The use of the word "restrict" in the title is incorrect.

Under the bill (H.R. 1726) sponsored by Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.), DHS officials would be required to perform an open rule-making process with public comment.

It moved to the full committee on the 22nd.

“This bill preserves the Department of Homeland Security’s broad authority to search individuals and their belongings at our borders, while setting standards to protect travelers’ privacy,” Sanchez said. “In short, the bill strikes the right balance between security and civil liberties by requiring DHS to engage the American public and undertake an open rule-making process.”

While I support the passage of this bill, I don't agree that it "strikes the right balance" or any balance for that matter. This bill continues to allow the status quo while requiring that additional information be collected and presented to the public. That information, when it becomes available a year after this bill is passed, may be helpful in understanding the impact of these searches, but I don't see why Congress cannot act now to restrict these searches in a meaningful way.

Many civil liberties issues are complicated and require careful deliberation. This one doesn't.

Suspicionless search and seizure of laptop harddrives at border crossings violates fundamental American values. It has violated those values for the many years that these searches have been going on, it violated those values a year ago when this issue was first noticed by Congress, it violates those values right now, while Congress dithers on this, and it will continue to violate those values a year from now, when the data this legislation collects becomes available. Our history, our Constitution, and frankly an objective sense of right and wrong require that customs agents have some reason to suspect travellers of a crime before rifling through their personal data and correspondence!

CBP has even claimed that they establish reasonable suspicion before engaging in these kinds of searches. This is a simple matter of requiring by law a practice CBP claims that they already engage in. The fact that in six months the President has failed to take action on such a simple, straight forward issue is ample evidence that all of the rhetoric from the Democratic party about civil liberties was just that, rhetoric.