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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
This can also be done with a normal PC and OSx86. My install will not boot into Mac OS without the install DVD in the drive. I do my work in Mac, put the DVD in my checked bag, then get on the plane. It'll boot straight into Windows without the disc, and since Windows can't read HFS+ it doesn't see the Mac partition.
OSx86 FTW
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:[.]
FedEx or whatever?
They still open the package in the customs and charge you heavily just for opening it. And they can do whatever they want to with it while it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it.
Therefore, many layers of TrueCrypt, fake data, semi-real data, and what-not else...
What does TSA stand for, anyway? Techno Stasi of America?
Ignore this signature. By order.
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.
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.
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.
You traveled naked?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
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 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
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.
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
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.
So long as it's under $10,000 US you're ok. If it's over 10k, you just have to declare it - fill out a form stating what business you're in, why you're carrying so much cash/cheques/bearer bonds etc, and exactly what you plan on doing with it/them, where you will be staying, etc. Then you get asked a couple questions by the customs officer, and that's it.
If you DON'T declare it and they find out, then kiss it goodbye. You broke the law, so they take the money.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
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.)
They've already got that one covered:
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/05/70908
I think it is reasonable to assume most commercially available VPN-based encryption (as well as TLS/SSL) can be broken by the NSA. Even if this is not the case, traffic analysis based on unencrypted headers can reveal a lot about what is being communicated to whom.
If I were just a bit more paranoid, I'd say the point of laptop confiscation is to force commercial entities to use easily broken commercial crypto over communications lines that are already heavily wiretapped.
If your children ever found out how lame you are, they'd murder you in your sleep
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.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
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
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.
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
Terrorists are bringing kiddie porn to our borders? Those sonsabitches.
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.
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
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
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.
Um... why should I, as an at-will employee, shoulder the burden of this for my employer? If I were ever arrested at an airport for refusal to comply with Customs orders, my employer would have the briefest feelings of sympathy for my plight... before firing me. That would leave me arrested, possibly charged with a federal crime, and unemployed to boot.
I like my job, and I like the company that I work for. However, I'm not about to go to jail for them or anyone else.
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).
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 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.
I've done the Knoppix thing for many years, very handy when traveling. I've never had a laptop "stolen" but I've been asked a number of times to open it up and turn it on. They did not recognize the mac start up routine and I had to wait for a full boot to convince them. Now I just replaced the mac boot image screen with the windows desktop image and I'm off.
/. , I'm never going to bring anything but a freshly rebuilt laptop with only the data I need into the USA.
Thanks for this article