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U.S. Confiscating Data at the Border
PizzaFace writes "U.S. Customs agents have long had broad authority to examine the things a person tries to bring into the country, to prevent the importation of contraband. The agents can conduct their searches without a warrant or probable cause to believe a crime has been committed. In recent years, Customs agents have begun using their authority to insist on copying data brought to the border on laptop computers, cell phones and other devices. The government claims that this intelligence-gathering by Customs is the same as looking in a suitcase. In response the EFF is filing a lawsuit attempting to force the government to reveal its policies on border searches. 'The question of whether border agents have a right to search electronic devices at all without suspicion of a crime is already under review in the federal courts. The lawsuit was inspired by some two dozen cases, 15 of which involved searches of cellphones, laptops, MP3 players and other electronics.'"
Police state anyone? Things are getting worse and worse.
Seriously, this is going overboard. If this starts happening on a large scale, I'm buying a bunch of microSD cards and storing everything important on those instead (easier to hide).
I think more than a few corporations will object to this, though, if only because sensitive data really shouldn't find its way into the hands of these people... who knows what might leak?
OSx86 FTW
As far as I understand, they cannot arrest you, because you haven't committed a crime, but they can refuse you entry into the country.
But IANAL.
Actually, that's the case with the confiscations:
... a year later...
"Hey nice laptop you got there. We need to hrm... search it... will have to take it down to forensics... we'll send it to you when we're done..."
"Where's my laptop?"
"Still searching..."
"Can I get it back"
"No! National security... 9/11... terrorists... child pornography... gay marriage... cats and dogs living together... enough key words yet?"
Presumably the prequel to 1984 would have shown Big Brother to be a charismatic politician preaching what a democratic majority wanted to hear. The need for security only reasonably matched the need to protect against Oceania's enemies... He was respected, and his election was a free choice. He then began to change little things slowly.
Or...
A prior honest President genuinely though the security measures were necessary. Then a corrupt Big Brother saw that the mechanisms created could be exploited and was attracted to power. He then said all the right things and got himself elected. The tools to control were already in place.
Well, today in the US, and especially the UK, those mechanisms are already firmly in place. Even if your current government is not evil, there's nothing stopping the next one so being. With the new powers one can wield what evil person wouldn't want to gain control? One eventually will come to power. It is inevitable.
It's probably already too late.
is also unconstitutional. But these days we are encouraged to snigger, and call 'nuts' the one candidate out of the pack who says that the federal government should be made to obey the Constitution.
So if the Supreme Court has agreed to this and the Customs agents are making copies "for security", then the Supreme Court has ruled that making a digital copy is not stealing. When customs searches my bag, they don't get to keep anything form it unless there is something legal there. SO if they are allowed to make a copy, and that doesn't count as seizure of my property, then my digital copy of some music or a movie isn't theft either because I didn't seize any property. I hope EFF uses this in an RIAA case. The best way to take on a bad policy like this is to apply it to as many things as possible. I wonder if I can make a copy of what is on the customs office computer, if having a digital copy isn't a seziure of property.
We are all just people.
Aside from the privacy and civil rights concerns, this is seriously unacceptable to just about any company with trade secrets. What is the point of the most paranoid security policies on company notebooks for internationally traveling employees, if they can't cross the border without their sensitive data getting searched?
Industrial espionage, including by the US, is a very real concern.
I don't give my business partner access to all my files so now the border agents are demanding access to them. There's sensitive company information in the files. What's to stop some one from hacking their system and gaining access to my company's information? I keep certain machines off the internet to avoid any possibility of hacking, do they do the same? Let's say a border agent copies legally bought music from my MP3 player then posts it on the web, am I responsible since it was my responsibility to keep those files secure and off the net? There's a massive potential for abuse over and above the looking for embarassing photos on some one's hard drive. We aren't talking FBI or CIA here. Most agents are underpaid and poorly trained. There's still a lot of confusion about what's allowed on planes and there is a lot of abuse in body searches. If the agents are already getting their jollies from patting down well known actors then what are the odds they'll be digging through personal files looking for dirt?
and they will keep the device in question.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
You may not have noticed this, but governments generally have rights that don't apply to individuals. For example, the government can legally jail or even kill someone, while you as an individual can not do the same.
