For those that don't know Chris Walla of Death Cab for Cutie had a hard drive containing music files confiscated by US Customs a few weeks ago while crossing the border from Canada.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection rep Mike Milne expressed bewilderment and "ire" at the chain of events that followed from what Milne calls a "standard operating procedure." Said Milne:

"I want to point out very emphatically that the U.S. government, this administration, the Department of Homeland Security and specifically [USCBP] does not censor musical content coming into the United States. Period. That's not the reason this hard drive was kept.

"We followed standard operating procedure...and when you start talking about...Guantánamo Bay [as Walla did in his blog post], you get my ire up. I go on Google News, and I see 125 different news stories out there with the headline 'Homeland Security Seizes Musician's Music', and it strikes me as unfair. And I will be spending the rest of the day trying to contact those people-- The Associated Press, the record company [Barsuk], and Mr. Walla-- to ask them if they can set the record straight."

Milne went on to claim that Walla's drive was taken simply because it was "commercial merchandise" brought to the wrong crossing station without proper documentation.

It also seems Customs has already attempted to contact the person from whom the drive was taken-- Hippowest studio engineer Brandon Brown-- on three occasions to say that the drive was cleared and is available to pick up. Speaking to MTV.com, Brown denied this. "Obviously, I would've gotten the drive if I would've heard from them," he said.

Very interesting indeed ... it seems they failed to file the proper paperwork and never returned phone calls from US Customs. oops.