There have been widespread reports of the government searching - and often seizing - laptops, BlackBerrys, iPhones and other portable electronic devices at airports. It is not clear how often these searches occur, and the government will not say. The Association of Corporate Travel Executives says that of 100 people who responded to a survey it conducted this year, seven said they had had a laptop or other electronic device seized.

This goes well beyond examining a piece of luggage. Because of the enormous amount of private information people keep on their laptops, the searches are more akin to rifling through someone's home and reading every letter, financial record and personal journal.

At a Senate hearing last month, civil liberties, civil rights and business groups testified about the harm the program is doing. Businesses object that their trade secrets are being jeopardized. Lawyers and journalists say the government should not have access to their confidential communications with clients and sources. Muslims contend that they are being singled out for particularly intrusive searches.

Laptop owners rightly complain that the program violates the Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches and seizures. Their legal objections, however, have not fared well. In April, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in San Francisco, upheld a laptop search at Los Angeles International Airport. After this disappointing decision, Congress needs to act.

Congress should pass a law that allows the government to look at data on laptops and other portable electronic devices only when it has a reasonable suspicion about the specific person being searched - something the law does not currently require. To copy data or seize devices, the government should be required to show probable cause, an even higher standard.

Congress should force the government to spell out the rules governing its searches and report on how many it conducts. The law should also require the government to destroy data that does not lead to criminal charges.

The government has the right to take reasonable steps to control what comes into the country, but the laptop-search program's invasions of privacy go far beyond what is reasonable.

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