And then the RIAA and MPAA will demand that "illegal content" be stopped.
Every special interest group that can tie their interests to computer data will want in after that.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
It's pretty sad when Americans need to travel with blank laptops for fear of having their data seized by US border agents...
Which also brings up the following line of questioning by border guards: "Why are you traveling with a blank laptop? You wouldn't keep a blank laptop around unless you had something to hide."
This guy's the limit!
Looking for data being smuggled over the border? What a ridiculous idea...
Who would go to the trouble of transporting data on physical media, when it can be transmitted over the internet?
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
If I remember correctly, Kevin Mitnick was imprisoned for 5 years, 4.5 of them pre-trial; 8 months of solitary confinement, for copying files "worth" 160k (actual value much less)..
And now its "same as looking in a suitcase"??
obviously "who" does it makes a difference.. The government has your best interests at heart, honestly!!
Rule of thumb: Anything which government confiscates will NOT be given back, EVER, regardless of whether you are innocent or guilty. Cars, computers, cash, houses -- there is no shortage of examples where government has wrongly confiscated the posessions of an innocent person. As government expands in power and revenue year after year, this practice will only multiply. Today, all they have to do is simply accuse a person of (for example) intent to sell drugs, and that person's car is as good as gone. Forever.
In today's age of huge government and absolute power, it is wise to anticipate this. Plan accordingly, because although it isn't statistically likely, you could very well be the next one to be falsely targeted.
Under what jurisdiction are these detention centers? I assume that, since you can be held without trial, access to an attorney, etc. without even having been accused of a crime (because if you are accused then they can just let you in and arrest you on the spot), the detention center must be somewhere outside of US jurisdiction in order for them to be able to strip you of rights that the Constitution and various laws and court cases forbid them to strip from you...
Something doesn't smell right about all of that.
The way I see it, there should be 2 choices: 1.) you are accused of committing a crime, they let you in, you are arrested, and then you get your day in court, or 2.) you are not accused of a crime so they let you and in and you are free to go. There really shouldn't be any middle ground there, if you are US citizen returning to the country.
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
I definitely don't go across the boarder as often as I used to since that experience
Don't look now, but that may just be the entire point. One of the tell-tale marks of authoritarianism is locks on both sides of the border door: not just coming in, but also going out. Clearly, harassing innocent civilians is an effective way to discourage them from crossing the border.
Consider the trend over the past 100 years. Those locks are only going to get stronger, until ultimately, only the power elite will hold the right to come and go.
Ideally, the authoritarian government keeps the subject class ignorant of what's outside the borders. Why? Because hat way, it's a hell of a lot easier to control what the subject class knows and believes.
I'm not sure if you are joking, but I'll bite....
Are you suggesting that the Constitution only provides safeguards and rights for US citizens in America, and not everybody else who might be there? Can I still expect the police to provide the same level as protection to me and my property as they do for others?
If the answer is 'No', then why should anyone other than a US citizen consider complying with your laws - surely they only apply to Americans and not to the rest of us?
Have a look at soylentnews.org for a different view
In other words, don't accuse the government — it just follows the people's wishes...
The people in this case being Big Business(tm) and Rich People(tm).Though I will agree that we've certainly done this to ourselves.
"Bah!" - Dogbert
How is that flamebait? This isn't just searching for contraband, this is looking back through web history files, email and sensitive "thought data" without bothering with either probable cause or a warrant. Any reasonable person has a right to resent this type of intrusion, not to mention confiscating expensive equipment without due process.
More frightening than the act itself is the attitude of creeping intrusiveness justified by people who went through the American educational system. I don't think anyone in the history of the world imagined themselves being part of an emerging police state. In almost every instance it was a gradual process where the principles were acting on some type of perceived imperative. The people involved believed they were justified. The GRU, the Stasi, the SS and a thousand organizations like them started with a social imperative.
Don't think we'll ever be that bad? If there are no checks and balances, no oversight and no way to challenge over-reaching policy what's stopping us from getting there? There has to be a line even for terrorism. This far and no farther. Instead we keep kicking that can farther down the road.
