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Examining the Search and Seizure of Electronics at Airports
Angus McKraken brings us a Washington Post story about how travelers are seeking more well-defined policies and rules about the search and seizure of electronic devices by U.S. Customs officials. The EFF has already taken legal action over similar concerns. We recently discussed the related issue of requiring people to disclose their passwords in order to search their private data. From the Post:
"Maria Udy, a marketing executive with a global travel management firm in Bethesda, said her company laptop was seized by a federal agent as she was flying from Dulles International Airport to London in December 2006. Udy, a British citizen, said the agent told her he had 'a security concern' with her. 'I was basically given the option of handing over my laptop or not getting on that flight,' she said. 'I was assured that my laptop would be given back to me in 10 or 15 days,' said Udy, who continues to fly into and out of the United States. She said the federal agent copied her log-on and password, and asked her to show him a recent document and how she gains access to Microsoft Word. She was asked to pull up her e-mail but could not because of lack of Internet access. With ACTE's help, she pressed for relief. More than a year later, Udy has received neither her laptop nor an explanation."
Y'all just keep on sleepwalking, the government is taking care of everything...
. . . this is all part of that One Laptop Per Child thingie . . .happens all the time at airports, or roadside checkpoints in Africa . . .
. . . nothing new here, move along, sans laptop . . .
If you RTFA, the examples appear to be cases of traveling while being Muslim, Middle Eastern or Asian. Any examples of Nordic blondes or Irish Redheads getting the same treatment?
Lets see them figure out how to access Microsoft Word without their fancy "Start" button.
If sharing a song makes you a pirate, what do I have to share to be a ninja?
The agent probably booted up World of Warcraft .. to check for terrorist activities of course
- guess she just has to wait til he gets his nightelf to lvl 70
Angus McKraken brings us a Washington Post story about...
Story submitter, are you related to Phil McKraken? I used to work with a guy named Phil McKraken. Well, I didn't really work *with* Phil but I heard him being paged on the overhead PA system quite often. He was paged at least once a day so I think he must have been fairly important.
The chinese did it so it's ok for America to do it - Idiot
Mobile devices have very large storage, which can be compressed to varying degrees at will, better than 50% averaged across all data types. It wouldn't be very hard to make a filesystem (or other storage type) for any of them that stores an equal amount of fake data, with a fake password, with everything compressed in the same space as an uncompressed set of real data. Such a filesystem could look just like a real filesystem in every way, including total size, but hide the real data behind fake data and fake password. If it's all encrypted, it would be very hard to tell the difference, especially in an airport screening line.
Of course, that would probably violate some law. And "only the bad guys" would do it. But if those bad guys actually have something to hide that also violates those security laws, then of course they'll break that law's "coverup" prohibitions, too.
Terrorist and other criminal orgs with enough resources to be a real threat, and carry notebooks and phones around on flights they don't just blow up, will be able to afford such a filesystem. And once there is one in the wild, anyone will get it, probably for free.
So this is yet another stupid simcurity (simulated security) measure. It's intimidation of everyone to scare us into thinking our government is "doing something severe" to terrorists, when it's just abusing our own freedom. While wasting everyone's time, eroding our trust of our government, and letting the terrorists go free.
Sounds like they're already using sophisticated decoys at DHS: fake security to hide the dangerous absence of any real security.
--
make install -not war
Just ship the laptop/cellphone/pda to your destination first so it will be there prior to your arrival. Ship it back prior to your departure and avoid the headaches. With cheap laptops like EEE PC, it's a minor business expense to have a travelling light laptop shipped back and forth.
If you don't want your stuff taken can't you just tell them to fuck off and leave the airport. That is if you're in your own country I mean.
myself, but what if you shipped your laptop to and from wherever you were going by
FedEx or whatever?
i don't travel much and probably wouldn't take my laptop anyway, so i don't worry about it, but this is beyond intrusive and annoying.
"To stop the terrorists."
A security guard's pay is minimal. They're just doing whatever they can to make ends meet.
What a great way to find out about company secrets. And if they are on an encrypted volume? Dare you travel there anymore?
where a traveler would be better off shipping his or her laptop separately rather than trying to take it on a plane. This is starting to get out of hand: confiscating personal property without cause? What the Hell? The government must be running short on laptops, I guess. Twenty years ago I'd have said this could never happen here, if anyone had asked. Sorry to see that I'd have been wrong.
.44 Magnum and a box of cartridges in her suitcase. Nobody noticed, nobody cared, she didn't even think twice about it (I'll tell you though, had there been any boxcutter-wielding bastards on that plane she'd have killed them all. You don't know my aunt.) Can you imagine trying that today? One group of Islamic assholes causes some damage and just look at what we've done to ourselves.
In 1984, I remember my aunt flew from Chicago to Boston, with a
I'm still proud of my country but not as much as I used to be. That bothers me. What also bothers me is that bad behavior on the part of the TSA and other government organs is in danger of becoming institutionalized, which will make it very difficult to eliminate.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I'd say use TrueCrypt for all files you want to keep private, with a hidden volume within. Plausable deniability and you can hand over the password there and then for the dummy volume. With the current release and the ability to encrypt whole disks from boot, there's no reason not to use it.
Screw them. I know I'd not give over a password to my laptop on principle, even if it meant a lost flight.
When he took it and you were "guaranteed" you would get it back in a few days, ask for it in writing, on headed paper, signed by the guy who took your laptop and his supervisor.
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
Can't believe this happening in a country which promotes itself as a global exporter of freedom. Do Americans just sit at home and watch this as just another ironic comedy on their TVs?
And I'm pretty sure you don't get your airfare back. And you probably get on a list that makes sure it will happen every single time you ever try to fly again in the future. The stupid thing here is she did everything they asked, and they still stole her laptop. I can't see any rationalization for that.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
Each component of the system, that is supposed to be separate, is in bed with those it is supposed to be a check against. This wouldn't surprise anyone who has paid attention to the way that police officers are treated by judges and prosecutors, especially in "liberal areas" for abusing their authority. In places like Northern Virginia, one of the bluest parts of the country, the prosecutors won't touch a cop who shoots and kills someone in a criminal way while on duty. The very argument for giving them their extra powers over the public is that they're professionals with how they use it, and yet they're more likely to be treated like a well-meaning retarded child with a handgun rather than a professional for whom human error should almost invariably be regarded at first blush as criminal negligence.
The prosecutors will rarely try them, the judges will rarely sanction prosecutors who do things like hound a guy they know is innocent, etc. Why? Because in general, the people in law enforcement, the DA's office and the judiciary are bad apples, with a few good ones mixed in. This applies to federal agencies as well.
Just assume *all* items not directly related to the actual flight will be taken. Ship in your tools to your site via fedex/ups/usps and avoid the hassle ( and less to carry ).
---- Booth was a patriot ----
This is a very good thing.
Not only will it promote the whole idea of Freedom and help spread democracy in a non violent way, but as a result we will see that people will stop carrying around laptops or other portable storage devices.
And THAT is a good thing. We will soon see a sharp decline of missing or stolen sensitive personal or company data, so this is good for our privacy.
Instead people will start using VPN to get to their data.
Privacy is terrorism.
A) Work with all documents remotely.
