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Laptops Can Be Searched At the Border
Nothing to Declare notes that a California appeals court has unanimously upheld a ruling that border security officers at international airports can search personal computers without requiring any specific evidence of criminal activity. The appeal was made by US resident Michael Timothy Arnold, charged with child pornography offenses after an airport search of his notebook PC in 2005. Might want to think hard about what's on your laptop if you're going to be passing through a US international airport.
It makes you wonder that if there hadn't been something like Child Porn on there if this would have been overruled.
If it'd been a violation of rights search where they searched and you sued just for that with no criminal conviction.
The sad part, is this sets a president if it is allowed to stand, and whittles away at everything else.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
Might want to think hard about what's on your laptop if you're going to be passing through a US international airport.
Might want to think hard about making a trip to the states even if you don't have anything untoward on your laptop.
So, an AC sends a link to "his blog", and the link is dead?
You sir, are made of fail.
How deeply can/do they search a laptop while I'm waiting to get on my plane?
:P
I know encryption gets their panties in a twist, but suppose I have data I want kept private is just burying it in a weird location good enough?
What are they actually looking for, and how would they be searching for it? Unlikely to get them disclosing said techniques publicly, so... Rampant speculation?
The next logical question is, if you password-protect and encrypt your hard drive to thwart precisely this kind of unwarranted and unjustifiable privacy invasion, can Customs force you to divulge your passwords?
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
"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 can see them checking your person before getting on a plane to make sure you're not carrying weapons... but what on your laptop could possibly endanger an airplane?
This should cause a nice bump for encrypted drive/volume software.
It's a real shame this revolved around a kiddie porn case that hinged on the admissibility of the evidence. Nobody wants to let the kiddie porn guy go, so the chances of getting a good precedent here were probably that much lower.
Why are computers treated any differently than anything else?
That's the entire point of the ruling. The government has always been able to search your bags when you cross the border, to look for drugs and guns coming into the country. That's been on the books for 200 years. The question was whether computers would be treated differently and get more protection than everything else.
What threat does data on a computer pose to an airplane?
It's not about getting on airplanes. This does not apply to domestic flights. It's about stuff crossing the border by any means. Presumably, this would apply just as much if you crossed the border by train or in a car.
The case has nothing to do with airplanes. It has to do with the "border search exception" to the warrant requirement.
Sorry, missing link on preview:
Explanation of the border search exception.
Eh, who needs the 4th amendment? As long as I have the illusion of safety from those ter'rists, I'll sleep like a baby. Why would the government misuse this power? I mean, they're all a bunch of Christians, right?
What about software, videos, MP3? What if they want proof of license? They could also decide to download your email inbox and address book. Why? Because They Can.
I know what's going on my laptop next time I cross the border. TrueCrypt. That's what.
Then put your money where your mouth is and vote the bums out. If Congress writes a law saying "no laptops shall be inspected at the border" then no laptops would be inspected at the border. The courts are not the only way to protect our rights.
I'm literally angry with rage!
If your laptop asks for a password at startup, can they legally compel you to provide it? If the court likened the laptop to luggage, I'd guess the answer is yes.
Are there any whole-disk deniable crypto systems available?
Enter password #1: Machine boots in to Windows XP Pro, stocked with a legal copy of Office and the Zune Desktop. Why, no one so boring could be bad!
Enter password #2: Machine boots in to your real system, full of suspicious looking MP3s. Also, your Firefox homepage is set to Craigslist Casual Encounters W4M.
Guess FedEx / DHL will run out of Laptop sized boxes soon. All those business travellers opting to send their laptop home, instead of carrying it on the plane..
Laters Sol "Have you found the secrets of the universe? Asked Zebade "I'm sure I left them here somewhere"
So will they be hiring Hansel to search computers then?
Check out how the border patrol is detaining people domestically in this new story
Scene: Two bumbling customs officials at the International terminal departure area
/dev" like you showed me last week and there was this file called "urandom." I typed "cat urandom" and it's this huge encrypted file. See, it's still going. It must be kiddie porn. Or maybe it's a plot to kill the President. Yeah, that must be it, a plot to kill the President by giving him a heart attack by showing him kiddie porn.
