop on the counter along with any other computer equipment I had, which happened to be two 1GB thumb drives. The officer had me turn on laptop and proceeded to go through all my files. He had another officer take my thumb drives somewhere, telling me that officer would look at them on another computer for the sake of time. After about a half hour, they gave me back my stuff, and told me to have a nice day.
Questions
What were they looking for?
Do they have the right to look for it?
Has this happened to anyone else?
Should I expect this everytime I travel internationally?