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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.
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?
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?
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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!!
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
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
"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?