Under Customs authority, the Department of Homeland Security could inspect what enters and exits the United States in cyberspace. Customs already looks online for child pornography crossing our virtual borders.

Does it? I'm fairly certain that FISA requires a warrant to spy on International telecommunications. Certainly, warrant in hand, customs might look for child pornography, but that is quite a different thing than the wholesale surveillance that Clarke is calling for. I think he is simply wrong here.

After all the hand wringing over the past few years regarding warrantless wiretapping of international telecommunications I can't imagine the Obama administration would call for it during an election year.

However, it remains the case that either its not OK for customs to go rummaging through hard drives when they are carried across the border or it is OK for customs to go rummaging through the same data when it crosses the same border over a wire. The idea that one of these things requires a warrant and the other requires absolutely no standard of suspicion makes absolutely no sense.

I think the problem is with the "anything goes" policy at the physical border and not the warrant requirement at the virtual one.

If the government wants to help fight APT on private networks they could, you know, start actually coordinating information with the private companies who protect those private networks from attack. No constitutional hang wringing would be required. So far, that isn't happening.