B) If you really need to have your documents locally, just get a Mac and use Bootcamp and set it up to have one of the partitions blank, or nearly blank (a "dummy" bootup). So when they ask you to show your documents, you can show them that its a blank laptop. I doubt that they would be able to tell tell that there are other partitions on there.
The important point is that you need to appease these customs people on the spot. DO NOT show any sort of defiance. Just play along and show them whatever they need to know in a calm and collected manner. Its very easy to fool them. Yes you can beat the system - it just takes a bit of planning.
If this keeps up I'll just bring my data on a USB key drive, and if they start searching or seizing those I'll hide it inside something innocuous. Lots of jobs I don't even take my computer any more because I just use my customer's computer.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
With all of this crap happening, I believe less people wants to do business with the united states. They got over-paranoid at trying to control what goes in-and-out of their country, and it irritates people over time. I really don't want to flamebait, but this is a racist issue? How many stories like that have we heard in the past years of people from the middle east having problem crossing the borders of the states?
Oh, and my laptop might be tricky to search... I wonder what procedures they have in place for people travelling with computers running alternative operating systems or simply in a language the officer cannot understand. 200 translators waiting behind the security booth? sounds practical.
She shouldda waited for that Supreme Court case that said divulging your password was a violation of your 5th amendment right.
While you are right doing so will take so long that you will miss your plane. In fact creating/using tight time contrainst is one of the three main ingredinence for any kind con jobs to cheat you out of your property.
Well one more reason for me to remove the US off possible holiday destinations. Of course the poor guy was on a buisiness trip and had no choice.
Martin
... of, say, the rate that a cheapy 15" Toshiba back-to-school special vs. a pretty 17" MacBook running Leopard? I'm just wondering what sort of laptop the TSA is shopping for these days.
You're strongly advised against that because you're also not allowed to lock your luggage any more, and the strong possibility of it getting stolen. Ship overnight insured, or just take your data on a key drive and use a computer that's already there when you land.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
Well, they free you from your laptop. Isn't that a way to increase your freedom?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Depends what the definition of "freedom" (nee is) is.
Yes and Yes to your questions.
It's caused by the mixing of functions of our government; legislative, executive, judicial. Used to be the police, at all levels, were executive. Judges disciplined them severely for dishonesty or even stupidity and incompetence. No more, police are now Officers of the Court, and judges close ranks behind their employees (see Terry Schiavo).
TSA is just another police agency and the judge you appear before will defend ANYTHING they do.
Yes, now we're just another banana republic, just look at the power of a Home Owners Association.
What are three things I'll give the Government if they jack my notebook. =)
...but even so, I keep most of my important documents stored securely in various places online. True, there is always the possibility of my data being compromised, but that's why I also sign myself up regularly for various fraud-prevention programs, etc. I do this mainly to keep from losing vital data in the event of a disaster. Everyone knows we've been having a lot of them in the mid-west of late. I even work for a company that offers a hosted computing solutions for offices who don't want any of their data out in the wild--even in their own buildings. It's a good thing, really...and I'm certain it is the future.
The only time I ever traveled by plane, I took NOTHING with me. NOTHING...well save for my ID and an American Express card. I didn't trust the folks at the airports then and this was pre-9-11. I figure wherever I travel (in other words where I would be willing to travel) there's going to be a Wal-Mart and financial facilities. If I need more clothes, go to Wal-Mart. Twenty to thirty bucks to buy an outfit most of the time. If I need money, I go to an ATM or bank.
Today, many hotels out there have business centers and there are always public libraries or internet cafes. That should easily take care of most data needs. If not, someone already suggested Fed-Ex'ing your equipment ahead of yourself. Great idea.
Obviously, we can't control our fascist, 1984-style government, but we can easily dodge some of their asshole tactics with a bit of pre-thinking.
P.S. Why don't I carry cash on plane you ask? Because most money (unless it is brand new which would throw up red flags at the security checkpoint anyway) contains cocaine residue. Believe it or not, I swear the percentage is staggering. They have machines and dogs at most airports that can detect it easily, and then your ass is theirs, literally.
In the article, it says that Radius went to an encrypted network to access company data. Given the recent news of stolen laptops, and the ensuing uproar over the data contained on them, it seems to me that everyone should take this approach. There are very few places that I go in the course of business that don't have some kind of network access. Even the hot dog stand down the street has free wifi, for crying out loud! Of course, you need an access scheme sufficient to keep thieves and DHS agents out of your database, but that's a solved problem with revocable certs, etc.
The note about going through the recent documents log and browser history has me concerned, though. I may set the defaults on my work machine to never-save on the history. I can think of any number of services to archive bookmarks online. The idea here is that your travel machine may be lost, stolen, broken, or compromised at any time, and we should behave as such.
It sucks that we have to protect ourselves from unreasonable search and seizure by our government, but we'll just have to deal with it for now. Not to get off on a rant here, but I think the Second Amendment should be interpreted to include strong encryption. The writers of the Constitution put that in there as a safeguard against jackbooted government thugs. In today's world, I see no political difference between a Kentucky Long Rifle and AES-128.
I fear you have misphrased your question. From Europe, where I live, it appears that the USA is getting more and more like a banana republic every day. Previously I would have considered 'USA' and 'banana republic' to be mutually exclusive, but I have had to change that opinion.
In a situation like this, it is best to remember that the laptop is just a tool for accessing the data, and not primarily a storage for data.
It would be a better alternative to have the data stored on an internationally accessible website in an encrypted format. Then when you need to work, get a laptop or an internet cafe where you can run your own programs. Download the encryption program from the website. Download your data. Work it and when finished, re-encrypt the new data and upload it to the website.
Yes, I know, all websites are international, ect.... But this isn't college. You want to use a website that isn't going to draw the attention of the people who are monitoring your internet session. Yes, you say that I'm being paranoid. Shit, grow up, places like Singapore, China, and Malaysia, and many others, exist where people just like you are going to be monitored. Learn to live with it.
And learn how to get work done discretely, effectively, and privately while being monitored by paranoid, mentally-defective assholes who have the authority to do any fucking thing that they want, and not a clue of what to do. (like Americans in uniforms).
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
I wouldn't expect the police to be capable enough or organised enough to ever retun it though. So they'd get one of my old 2GB or 6Gb disks while the "business" data is shipped separately as others have suggested or carried in hold luggage, with lots of bubblewrap around it.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
The answer, of course, is to rely on your employer. Let me explain.
Go ahead and fight them. I mean - do not let them search your laptop until forced to do so. Cite your company's information as the reason. Perhaps individual privacy is gone but we still have some sanctity for corporate data. It doesn't even have to be trademark/copyright/legally protected data. It just has to be data that your company deems 'private and confidential'. If people start missing flights because of over-ambitious TSA agents, eventually, businesses will start screaming about these searches....if they aren't already. Not only are they overly intrusive but they are causing losses in a very real way. Measurable losses.
Anyone from Oracle or MSFT read this post? How would you feel about your laptop being held like this? How about someone from Adobe or Boeing? What about the big-3 car companies? Consulting companies?
There are lots of businesses that require international travel and I am betting they don't want some $10.50/hr TSA employee reading your laptop anymore than you do. I expect employers to enter the fray any second now. They will not stand for this unless there are some checks and balances. They have no interest in writing off confiscated assets because of over zealous TSA agents and they are (unfortunately) our best defense.
