This isn't actually new news, and has been the policy for quite a while (I'm not defending it, because I also find it pretty dispicable). I have no idea how many people have actually had their computes confiscated.
That said, I treat something like this like I would any catastrophic event like fire or theft: Be prepared. I regularly ghost my hard drive (like, every couple of days), and I definitely would do it before an overseas trip. I use stock computers, so I could always get another one in short order, and just replace the hard drive with my backup. It would suck to have my laptop confiscated for no reason at all, but it's just as bad to have it swiped at the coffee shop.