SUV SKETCH

Zempel had drawn an SUV covered by a cozy, with its mirrors marked as "ears."

"My sketchbook puzzled her," Zempel said. "It was a cartoon sketch. They couldn't understand what I was doing. She said, Just what were you doing in Canada? We think you're engaged in some kind of copyright infringement."

She said she and the CBP agent then had a "lively discussion" over Zempel's status as an artist and a professor at Fordham University in New York City.

"I had to spell Fordham for her. She left the room to see if she could find me on the college's Web site."

While she was out, Zempel found her college ID and showed it to the agent when she came back.

"Somehow being a college professor made it all OK. She said, Welcome back to the U.S.' I was allowed to leave."

CIVIL RIGHTS

Zemple said that before the incident she didn't know border guards could search computers and other digital devices "without reasonable cause ... I was surprised to learn all your civil rights are suspended. It was a form of intimidation."

U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) recently introduced a bill that would prevent Customs and Border Protection officials from conducting border searches and seizures of laptops and other electronic devices when U.S. citizens return from international travel unless the agents have justifiable reason to do so.

Customs and Border Protection spokesman Theodore Woo said he could not discuss the specifics of the interview process Zempel went through.

"CBP officers may, at times, inspect a person's belongings to determine whether or not items are admissible or are illegal."

Woo didn't say how a sketch of a car could trigger a border guard's suspicion of copyright infringement. But he did say agents are trained in trademark and copyright laws.

"It's a part of a CBP officer's training. Time is set aside for intellectual-property-rights training."

The agency's role is to keep the country's borders safe while at the same time enforcing many rules and regulations, he said.