With the exchange rate, I can understand why tourists would want to visit New York, etc...
With the inhumane and degrading treatment they must endure, I can understand why they wouldn't.
Won't *someone* think of the Tour Operators????
Technology -- No Place For Wimps! Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Chatroom -- http://www.wemissjerry.org
Who is to say what they do with the data once copied on the computer. European countries are already paranoid that the USA is snooping their companies to hand over data to US firms. I doubt this will do anything to reassure them.
Truth is, this is likely to encourage companies to a: use a securId on their computers or b: not to put corporate data on the computer and make it only accessible via a corporate VPN. Also, this is likely to make Toronto and Vancouver more popular as hubs for people not stopping in the USA. I know a fair amount of Canadians who would pay a bit extra just to avoid having to transit through the states because of the "warm welcome" of DHS. Nothing is worse that having to go though immigrations twice when flying to Canada (once in the USA and once in Canada).
Between the war in Iraq, the alienating of our allies and discouraging people flying through the USA, unless as a final destination, I can't say our government is helping our country's economy one bit.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
The US has always seemed to be in the business of exporting freedom to other countries. Apparently we are exporting too much of it, especially since 2001. Maybe we need to create some more locally?
Nowadays, people who could have made a real change by marching in the streets, burning tires and protesting these horrible things, simply type away furiously, and think that someone cares.
The Internet is a microscopic, meaningless medium for message delivery, and nothing proves it better than Ron Paul. You want to make a change? Stop blogging, making videos and writing articles, and start fighting with legislation, with money, with burning tires and real 100,000 people marches. The Internet created this idiotic illusion that a bunch of people supporting each other can make a difference. Well here's your fucking wake-up call. Reality has not changed.
I am not from the US, and what's "worse" I am from Israel, but it saddens me to see your nation giving up so many values that has made it great.
AND IT'S YOUR FUCKING FAULT, BECAUSE YOU ARE NOT DOING ANYTHING.
My Starcraft 2 Blog
The "grab first, explain never" power game is really nothing new. The communists of the Eastern Block used to do that to everyone who crossed the border. It was just a way of showing everybody that not only the border agents can break the law at will, but they will do it in your face just to show you that they can screw up your trip and you are powerless. Completely at their mercy. Most of the items "seized" at border crossings became personal property of the agents, as it was most probably the case with the laptop discussed in this article. It was revealed at some point that border agents sometimes did not pick up their paychecks for months, they made a lot more money from selling "seized" items.
This is nothing more that one of the first power games that a police state plays on law-abiding citizens.
When a military-minded government has no enemy to fight, the very citizens it governs become the enemy.
The screeners at Dulles are the rudest I've encountered anywhere. It's like they're pissed off about life. By contrast, the screeners at BWI up the road are fine.
At the Dulles airport, they make crap up and just hassle you because they can. You feel like you're in East Germany in 1961.
But what can you do?
The unfortunately part is Dulles in the 60's and 70's was always a joy to fly in and out of. As recently as the late 90's I used to take my kids there to watch the planes take off and land. It was a fun way to kill a sunday afternoon.
Now of course, Airports are beyond miserable.
Heres a good article from the IEEE Computer Society entitled "Setting Boundaries at Borders: Reconciling Laptop Searches and Privacy." The article discusses United States v. Arnold Federal and other precedent. Arnold, a federal district court opinion on a motion to suppress evidence, appears to have come out the right way. To add my own 2 cents, why would the fear of contraband be more intense at the border when the speed of information transfer on the internet has made such concerns all but irrelevant?
Why have 1 person driving a backhoe when you could employ 20 with shovels?
You don't burn tires because burning tires, by itself, does anything. The government doesn't care how many tires you burn. They just shoot you with rubber bullets (or real bullets, or fire hoses) and move on.
You burn tires because when you burn tires and the government shoots you, you get in the newspaper, and the article talks about what act of the government you found so egregious that you picked a sure-to-lose fight with its better-armed agents.
There's a reason we don't use fire hoses anymore - and it's not because (directly) it's inhumane. We don't do it because it generates too much press.
The internet lets you have the same effect as burning tires without having to get shot first. The real media is lazy. They don't want to have to go down to the National Mall every time somebody burns a tire any more than you really want to go down there and burn tires. They would much prefer to sit in their comfy office, read blogs, and report on what people are blogging about. You can get the same press with blogging nowadays as you can get with tire burning.
paintball
Insist on clearing it with your FSO -- facility security officer. Call your facility security officer, and say that a TSA employee is asking for access to your laptop, and that you have no evidence of their 'need to know' to access your non-classified but limited distribution military project data. That way you have started the paper trail to be reported to DSS, at least. When you return, remember to ask your FSO if they need anything from you for a report to DSS. Hopefully you can push the whole problem to DSS, where it belongs -- they should handle unauthorized access to military data, especially if done under threat of force. They can report it to FBI and relevant military intelligence.
One could argue that traveling to the United States while being Muslim/Arabic does count as self-inflicted harm. I'm reminded of the movie Don't Be A Menace To South Central While Drinking Your Juice In The Hood* where the protagonists are arrested for being black on a Wednesday. Being possibly Muslim while crossing the US border is not desired. Of course, not being an Islam suspect still doesn't keep you from getting the full criminal treatment with mugshot and fingerprint. Y'know, because everyone abroad is an evil Commie Nazi terrorist hell-bent on committing crime in the USA.
Let's face it, foreigners aren't particularly welcome in the States, especially when they don't look Christian. At least as far as the borders are concerned. Once you're in people suddenly revert back to the friendly, extroverted, slightly obtrusive Americans everyone knows. When you try to leave the country, however, it's back to hoping you make it past the scary, armed, people-abducting special police.
It really ruins the whole experience to the point where I'm going to stay the hell away from the States for the time being. Going through the current paranoid customs process once was scary and degrading enough.
* Amazingly a Wayan Brothers movie that does contain some good jokes.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Can't believe this happening in a country which promotes itself as a global exporter of freedom.
I'm sorry sir, but we are currently experiencing a freedom trade deficit. If you would like freedom, I suggest handing over the laptop and continuing on to a country we have democratized.
-US Customs
Do not fold, spindle or mutilate.
It's a shame that we can't profit from the weak US Dollar but hey, Canada has a cheap currency as well. I think they're less aggressively paranoid at the borders, too. Okay, it's colder than in the States, but at least you don't have to expect that some customs officer steals your laptop.
Just make sure that your flight doesn't make a stop in the States.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
These same invasive procedures have been in place in Israel for years. If you're "Flagged" by Airport security, they confiscate your Laptop, Phone, and Camera, and proceed to copy all of the media. It's invasive and unjustified - Just an excuse to feed their intelligence machine.
I guess that's just the cost of "democracy" in the Middle East.
This is the SECOND time I've posted this advice:
Use Linux
Use and encrytped drive.
Have a "functional" environment that is unencrypted that has nothing more challenging than an email about how you think U.S. government is doing everything right and how the shrub is gods ear piece.
We need to do what the French did in WWII. When the Nazi's ask for your papers, make sure you show them nice pleasant things. Transmit everything back and forth over the internet (encrypted locally).
