Laptops Searched and Confiscated at U.S. Border

An anonymous reader writes, "According to an article in the New York Times, the Association of Corporate Travel Executives is asking the U.S. government for more detailed guidelines on when and why a laptop gets confiscated at the U.S. border, which, anecdotally, is happening more often. The story includes a report from a business traveler who had her laptop confiscated over a year ago and has yet to have it returned." According to the article, a knowledgeable lawyer said: "[Border guards] don't need probable cause to perform... searches under the current law. They can do it without suspicion or without really revealing their motivations." And an ACTE exective is quoted, "Potentially, this is going to have a real effect on how international business is conducted."

Comments

Required to enter your password?

[sith]

My laptop requires a password to wake from sleep or decrypt the contents of my home directory. Since this is seemingly not a search-warrant situation, am I in any way legally required to type / provide my password? What are they (legally at least) able to do if I refuse?

Re:Required to enter your password?

[Anonymous Coward]

My laptop requires a password to wake from sleep or decrypt the contents of my home directory. Since this is seemingly not a search-warrant situation, am I in any way legally required to type / provide my password? What are they (legally at least) able to do if I refuse?

If you are a US citizen I suppose the US criminal code and possibly anti terrorist legislation act apply. If you are not a US citizen they can pretty much do whatever they bloody well want with the worst case scenario being that you get dragged into a Learjet sporting a fake civil registration which flies you to some US allied country in the Middle East or one of those covert jails in E-Europe for 'harsh interrogation'.

Re:Sounds like a job for...

[failure-man]

Yes but, can Captain Encryption get me my computer back?
 
Better yet, can Captain Encryption keep the G-men from stealing it in the first place?

Globalization Demands Open Borders

[BeBoxer]

For all the love that the US government and big corporations seem to have for 'free trade' and 'globalization', they don't seem interested in open borders. I wonder why not? It's OK for corporations to ship jobs around the world to wherever labor conditions are the most favorable to them. But if workers try to migrate to where the hiring conditions are better, they are demonized as 'illegals'. It's OK for corporations to buy supplies from any country, getting the best deal in the process. But if consumers try to buy products from other parts of the world, that's a no-no (witness Lik-Sang). True globalization demands open borders. Fire the border guards. Tear down the fences.

Some will reply and tell me this is crazy. How it can never work. That somehow we just have to have walls. Why? And if walls are so good and necessary, would you support building them between the States? Why not?

My Lack of Surprise

[TubeSteak]

Last week, an informal survey by the [Association of Corporate Travel Executives], which has about 2,500 members worldwide, indicated that almost 90 percent of its members were not aware that customs officials have the authority to scrutinize the contents of travelers' laptops and even confiscate laptops for a period of time, without giving a reason.

Customs can scrutinize & confiscate almost anything that isn't a diplomat or under diplomatic seal.

Don't like it, get the law changed.

Otherwise, all they'll get is a policy change... which is the equivalent of a "I promise" but without any garauntee or accountability.

Re:My Lack of Surprise

[Andy Gardner]

Fly a plane into a building.

Re:My Lack of Surprise

[Lemmy Caution]

What I think this shows up is the simplicity of people who think that globalization in any way makes the nation-state obsolete. The fact that we cross national borders more often, in the context of globalization and everything that makes globalization possible, reinforces the jurisdiction of the nation-state over people. Globalization, as currently practiced, really relies on the modern state in order to function, and enhances the position of that state.

Scary

[camperdave]

It's getting so that I don't want to travel to the States any more. They're getting waay too uptight.

Re:Scary

[Simon Garlick]

I've declined three employer-funded trips to business meetings and conferences in the USA in the past couple of years. The thought of having some jackbooted stormtroo^H^H^Homeland Security officer with a German shepherd on a leash screaming at me to produce my "PAPERS! PAPERS!" just turns me off. The USA just isn't a place I want to visit any more.

What's supposed to happen and what does happen

[hackwrench]

What's supposed to happen and what does happen are two different things. What processes are in place to ensure that is what happens?

confiscation without a reason is called . . .

[rev_sanchez]

stealing. The US border guards are stealing computers. How about we make them stop stealing things?

The logic of bureaucracy

[gettingbraver]

If the paperwork isn't filled out, it didn't happen!

Re:Sounds like a job for...

[Sqwubbsy]

Spot on. Alexander Hamilton, first Secretary of the Treasury, made the Coast Guard the cornerstone of his plan for collecting revenues. There's even an urban legend that the Coast Guard 'Cutters' (first boats commissioned by the U.S.) were to fight 'revenue cutters'.
Because this was part of international commerce, it was outside the protection of domestic rights.
Another example of this is how enemy combatants are typically not covered under domestic rights such as right to a lawyer, speedy trial, habeas corpus, etc. Somehow, this has been forgotten or ignored recently.

(Of course, I'm sure /.groupthink will mod me for speaking truth, but then, what else is new?)

Re:Friend coming back from Thailand talked about i

[RajivSLK]

They _are_ comfortable with emacs in a text window, right? That's what _I_ boot into :-)
 
::Pop quiz::
If the customs officials have no clue what your computer is doing, their likely reaction would be to:

A) Pat you on the back, apologize for wasting your time, and send you on your way.
B) Put you in a holding cell while they spent hours attempting to figure out your notebook.

How does appearing like you have something to hide help you at all? Best to make it boot into an innocuous windows partition.

great business model

[misanthrope101]

Since the government doesn't need warrants/probable cause/oversight anymore, it would be easy to set up a business to sell "confiscated" laptops second-hand. With no oversight, there is no need for record-keeping, no way to see if someone is abusing their power, etc. Just yell "You hate America!" at anyone who questions how you bought your new house. It's worked so far. The only people who believe in old-fashioned due process are apparently terrorist appeasers, if you believe the dominant Republicans and Fox News. Can anyone think of an argument FOR government oversight, warrants, and due process that would be considered persuasive in the current political environment? We seem to have given up altogether on the idea that government is dangerous to freedom.

What happened to all the "conservatives"? Am I the only conservative who actually believes in limited government? That may be the most tangible benefit of a Democratic victory in an (any) election--the conservatives would be (ostensibly, if dishonestly) anti-government again. Right now we're stuck with the dichotomy that government-funded healthcare is creeping totalitarianism, but government torture is innocuous. Strange world we live in.

Re:The REAL truth

[chortick]

Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. While most police forces are still subject to civilian control, Customs officials in the US and Canada increasingly do not operate transparently. In the absence of clear civilian control, they and all other police forces inevitably descend into corruption and abuse.

Western police are not immune to this. "Our cops don't do that!"... BS. I don't know why we (westerners) think that we're inherently better human beings than say, Soviet Russian police. Nothing about us makes our societies better, it is our political and economic freedom that has made us better. Define power roles and remove the controls... the "Stanford Prison Experiment" could easily have been a prototype for Abu Ghraib.

When you consider that Customs officials increasingly don't have to answer to anyone, and there is no longer any useful process of complaint or appeal, it is inevitable that they will abuse their power. After all, you could be a terrorist/communist/anarchist/whatever it was 150 years ago.

As for customs guards, the fact that you're a business traveller, earn 10x what they do, and that this is the only context in which they will ever have power over you will surely cause them to abuse their authority. This is human nature.

You emphasized the wrong part

[mrchaotica]

No person shall... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law

It does not apply only to US citizens, and it does not apply only within the borders of the US. The US government shall not do this to anyone, anywhere. Full stop. End of fucking discussion!

Why the fuck is this so damn hard for everyone -- including federal judges -- to understand?!!!