It's not the actual policy. It's not this little thing or that little thing, it's the attitude that the ends justify the means underlying each little step.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
... to image copy one hard drive in a year?
Sheesh! These guys must be totally incompetent idiots if they can't make a copy of a hard drive within a day, and return the laptop. If they think the owner might use that data to commit a future crime, then keep the hard drive and return the rest of the laptop. If they think the owner might commit a crime even without the data, then arrest the owner. Just keeping laptops makes no sense.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I didn't RTFA, but I've heard a lot of buzz about this issue.
I understand wanting to control the export of data, but how could bringing data into the country possible be a security (or otherwise) risk? It's not like fruit or animals, which do pose an ecological risk. What exactly are they looking for? Did the RIAA/MPAA put them up to this?
The government could scan a bazillion laptops and still miss the terrorist communications occurring on the internet, in secret code, encrypted, and embedded in other files, or on CDs sent through the mail. And even then, I'm at a loss for what data could possibly pose a threat to the country.
The supposed terrorists aren't just going to send Osama bin Laden to Ellis Island with his Outlook Contacts Folder unencrypted.
This is about as helpful to the country as electronic voting and bill of rights toiler paper.
Move all sig!
Encrypt everything. Send it back and forth to your home across the internet already encrypted. When the border guards ask you for your papers, present the Nazi pigs a nice clean system.
Face it guys, we have to study how the french did it in WWII and update it for the 21st century. The Nazi party didn't die, it took hold in the U.S.A. and has been slowly asserting itself.
We have to present evidence anonymously because even though we may have freedom of speech, we have to watch out for trade secrets, copyright infringement, and the lawyers. Blow the whistle and lose your home and livelihood, no jail time, nope, just homelessness and poverty. So, they can destroy you without even making you a martyr.
This "game" should not even be played in the United States of America. The fact that you feel the need to hide that which need not be hidden is a true metric of just how far the U.S. has gone down the wrong road.
If the U.S. government was a spouse, the entire world would be telling us to get a divorce on the grounds of an abusive relationship.
Do you really believe that you're sending data over the internet unmonitored right now?
"The US government (as with any other government) is really good at shooting sitting ducks, but when it comes to elusive ferrets they are left behind."
Like they can prevent someone like me, a 125lb. programmer with glasses from boarding a plane with a bottle of water but Osama, oh yea where's Osama?
The defense budget without the two wars is expected to top three quarters of a trillion dollars this fiscal year.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
One cannot blame British doctors for realizing the obvious. It is unproductive (from a cold capitalist point of view) to treat the old, the fat, and the smoking. But they treat them anyway because treatment is paid for by the people and guaranteed by the state. The situation is different in the US, where health insurance companies routinely deny coverage to these "risk groups" and even people with health insurance cannot obtain approval from their HMOs for medically-necessary procedures. The funny part is that the vast majority of those opposing nationalized health care in the US will experience on their own skin the ugly side of the "health maintenance" business.
Wow! A real Commie-agitator on Slashdot... Somewhere an empty noose is swinging on a lamp-post waiting for you...
Yes, there is a strong push towards it. Those "wishes" don't make it right, however.
No, you are confusing things. "To each according to his need" is a Communist, rather than Socialist ideal. Nothing wrong with it in itself, except that all known attempts to achieve it in practice involved mass-murder on unprecedented scale. Which is why you belong on that lamp-post I mentioned at the beginning.
There is nothing wrong, except "free" is impossible. Somebody (the rich minority) is paying for it. But the majority is voting for it so, of course, the boiling will only get worse — it is self-perpetuating. The only thing stopping the majority from voting themselves more and more of the minority's money, are some scruples and the minority's protests. Those barriers continue to erode as the temperature in the pot is rising.
Yes, I was. And the only reason, I lived my childhood in a "free" kindergarten, was that our Commie-government would not let us escape to this "brutal" Capitalist world. It was not until 1990-ies, that we were able to emigrate.
When I speak against Socialism, I know, what I'm talking about. You, on the other hand, are posting out of your ass.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Barbara Felden claims prior art on the flip phone, sues Motorola, Nokia.