The Nazi movement, or The Nazis began to take over the USA starting with Roy Cohn and Senator McCarthy in the '50s, through Nixon, Reagan, Bush I/II.
Can ANYONE dispute that this description:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totalitarianism
Does not describe what is becoming of the U.S.A, the U.K. and a lesser extent the rest of Europe?
The irony is that while Hitler and his armies were defeated in WWII, the power brokers and players that created him live on in power.
Check the back of your next airplane ticket, or the folder it's in. Once you enter an airport, you are no longer on US territory, you are in international territory, and you aren't protected by the US Constitution. Therefore, anything that is permissible in international law is permitted by airport authorities, and you don't have the protections against abuse that the Constitution provides. I learned that in the 80's, well before the idea of hijacking an airplane to use as a weapon came about.
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
some one with, say a mac laptop, from putting a malicious PC virus on their laptop, & letting the screeners copy that to their databanks?
Republican leadership = Idiocracy
Unless it is completely unavoidable, stop travelling to the US. IMHO, tourism to the US should be completely boycotted. Personally, unless it becomes the de facto standard, I will be trying to avoid visiting any countries that include any fingerprinting or other invasive biometrics for tourists.
Boycott, Boycott, Boycott. Hit them where it hurts.
I would just like to say that while I have not used either extensively yet, I have accounts on Linode.com and Hostgator.com and both have given me free upgrades since signup.
I quit my old company because not only were they incompetent, they also turned out to be charging me premium rates for what was now less than their lowest level package.
Seeing this thread I checked Hostgator and glory be, 600GB of storage space where there only used to be IIRC 200GB.
Matt
Slashdot readers have an obligation to encrypt large amounts of data on their laptops!
If only criminals use encryption, it will soon be illegal for anyone to encrypt.
This is exactly why I encrypt all my data with the secure ROT13 algorithm.
Twice.
Lots of people here have suggested using encryption etc. I was feeling rather smug with my new laptop which has the disk fully encrypted (no partition nonsense either - I boot off a USB stick), but I'm not sure it's a particularly good idea anymore. After all when my laptop is turned on without the USB key in, it gives two loud beeps and an error message about the lack of boot record, which is hardly going to convince your average airport security that your laptop is working and isn't a bomb! Then I have to try and explain why i need to plug my USB stick in etc. When I do and suddenly the laptop/bomb is "activated" with pages of scrolling technical looking text I fully expect to get shot...
So I think I'm going to put a liveCD in the drive before I next travel!
We care more about how you randomly invade countries without reason, how you try to enforce your local laws and policy on weaker nations, and things like that.
Justifications may have needed some work in some cases but there is nothing random about US invasions, no lack of reasons. Popular reasons in reason history consisted of the spread of communism and shooting at us.
Irag II: Saddam had WMD (used it on Kurdish villagers in the 80s). Was required to get rid of it (90s), but failed to do so under UN supervision or to properly document it so that the UN could verify after the fact. The US didn't want to take Saddam's word on it, and didn't trust in the UN's ability to discover the truth in the face of non-cooperation. Saddam wanted enemies to think that he may still have it, that would be a deterrent. His plan backfired. The truth of the matter is that no one really knew for sure until after the invasion and there were thousands of US boots on the ground going into every lab and palace. The fact that nothing was found, that the US got the unexpected answer, does not change the fact that short of such unfettered access we would have no answer. Saddam also had a tendency to shoot at US aircraft, not justification in itself but it does help to set a certain mood with regard to overall relations and level of trust.
Afghanistan: The people behind 9/11 were here, and they were being protected by the government.
Iraq I: They invaded Kuwait, were told to leave, and did not. Even the UN blessed this one.
Grenada: Communists building a runway capable of handling long range Soviet bombers. The spread of communism was feared.
South Vietnam: Communist North Vietnam fostering a civil war in the South, and invaded the South to a degree. The spread of communism was feared.
South Korea: Communist North Korea invaded the south. The UN blessed this one. The US also feared the spread of communism.
Your government at work: Don't you feel safer with TSA's high school dropouts and mall security rejects protecting you?
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
The cost of the laptop, while not exactly trivial, certainly manageable and replaceable. You must keep all your data from the government because they'll hang you with it if they want to. Remember this quote:
Cardinal Richelieu: "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him"
If they have your data, they will destroy you.
The costs in being charged as a terrorist, becoming an "enemy combatant," and/or losing all your data is by far, much much, higher.
The U.S.A. tortures its prisoners and the attorney general won't even rule out torture of American citizens. Of course, these criminals won't call it torture, they'll call it "waterbording" or something else. They'll use a name that implies nothing about the methods and argue that it is not torture. They use the cloud of dispute over the definition of torture to continue to use methods that were used by the Spanish Inquisition.
It makes me sick.
She shouldda waited for that Supreme Court case that said divulging your password was a violation of your 5th amendment right.
Until the Supreme Court declares that you have a constitutional right to get on an airplane invoking the 5th won't help. Flying is currently not a right so it can be denied.
In practical terms, however, the seizure of the laptop is what can freeze a traveller. Obviously, if I have sensitive information, I will probably not keep it on my laptop at all, but in either a small storage device or on a network, encrypted and secure. But if I'm a business or academic traveller, the seizure of a laptop can paralyze my work. If I'm important and wealthy enough to either be given or buy a new laptop immediately on the other end of security, that's fine. But many of us are neither. And we often need specialized software to work.
If they are looking for an excuse to hang you, they've made it clear that they don't even need data any more.
How long before someone points out the obvious?
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/07/1412229
As the article states and the TSA has noted on their blog, the searches and confiscations are being conducted by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, not the Transportation Security Administration.
(Not that that makes it right, but it helps to identify the correct culprit when complaining to the powers that be or even when just spreading the story.)
I am flabbergasted no one here has caught on to the larger picture. This is clearly the government in cahoots with the (paper) notebook industry and the laptop manufactuers. Now we will all buy more calculators, and paper notebooks. Also it will help to sell more new laptops. Perhaps this somehow coincides with the launch of the MacBook Air. I suspect their next announcement will be it has the TSA's "Clear" certification, and the MBA is allowed on all flights. That would make more people buy the expensive thing. Just kidding. Friggin ridiculous TSA.
You made my point again.
The employee would find themselves unable to board their flight at best (and thus unable to complete whatever task the company assigned to them), and arrested and possibly charged with some absurd federal crime at worst.
Right. And, assuming the employee hasn't done anything wrong, what makes you think employers like seeing their employees locked up? If it happens a lot (or to key people), businesses will scream very loudly. Very very loudly.
Of course your employer is going to tell you to comply. But once they find out laptops and/or data are being confiscated, their tune will change. You can't fight reality. And reality is, there are 2 choices: comply and let data be confiscated or fight and be arrested/delayed/hasseled. Either way -- your employer is not going to like it.
So, why aren't more people asking the various presidential candidates what they intend to do to restore the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and the rule of law once elected to office?
Have gnu, will travel.
The question is: do government agencies have the right to gain access or keep your personal information storage devices without valid warrant, just because you are boarding a plane or crossing borders?
If they do, they will most likely have the right to demand any passwords required to access data - whether you encrypted it or not.
Very simple.
Step 2: Have laptop confiscated
Step 3: File fifth amendment charges nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; Is there a law that says you can take my laptop with absolutely no evidence of its contents? nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation If you're taking my laptop for the public interest, e.g. national security, then you can immediately buy me a nice shiny new one.
