Jawad Khaki, a corporate executive from Sammamish, Wash., was returning home from a business trip to Ireland and Germany last year when a customs agent at the airport asked him to turn on his cell phone.

He already had told the agent in detail where he had traveled and why, so when the agent began looking over the to-do list and calendar in his phone, Khaki was shocked.

"It was an invasion of privacy," he said. "I thought it was going too far."

Khaki's story joins what seem to be growing numbers of similar reports from people - many of them Muslims or of Middle Eastern or South Asian descent - who say that their laptops, cell phones or other electronic devices were searched or seized at airports or U.S. border crossings, and that they've been questioned extensively.

The heightened scrutiny is prompting concern and raising questions among a diverse array of groups, from Muslim associations to law firms, corporate groups and technology organizations. [Link]