The 9th Circuit has approved a practice that Federal Agents had started doing prior to the court decision which is scanning laptops and cellphones and other portable electronic devices such as mp3 players and copying all data from them for storage and later analysis.

It is likely that in the future you will see agencies such as the U.S. Marshals and the Federal Protective Service that protect courthouses and other government buildings start this same practice in places other than airports and borders because essentially the court is saying that if federal agents can search your luggage why not your electronics?

While I think this raises a dozen or more privacy concerns and the most important is that what if protected legal documents are contained on a laptop that is searched? What if it is a lawyers laptop who happens to be suing the federal government then essentially a search by a federal agent would deprive that lawyer of his access to the courts under federal law.