Perhaps you think they shouldn't, but they have since at least 1790 when the worry was exporting straight pine timber to make British Navy masts and spars.
Her laptop might itself have been technology that required an export licence, or it might have contained data that required an export licence. Nevermind logic of the laptop being made in Taiwan. Udy does not appear to be a US person (citizen or permanent resident), so she may not have been able to use the common licence exemptions for baggage, tools-of-trade and publicly-available software.
The US Customs is perfectly capable to remaining in the 18th century when it suits them. Unfortunately, not much can be done short of an Act of Congress. About the only thing she could and should have got is a receipt.
I'm sorry, but you don't seem to understand how US democracy works. In the US, the president and the executive have broad powers to act autonomously. It's helped the US hold together for more than two centuries, while other democracies have fallen apart. Some presidents use this power unwisely, others use it wisely. For eight years, Bush held that power. Over the next couple of decades, Congress and American voters will decide on whether Bush used that power wisely or not, what to repeal, and which parts of it to write into law permanently. Furthermore, make no mistake, the US exports democracy for the purpose of helping its own political and financial interests, not as an end in itself. Maybe you should get away from your Eurovision and learn a little more about the world at large.
Leave the hard drive home and bring a Knoppix CD. If you have to bring data put in on a fully encrypted thumb drive or SD card, and stash it somwhere in your luggage.
From Europe, where I live, it appears that the USA is getting more and more like a banana republic every day.
You're naive if you think that Europe is any different. Except for a little anti-American political posturing by European politicians, which plays well to European nationalist sentiments, on the whole, Europe basically implements the same policies as the US, and European voters have an even worse herd mentality than American voters. Hey, you're a prime example yourself.
Since my employer is a healthcare organization, there's a reasonably good chance that someone accessing my laptop would violate HIPPA laws. I'm not sure law enforcement can look at people's medical records without a court order, so there are likely some cases where government officials forcing someone to disclose private information may be unlawful.
With 'free speech' zones, permits, other candidates snickering in concert when one makes one's point and such, I feel that protesting is pointless and might get you labelled a whacko hippie.
:-)
Let's be real here: If you don't make at least USD$500k every year and you're not in a position where you can take off work at your discretion to participate in major party politics, you're currently a Non-Player-Character in this democracy.( See 'The American Ruling Class' http://imdb.com/title/tt0455906/, an inept documentary movie that is rather enlightening in spite of itself )
The way things are really changed in this country is to get a group of like-minded individuals to register to vote as Democrat or Republican, start donating money and attending precinct party meetings and either eventually taking over the precinct organization by becoming the majority or chasing everybody else out. Get enough contiguous precints with your people installed, then you can push a state house candidate. Get a state house candidate elected and you begin to have a voice. And so on.
Also, if you have a business or are in a profession, consider having your chamber of commerce or trade group hire a lobbyist. They're not cheap, but again, enough like-minded people banding together can pay for one.
Third, have your trade group send press releases tying every bad event or anniversary to the fact that your agenda hasn't been adopted. Example: Wife-beating is highest on Superbowl Sunday. Not true, but it was one hell of a press release when it came out.
Fourth, if you can, find and publicize some angle to tie the absence of your agenda to impending disaster for the interests of MSM broadcast and cable companies and their news divisions -- scare them and they'll scare everybody else for you. This is likely the only way to ovecome the self-interested censorship that the broadcast TV/radio news business seems to engage in to serve the TV/radio industry lobby.
If you can make this happen and get whatever it is you want made into public policy, you're now just as dirty as the rest of the folks who make politics happen in the USA and I'm afraid I'm going to need to stage a protest march against you
and after 9/11 when these restrictions were put into place, we were forbidden by company policy from taking any classified documents or other classified material with us on board commercial flights for just this reason.
We have to send it in advance via secure courier now.
Which leads me to believe the TSA doesn't care if you stuff is labeled "classified", they will go ahead and search it anyway
If your children ever found out how lame you are, they'd murder you in your sleep
"Unfortunately, my employer has made it clear that they want their employees to cooperate fully with these searches, and afterwards tell corporate security."
Exactly what is the employer going to think when out of their hundreds of employees, one guy keeps getting stopped and searched????????
"Telling security" is a recipe for getting yourself fired, idiot.
The Internet is in the process of saving the U.S. from its century of tyranny. The only question is whether it will be soon enough. East Germans knew better, but by the time they did, it was too late.
Ron Paul was a skirmish in the war for freedom. The next battle is paper ballots, and at least here in Colorado, at least for 2008, we'll have paper due to overwhelming public outcry for it. The next battle after that is to actually elect a defender of liberty using said paper ballots, by which time a larger percentage of the population should be getting its news from the Internet.
The idea is correct though the wording is in error. What is meant is that an airport is under the exclusive jurisdicition of Congress (USA Const. Art. 1 Sec. 8 Par. 17). These areas of exclusive jurisdiction means that Congress can pass laws for these areas apart from the restrictions of the Bill of Rights. See DOWNES v. BIDWELL, 182 U.S. 244 (1901). Airports are one of the many places where 'the Constitution does not follow the flag'.
Being that the term 'banana republic' came into existence as a direct result of U.S. foreign policy and illegal wars, it should come as no surprise that one would find the parent specimens of such abusive practices in the land which created them.
The U.S. used its foreign policy and semi-secret operations to crush budding democratic nations in order to reward American business, in this case, sugar and banana plantation owners, who basically wanted to use slave labor rather than pay fair wages to the locals. It still happens today. Venezuela is currently undergoing the same treatment where the U.S. government, big business and the CIA are doing everything in their power to cast Chavez as a villain and install a pro-American business military government. They're probably going to get away with it, too. The media in Venezuela are all pro-evil, big media owners being what they are. Chavez wanted the peasantry to own their own land and have a say in politics, have access to decent schooling and medical care and generally get out from under the boot heel of slavery. The horror! It's bad for business when your peasants are educated and strong. --Research the story, but stay away from the big American news outlets to do it; they're all a bunch of whores.
If U.S. business and government are going to use such practices abroad, then you'd better believe that they're going to try to get away with as much of the same thing at home as they possibly can.
So yes, the U.S. IS some banana republic. It's the mother ship of banana republics. Don't let all the shiny formed plastic fool you.
-FL
"but it was certainly justified."
My response-- MAYBE
the more important response- what elements made it more justified for Iraq than for North Korea
there is nothing that qualifies Iraq for invasion that you can't also apply to N. Korea, at greater levels of threat to the nation of the US..
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
I don't know about you, but whenever I go to Banana Republic, CSA's try to be very helpful. Then I tell them "I'm just looking" and go to the clearance rack. They still offer to put my purchase in a box, though. I'd have to say it's a draw between Banana Republic and J-Crew.
Oh, that's "banana republic," not "Banana Republic." My bad....
