Much has been made of the Apple MacBook Air's smallish hard disk (and even smaller flash memory drive). I use one regularly and haven't found the 80-gigabyte drive to be an impediment, but I'm using it primarily for e-mail, Web surfing and writing - nothing that requires really heavy lifting on the part of the CPU or for storage. However, I think that the MacBook Air and computers like it may represent the future of computing for international travelers.

In April, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the U.S. government can search and confiscate travelers’ laptops, mobile phones and other devices without probable cause. Reliable sources indicate that the government sometimes copies the contents of hard disks and returns the confiscated hardware after a few weeks or months.

What that means for anyone passing through U.S. customs is that all of the data stored on the laptop or mobile phone you’re carrying might be taken from you for any reason that a customs official deems appropriate. Trade secrets, financial data, your e-mail, your list of passwords, contact information for everyone with whom you conduct business and everything else on your device can be lost in a moment’s time.

That’s where the MacBook Air and other “light” computers come in. This computer was clearly designed for an online world and, by extension, a completely hosted world in which your e-mail data store, your word processing files, your spreadsheets and all other important content are stored in the cloud. Because there are a growing number of hosted e-mail, application and storage vendors that offer business-grade capabilities and low prices, using a mobile device with little local storage is quite feasible and increasingly advisable. While the MacBook Air does not include over-the-air broadband capabilities, many of its competitors do.

In short, if you’re traveling outside the U.S. with a laptop or other mobile device, you should be prepared for the slight chance that you could lose it upon your return to the U.S., but that doesn’t mean you and your company have to lose your confidential data, as well.

Michael Osterman is principal analyst of Osterman Research.