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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...
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?
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 am unclear if that is being offered as an option. If I cannot take my laptop with me on a business trip, there is no point in doing the trip. I am a Software Engineer and my laptop is the primary tool with which I do my job. If I do not have it, I cannot work. Furthermore, in many cases the contents of my laptop are far more valuable than the device itself. As far as I am concerned, the device is disposable, the data is what is valuable. Yes, I keep a backup, but there is always that last little bit I have just done that is not in the backup yet....
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:[.]
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
For what it is worth, you see examples of both being hit in this thread-- the example of the disabled elderly vet above being one.
Let's not make it about race-- it is about seizure of property without cause.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
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.
What the terrorists want is to disrupt our lives, and cause fear. They have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. We have already lost the "war."
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
That's not a fix. That's a workaround, and a shitty one at that! The real fix is to destroy the TSA, and get our civil liberties back!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
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
We're just human cattle to them. If someone really wanted to do something, he/she could just blow up the hundreds of people waiting at the bottleneck BEFORE security screening.
I hate sigs.
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.
I'm pretty sure that they just want us to stop helping out Israel and get our military the hell away from their countries. Our government is technically winning because they're still doing whatever the hell they want to do, and the only cost is our freedom.
The biggest losers in this war are our children. They will get to grow up in a police state because their parents didn't have the balls to stand up and say "no more."
This isn't about "outsiders." Muslims have developed a reputation for terrorism and troublemaking (which is strictly their own fault). As a result, anyone who looks like they might be a Muslim is subjected to extra scrutiny. It's just common sense.
This isn't about "outsiders." Jews have developed a reputation for financial conspiracy and troublemaking (which is strictly their own fault). As a result, anyone who looks like they might be a Jew is subjected to extra scrutiny. It's just common sense.
This isn't about "outsiders." The Irish have developed a reputation for drunken violence and terrorism (which is strictly their own fault). As a result, anyone who looks like they might be Irish is subjected to extra scrutiny. It's just common sense.
This isn't about "outsiders." The Japanese and Germans have developed a reputation for covert operations on behalf of their homelands while living in the United States (which is strictly their own fault). As a result, anyone who looks like they might be Asian (it's too hard to tell the difference) or German is subjected to extra scrutiny. It's just common sense.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
If someone really wanted to do something, he/she could just blow up the hundreds of people waiting at the bottleneck BEFORE security screening. I guess one could make a trigger mechanism that would be set off by the metal detector itself... dammit, now I'm thinking like an engineer/terrorist!
You can't take the sky from me...
Irag II: Saddam had WMD (used it on Kurdish villagers in the 80s).
Like a true American, you not only spelled the name of the country wrong (and the Freudian subtlety of the misspelling is particularly telling), you forgot to mention a) why the US did nothing about that back in the 80s aside from affirming our "friendship" to Saddam and giving him another $1 billion in military aid right after and b) where Saddam had gotten the technology for that gas and its means of distribution. (I'll give you a hint: you were trying to defend that country's "honor")
The spread of communism was feared.
And, what happens when the spread of American-brand "democracy" is feared? It's only so long before everyone gets tired of having "freedom" bombed into them.
Which is more painful? Going to work or gouging your eye out with a spoon? Find out!
http://www.workorspoon.com
Yup. Part of the construction at one airport a couple of years ago (I think Oakland) put a couple of hundred people waiting at the baggage claim in a relatively small room with a hundred people waiting to get through security. I told my wife, "If these people are smart, they won't bother with the planes; there's a 747-load right here."
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.
Sonny, as an American, I can tell you have been drinking the Kool-aid far too long. Did you not watch the events leading upto and after the Iraq invasion? Yah know, where they couldn't find evidence of WMD's? A little fact like that just might piss some people off.
Here is my little paranoid fantasy of why the US invaded Iraq. First, there is oil. The US has enough, but the powers that be want more. Second, there is this little quote by President George W. Bush: "After all, this is the guy that tried to kill my dad at one time." Thus a personal vendetta that has killed thousands of American solders. Killed many, many more Iraqi civilians. Left a wake of casualties.
Wake the fuck up.
Irag II: Saddam had WMD (used it on Kurdish villagers in the 80s). Like a true American, you not only spelled the name of the country wrong (and the Freudian subtlety of the misspelling is particularly telling)
Why attribute malice when overzealous software and a lack of proofreading will do? The original typo is "raq", which gets autocorrected to "rag", and the missing "I" is manually added without noting the preceding change.
There is no Freudian slip since Saddam is not Iraq. The territory of Iraq and its people represent one of the births of agriculture, one of the births of civilization, one of the births of a written legal system based upon fairness, etc. I've viewed the nation and people of Iraq as more of Saddam's victims for decades, not his willing accomplices.
I think if this conversation tells us anything about bias it is clearly telling us about yours, not mine.
you forgot to mention a) why the US did nothing about that back in the 80s aside from affirming our "friendship" to Saddam and giving him another $1 billion in military aid right after and b) where Saddam had gotten the technology for that gas and its means of distribution.
Even if true they are off topic. The fact remains that the US invasion was not a random event. The potential threat existed. Even if one accepts your position one could argue that the US more morally obliged to clean up the mess it created. In any case, not random.
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
You know, I don't agree with this guy one bit, but how is this modded troll? Just because people don't agree with his opinion? I troll mod should be reserved for "FIRST POST!!!", people from the GNAA or someone who says "All you liberals suck! GO USA!!!" His opinion, while disagreeable to some, is still valid.
-Arthur
Cave ne ante ullas catapultas ambules
Um, You missed his point. All of these groups 'could' be treated in the same was as you currently view Muslims - there are justifications in history! Were you in London while the IRA were bombing? I went to school with somebody who who lost a leg in an IRA bombing. Which is far closer to me personally then any body killed by a Muslim terror attack. In some cases reputations are earned. In this case popular media is portraying all followers of the Muslim faith as being fundamentalists - and some people less capable in critical thinking are believing it. Surely it is everybody with the name "Bin Laden" that should be screened!
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
20 years ago, I was traveling up through Sweden to Finland. I thought that it would be fun to do the return trip down the Russian side as there are a lot of places in the east that I wanted to visit. The paperwork was a nightmare and I decided against it. I have been wandering around the US and had a great time just going where I wanted. That is the sort of thing that I wanted to do in Russia, if I liked St Petersburg, stay a couple of weeks, if I didn't, move on...
A couple of years ago I dropped into Moscow and traveled up north. I am now allowed to travel around in a way that I am no longer allowed to travel around the US. Some irony there.
Land of the free? Who are you trying to fool?
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.