The importance of encrypting your data cannot be overstated. Even if you are not travelling with valuable intellectual property, the fact remains that most personal and business computers contain a wealth of information suitable for datamining. The oft quoted sentiment "If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear." misses the point - I DO have something to hide - everything, in fact. Nothing criminal or otherwise illegitimate, but in the interest of privacy, I have no desire to disseminate the details of my associations, my business activity, my financial transactions, my personal communications, my sexual activities, my political opinions or even what I had for breakfast this morning, to any party for whom that information was not intended. Ergo, I make a point of storing sensitive information (intellectual property, etc.) in strongly encrypted files, and then nesting those along with everything else within a fully encrypted drive. If I were particularly paranoid (and I'm paranoid enough to have thought of it, but as yet not so much as to have implemented it), I could ensure that the relevant cryptographic keys are unknown to me and only able to be retrieved either from my client or from my office remotely. I understand that this thread has to do with confiscation of hardware, and that in of itself is certainly annoying, and perhaps unpreventable barring a significant change of law; however, the value of a laptop computer is limited, and the hardware itself is replaceable. The same cannot be said of the data carried on it, and in the event my laptop is confiscated, lost or stolen, I would like the worst-case scenario to be that I or my company is out the replacement cost of the hardware only, without having to worry about trade secrets being compromised, identity theft, data mining for nefarious purposes or unauthorized dissemination of contact information. I run a dual-boot machine with Debian GNU/Linux and Windows XP Professional. If you really want to be entertained, watch an airport security "professional" try to navigate around a system with X disabled.
Communications between attorneys and clients are broadly protected from access by investigators. If your e-mail contains communications between you and your attorney, and your documents include privileged letters you composed in Word, that could make a very good reason to deny Customs access. The only folks the government would like to deal with less than angry employers are angry trial lawyers.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
"Hey, you're just as bad as us! That means we don't have to try and improve!"
Moron.
How long would it take, say if you were driving at 50mph, to get through the airport fence, with a van full of people with ak's, all timed to the departure time of say 3 747's, and board the planes, fully armed, with explosives? That's the real threat imo...
I've read Slashdot for the last 5 years, and now I start posting... Go figure
Remember Canada kicked the US's ass once already. I don't think the US will try the invasion thing again. Having Washington D.C. burnt to the ground once is enough. It's cheaper to just buy your stuff so you can take your tinfoil hat off now.
If you don't like what I write don't be a CS and mod it down. Refute it.
Yea I can't spell. So what is your point?
"Hey, you're just as bad as us! That means we don't have to try and improve!"
I said no such thing.
Americans are fixing their democracy.
You worry about getting yours in order again.
Maybe you should get away from your Eurovision and learn a little more about the world at large.
Haha... hahaha... hahahaha....
Nice joke, buddy. I mean, you surely couldn't be trying to imply that Europe is more insular than the US, right?
Have you ever been anywhere outside the States?
That's because you believe what the government says about itself and its reasons. Don't. They lie much more often than they tell the truth.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
it is probably going to work. Suppose your next president, whoever he/she may be, has the guts to do away wth this madness. All it takes is a small terrorist attack, and the government will back up. Look up at Israel. Every time there is a tiny hope of agreement, there are bombings and things go back to where they were. You've got yourselves in a pretty good mess my friends.
Where is that guy who'd die defending what I had to say when I need him?
Yes!
That's just it... Lately, we've been exporting our freedoms and keeping none for ourselves. Not that we've been very successful at exporting them either, mind you.
Posting as AC to avoid hassles at work, though none of this is secret. I work for a government contractor. We've carried working (non-classified) defense system components in our carry-ons before.
One such case:
TSA: "What is that?"
US: (we answer truefully)
TSA: "It's not going to melt the plane or turn on while you're flying or anything, is it?"
US: "No, it doesn't have a power supply."
TSA: "Well, we're going to need check it for explosives."
US: "We'd really rather you didn't take it out of the case; it's fragile."
TSA guy: 'Ok. We'll just check the outside then.'
And that was it. We were wearing our company polo shirts, and we had some paperwork on company letterhead we could have waved around, but no one even asked.
Don't travel to the US.
There is no way I'm going to hand over my passwords to a just-above-minimum-wage dofus. Not if it means I can't take that flight. Not going to happen. Since by whatever perverse application of your totaliarian laws they can force me to, the only solution is to avoid the US the same way anyone with a sane mind avoids any other place where the insane rule.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
The whole implementation of the TSA was economical vs effective. The way to protect planes is Air Marshalls with automatic fire arms on every plane. Thats too expensive. A few 8.00 dollar an hour TSA shmucks is way cheaper.
nothing more. US, Europe, really any "Western" (i.e. rich) society is cancer to their impoverished eyes.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Australian citizen - went for a holiday in Bali with a friend and his family (who stayed at a different hotel). Australian customs on the way home said that they "needed to check my phone" to make sure it wasn't a stolen device etc etc. Found out later that they got my friend to go through every single one of his photos and i presume this is why i spent 30 minutes waiting for mine. They also opened up a sealed mouse that i bought over there with a USB Bluetooth dongle to check it. My friends laptop got confiscated for no apparent reason because they needed to check it (going to be sent back). His older brother (who was on an earlier flight)'s hard drive got confiscated for some porn on it. Anyway, nothing to add to the discussion except my experience over here.
Boy, this makes for a perfect argument for using CVS for all your documents. Go ahead and take my laptop, I will be back in business in less than 1 hr. ( better yet, you may never need to take a laptop on board again! My CVS for my docs outgrew a 512Mb flash, so I store things on a 2GB now, except for my media, which I keep my Media stuff ( about 2GB ) on a ftp site.
/. a few years ago, about laptop hard disk reliability, and somebody replied how he checked everything he had into a CVS repositoary. Nice. Bet he still hasnt lost anything, and still dosen't care about losing his laptop.
... WHERE THE HELL IS HER LAPTOP GUYS?
There was a post on
The other consideration is
The last company I worked for had remote desktop setup for its traveling workers not only because it is easier to admin but because government border controls in most nations are now also covert espionage fronts for local officials (USA does this too). The question that comes to mind is if the remote server that the user logs into via the laptop is in another sovereign nation do you have the right to tell the US officials that they are exceeding their powers ? Also if you are forced to hand over the password and then 10 minutes later you alert company officials thus the account is frozen will the government arrest you ?
Yes, we do. Most citizens of the USA haven't been 100 miles from their home in their lifetime. They don't travel.
Sitcoms - well, we find the strike comforting. Watching the old versions where the ending is known is particularly nice for TSA workers who are even less likely to have ever been ON an airplane due to their econimic situation.
I recently flew to Hong Kong and asked the international TSA agent some question about the other side of the walkway. She told me that she'd never been there. Nice. Perhaps if more TSA agents actually had to fly, they'd find a more efficient way to perform their worthless duties?
I sure am glad that low paid private companies were converted into low paid government employees - to make them "professionals" a few years ago.
Why is it that my mother with a heart defiburlator always gets screened by an obvious butch lesbian?
Because he was wearing a medal, or because he was shouting "I was in WWII" while they patted him?
Neither of those proves very much.
No sig today...
We live in an age where data can be instantly transmitted between continents. Would anybody bother hiding data in a laptop for "smuggling"?
Much easier to image your hard disk, encrypt the file and start a copy of FileZilla.
No sig today...
You say that "for the most part I enjoy my life here."
Have you ever lived anywhere else? I've seen plenty of TV documentaries where people in countries like North Korea think the country is well run and a safe place to live.
Unless you've actually lived in another country for a few years then your opinion is worthless.
