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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...
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....
All it means is that those retards would be more likely to confiscate it because they don't recognize what it is.
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."
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
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
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.