I cross dozens of borders every year, not only in the West but also in places like Balkans and the Caucasus, and not a single time have the authorities done anything with my laptop, internet tablet or a smartphone. I haven't ever even needed to demonstrate that they boot up in the airport security checks.

Apart from that, I agree that carrying sensitive information on a mobile device has its risks. Generally you should ensure two things:

• You have backups of everything, and an easy way to access those also from abroad
• All sensitive information on your device is encrypted (preferably the whole homedir)

...when these are covered properly you can feel quite secure traveling with your devices. If a device gets stolen or lost you only lose the device, not the data it contains. And since everything is encrypted there is low risk of the stolen data getting abused.

Having easy ways to achieve these two points with Maemo devices would be great.