No sig today...
"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him" - Cardinal Richelieu.
No sig today...
I hope I don't say anything that compromises my friend's privacy, but his story is quite relevant to this topic... As he was going through security, he made some kind of non-serious comment about his laptop not being a bomb. He was pulled off the flight, wound up paying several thousand dollars in related costs--and my impression is that he mostly avoids business trips to America these days. His formerly very advanced English certainly seems to be deteriorating, I'm sorry to report.
/. meta-moderation that supports the broken moderation system. My observations are that /. is basically dying, mostly for a lack of humor, and the broken moderation system is my pick for the #1 reason.)
(And *NO*, I do *NOT* want to hop over and help with the
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Nice joke, buddy. I mean, you surely couldn't be trying to imply that Europe is more insular than the US, right?
Insular? I don't know. They seem to be about as ignorant as your average American, but a whole lot more arrogant about it.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/04/nhistory104.xml
Have you ever been anywhere outside the States?
Yeah, I lived in Europe for several years. But, you know,
Damn, and I almost started looking for the land equivalent of the international waters rule of: "You are under the laws of the country who's flag you fly".
You really don't want to rub nitroglycerine on your skin - it's a vasodilator, and will cause you to have a worse headache than you got from that tequila concoction. The tequila... remember? Oh, I guess not.
Alright. I'll throw you a few bones here, about why our perspective might be different.
First: I'm young (or at least think I am): 27. I didn't fly for the first time until after 9/11, so I have no idea what pre-9/11 security was like. I'm also, by personality, very patient in queues, which no doubt annoys all the drivers around me now that I've moved to New Jersey. I will say I like traveling by train much better, though, especially at the smaller stations that only have platforms and not terminals. Walk up. Train stops, within minutes of schedule. You get on. Seconds later, train starts moving. Very nice.
Nine-eleven happened when I was in college, and at the time I got quite a bit worked up over the government's response. I'm still worked up about many parts of it, in particular the conflation of 9/11 and Iraq, and the president's use of the word 'crusade' in a public speech. I think kind of insensitivity and carelessness could and should get you fired from most jobs. The fear that the US would become some sort of soft-core police state never really materialized, though (at least on US soil). With the exception of the blogs (not credible) and a few nationally publicized stories, I haven't heard of actual, real-world people running afoul of post-9/11 bureaucracy, with one exception: foreign researchers studying in the US were having delays in their re-entry visas after visiting their homes on holiday. Don't get me wrong, that's very bad for America, but no was honestly surprised. My colleagues from Iran, Pakistan, and China chose to take their holiday here instead until the next year (when things were better straightened out).
But I'm probably different from you in other ways as well. For one, I use my credit card for every purchase I make (excepting vending machines and monthly rent). Though I find it disturbing the amount of information they (the credit card companies) collect, the convenience far out-weighs that concern. For another, I work for a government contractor. I've already had to open my life to much more exposure than I would have initially thought myself willing. The experience and 'timeliness' of the process taught me though that the government is really too inefficient and apathetic to do anything with its information. I'm actually more concerned about the credit card companies and insurance companies, and they at least have a market incentive to keep my data private.
What is freedom, though? Maybe I don't push the boundaries enough to run into the problems, and I'm just not being imaginative enough. I can travel anywhere I want in the US without anyone's permission. I can live anywhere I can afford the property, and work anywhere I am qualified. I can say or write whatever I want, especially on line. I don't have to pretend to like politicians. I can attend church or not. What freedom have I really lost?
As I wondered on another thread: What is this fascination with airports? Why don't the terrorists just blow up a mall or grocery store somewhere? There'd be no security to speak of, no need for identification, and it would get people in a more 'everyday' environment, which is much more personal than flying (something many of us probably don't do every day, or even every year).
The Bush family is known as the cleanest ship in the politics business. Did he order everyone to destroy their computers but not issue new ones?
Examining / seizing laptops is nothing new - there have been numerous discussions on GFY.com (adult webmasters forum) over the years about people who got snared due to posessing various adult oriented text / images by Customs of various countries - not just the U.S., but also Canada and elsewhere.
... for documents / email, which is most often what people need on business, it's nearly just as easy to access that data from a secure remote server...
... they are more likely to let the laptop quickly pass-through, if all they find is a Windows default install with a few mundane documents in the document folder, etc.
The safest course of action is to store data remotely whenever possible - with the internet, here and there makes no difference
Not 100% fool-proof, but remote data storage raises the bar quite a bit - greatly reduces the risk of problems with Customs
Ron
It wasn't preemption, it was murder. Operation Iraqi Freedom scanned a whole lot better than Largest Act of War Ever Even Counting What We Threw At Bin Laden. The decision to invade Iraq was made with the knowledge that the Iraqi standing army posed no serious threat to anyone. Period. Don't take my word for it, take Colin Powell's.
You bring up the weak Iraqi missile program, and then explain why it wouldn't have been needed to deliver `WMD'. Drop one letter grade right there. Perhaps you didn't know that the missle program existed mostly on the back of cocktail napkins after initial attempts to break the 150 km limit were discovered and destroyed, see http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2004/01/07/AR2005040204936_5.html. But you completely forgot to mention that there were no WMD in Iraq at the time of the invasion, nor any long range missiles, and officials in both the White House and the Pentagon knew it.
If opportunity came disguised as temptation, one knock would be enough.
3^2 * 67^1 * 977^1
The simple fact is that there are very few terrorists. So, most searches are going to be performed on people who are not terrorists. You can be polite, professional and still get the job done. The TSA is simply unprofessional and rude.
Industrial espionage is a lot more widespread than people think. The Chinese are by far the worst offenders. I know several people who had their data stolen in this way. And yes, one time it happened in Europe.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Hear, Hear...
Refuse to attend conferences, conventions, seminars, workshops if you are invited.
Tourism to the US - avoid at all costs. Inhospitable hosts get no guests.
The Bush Administration deceived first, then tried to rationalize. Not the other way around. For deceit to work, it has to be hidden. That the deceit is coming out now is just a natural progression of history. I think part of the point is that Congress went along with the plan without doing any real fact checking, asking any tough questions, or really even discussing anything. They just made pretty speeches and signed on the dotted line. And this is exactly in line with what the GP is saying: folks in Congress saw no downside; they could just blame Bush either way. Whether the blame is *deserved* is irrelevant to *that* question; Congress had the opportunity to avoid the situation and are now jumping up and down about how it wasn't "their fault" (except for the ones still saying "Gee, what a nice day this is!".) It is their *job* to be suspicious and not write blank checks. If Bush fooled them, they failed that job.
... is say no you can kiss my ass im not giving u my fuckin laptop. if they dont want to let me board i say fine. i sue em. and i get a REFUND from the airline. and i complain to everyone i see...and i use a different airport after that. and if that doesnt work i move to a fucking country that treats me like a fucking human being. godamn tsa what a big fucking waste of money ... oh wait thats the idea .... nevermind.
I think you are largely right. My experiences were not much different from yours, including having had to do government work and obtain a clearance, but I have a few years of extra perspective which make a world of difference. The US is not the Soviet Union yet, but the atmosphere has definitely changed, like a cold draft from a window. The number of people who are affected, from minor to major ways, is increasing slowly but steadily, and waiting for things to get bad before complaining or saying "I can deal with it" personally are not good plans. Bad systems, once in place, reinforce each other. More and more people making it clear that this is not the direction we need to be going in is a very good thing.
For what it is worth, 9/11 was not as big a change as many people make it out to be. The Drug War really started a lot of the problems. 9/11 increased the pace of change and allowed some of it to be done more openly (people outright asking for it), but the trend was already there. I was actually surprised that 9/11 did not speed up the process more than it did. I am not in any way in favor of drugs, but the way we have gone about trying to eliminate them is asinine.
You can protect yourself against hard drive mirroring by using strong encryption - even if they do mirror the hard drive, all they end up with is a lump of data that'd take them years to crack. However, the TSA ensures that nobody in their right mind will cross the border with encrypted data on the laptop. Thus you either need to transmit all the data via internet (which might not be entirely feasible if it's a lot of data and you don't have the time to wait for it to download) or mail it to the destination (meaning that you have much less control over it until it arrives).
Of course the TSA is making doing business in the States a hassle, so they might reduce the volume of data carried in by foreigners simply by reducing the volume of foreigners coming in. After all, we can also fly out Americans to Europe, which doesn't put our data at the mercy of an opaque agency with a less than stellar reputation.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
About 20 years ago, I spent three of the best summers of my life gipsying around the States, with pretty much only a Greyhound one month pass in my pocket. Didn't know where I was going in advance at all. It was great! I really loved the States then.
These days I'm not even considering going there, even with the Dollar cheap as it is.
Please Americans, wake up from your self induced nightmare, stop being afraid of your shadow, impeach Bush + cronies, reattach to the rest of the world, and start living again!
Bart
Regardless of your view of foreign policy, I've never really understood this use of the word "coward." Someone who blows himself up to (unjustly) kill his enemy is a murderer, no doubt, but how is dying to achieve your aim cowardly?
Since TFA is a dup, I'll just post a link to my original comment on the matter: write your congresscritters!
Although, however incensed we may be that the U.S. is doing it, we still face the potential problem of encountering the same sort of intrusive searches going into other countries, particularly as U.S. allies follow our lead. As for me, I'm locking my phone, etc., if I travel in the U.S. by public conveyance. If I'm asked to unlock it, I'll ask for a warrant. (This is probably an empty boast, since I have no such travel plans anytime in the foreseeable future.)
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
I was questioned by DHS for hours at Las Vegas airport. They wanted to check my hard disk, they asked me a whole bunch of weird questions (highlight being 'were you baptised' - I'm English BTW).
I'm kind of wishing now, having read a few comments on here about making a stand, I'd said something to the guy akin to 'those who give up essential liberty for a little temporary safety will gain neither and lose both'.
You need to educate yourselves people.
Send a copy of the complete works of Kafka to the 3 US presidential candidates still in the race. Not that I hope they will understand the message (when you hear McCain or Clinton pathetic excuses for their support of a war that has killed an maimed who knows how many thousands of people, you know there is no hope), but I don't know, I like poetic irony in the face of madness....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The US and UK messed up their countries for the best part of 100 years.
....
The US and UK (and France on occasions) sided with dictators, despots and other nocive types in order to protect short term interests.
What is the moral rationale of keep befriending countries like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan? What is the reason for the paranoid fear of Iran (at least they have some kind of elections)?
THe US have destroyed Iraq over false pretenses and you pretend that the Muslims in the world have no reason to be angry.
Honestly
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I was at a couple of anti-war protests in Boston. One made the news, but they misrepresented the number of people there. Otherwise, the press had completely ignored the protests. The press generally refers to protests as if it is two or three people waving incoherent signs.
I remember the anti-anti-war protestors, screaming obscenities at me, and calling me things like traitor, freak, pussy, and hippie. Some people are just confused.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
I prefer to believe Hans Blix, the chap that was actually doing the work, have this for starters: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/jun/11/iraq.usa
It is undeniable that he didn't find anything and that the US (an their lackeys, the shameful Tony Blair and lest not forget, the laughable Jose Maria Aznar) wanted to use the UN as their rubber stamp.
If the US is not prepared to accept UN resolutions when they don't conform to your wishes, why don't you get the heck out of the UN? You are already out of several UN's organizations like UNESCO for the most cavalier of reasons, don't recognize the International Court of Justice (where hopefully, one day, irresponsible individuals like Bush and Blair will one day face justice. Unlikely, utopic, but most necessary heal the wounds of the thousands or Iraqi people dead for no discernible reason whatsoever) and in general think you are exceptional and are not prepared to play ball.
Well, make it official, most of the world is fed up with this, so we can as well officialize what is obvious fact.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Your own fucking Congress has ruled about that one...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
And the perception of the original poster is right on the money. I stopped going when the invasive, abusive, demaning "security" measures started to get out of hand. In all other countries I visit I am welcomed. Even Vietnam or Indonesia in the times of the dictatorship. Nothing can equal the humiliating treatment you can receive in an US airport.
The US basks in their self perceived exceptionallity without realizing the colossal contradictions that the political system and monumental political apathy are ushering into the normal people.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
That will solve the problem pretty quickly.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
"Hussein had no connections to terrrorism"
Hussein made the entire populace of Iraq live in terror.
He is the DEFINITION of a terrorist. The fact that he isn't the type of terrorist you're familiar with changes nothing, and doesn't make your claim less wrong.
"Your own fucking Congress has ruled about that one..."
Nope. You might want to check on what they actually ruled (and since when does a congressional ruling equal reality? You'd have to be pretty naive to think that was true) because it's not what you claim. Your ignorance is showing.
Not only did you fail, you failed twice in two sentences.
As a Mexican I can go to Canada without applying for a visa.
In order to go to the US I have to go the the US consulate, be subjected to idiotic questioning about my motivations for going, and after wasting all day I may be denied entry without any possible redress (a relative that needed to go in order to help with funeral arrangements of a relative of hers, wasn't allowed in. The reason is that she hasn't hold a job for many years. So stay at home mums, you are out of luck).
Then assuming I get a visa, I will still be harassed in the US airport *even if I am just going in fucking transit*. Authorities in US airports have the verb to ask me where I am going (well duh, you should know that already) and they insist to ask particulars about my whereabouts in bloody Mexico! To which I of course reply with a sharp inquiry about since when the Mexican government handed control of our borders and our internal affairs to US authorities.
And all this without even starting about the rampant racialism in daily US life, where if you are walking in the part of town where "Mexicans are not supposed to be" you can get questioned by police for the grave crime of walking.
So again tell me, why should I visit the US? Instead I am going to Canada now, which seems to be a friendly and interesting place that actually has sane immigration policies in place.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Burning tires does little. You have some neighbors very active in that department and they are still in deep shit.
Political organization is the key, blogging and writing about the state of affairs is part of the same coin as demonstrations, but demonstrations by themselves change nothing.
In the UK 1 million people demonstrated against the Iraq war. That made no difference whatsoever.
When the time came to vote, people put the same liar back in power, because the economy was good, never mind all the dead people killed with our tax money. Money triumphs over decency, unless there are people out there that make sure you are aware you are helping to kill innocent people if you vote for your own convenience in mind exclusively.
A properly organized political opposition would have been more important than the biggest of demonstrations.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.