Inspector Jimbob: Hey Joe, this guy has a Linux box, how do I read the files?
Inspector Joebob: Just click on the picture of a seashell and type "cat" and the name of the file.
(several minutes later)
Inspector Jimbob: I think we have a kiddie pevert here, I found a file that looks all encrypted.
Inspector Joebob: What file is it?
Inspector Jimbob: I did "cd
[end]
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
It's almost as if this would set precedent for legally scanning any and all data coming into any United States servers over the Internet, and going out.
So as a parent, if I take a picture of my 6-month old baby girl in a bathtub, have the picture on my computer, and go traveling, I could be detained and locked up for child pornography? I'm sorry but I have little faith that our minimum wage earning security sloths will be able to tell the difference between proud parent images and kiddie porn.
I seem to remember a similar situation at a department store photo department. The teenager running the picture printer saw pictures of a 7 or 8-year old bare-chested child with long hair (it turned out later to be a boy), thought it was kiddie porn and called the cops.
I barely feel like they know how to do the job they have. Now were going to have them searching peoples laptops?
This is just plain stupid.
-Goran
Carpe Scrotum - The only way to deal with your competition.
Just keep you laptop loaded with a bloated Vista install. The 5 minutes login time should discourage the snoopy. Then keep your real Linux workspace on a bootable 8GB flashdrive.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
it makes perfect sense that people traveling with their laptop only bring "unimportant" information with them. What should a road-warrior expect, access to their data while they travel? Hogwash! There is no reason for them to ahve information that important on their laptop. It should be secured on the servers and accessed when needed.
Customs officers do not need warrants, probable cause, reasonable suspicion or any of that crap. This is settled law and practice. If you went before the Supreme Court, they would laugh at you. It isn't any different in other countries. I've seen people get the contents of their luggage dumped on the floor and examined with a fine-toothed comb, just because the customs officer didn't like the way they looked.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/ca9/newopinions.nsf/6D5D931898D8168188257432005AC9B8/$file/0650581.pdf?openelement
."
1. He was randomly chosen for secondary questioning. Perfectly legal and constitutional.
2. He left the images on the desktop in a folder. They were not hidden.
3. This cannot be a violation of the 4th amendment because it was a border search. Border searches have been challenged and found to be constitutional numerous times in the past.
4. United States v. Flores-Montano, 541 U.S. 149, 153 (2004). Generally, "searches made at the border . . . are
reasonable simply by virtue of the fact that they occur at the border . . .
Flores-Montano, 541 U.S. at 152. Therefore, "[t]he luggage carried by a traveler entering the country may
4179 UNITED STATES v. ARNOLDbe searched at random by a customs officer . . . no matter how
great the traveler's desire to conceal the contents may be."
He made no attempt to conceal the images as they were left on the desktop, but even if he had attempted to conceal them it wouldn't have mattered anyway.
5. Courts have long held that searches of closed containers and their contents can be conducted at the border without particularized suspicion under the Fourth Amendment. This includes items such as a purse, wallet, or pockets. A laptop is no different.
6. Flores-Montano, 541 U.S. at 152 (emphasis added), the Supreme Court has held open the possibility, "that some
searches of property are so destructive as to require" particularized suspicion. Id. at 155-56 (emphasis added) (holding that complete disassembly and reassembly of a car gas tank did not require particularized suspicion).
Since the search of his laptop did not require it to be damaged in any way, and the defendant also stated that his laptop was not damaged, it was again a legal search.
The only way he was going to get away with this is if he had shoved a memory stick up his butt and made sure he didn't do anything that caused suspicion.
T.R.U.E. C.R.Y.P.T. D.O.T. O.R.G.
.avi video file stored on a TrueCrypt volume (therefore, the video file is entirely encrypted). The user provides the correct password (and/or keyfile) and mounts (opens) the TrueCrypt volume. When the user double clicks the icon of the video file, the operating system launches the application associated with the file type - typically a media player. The media player then begins loading a small initial portion of the video file from the TrueCrypt-encrypted volume to RAM (memory) in order to play it. While the portion is being loaded, TrueCrypt is automatically decrypting it (in RAM). The decrypted portion of the video (stored in RAM) is then played by the media player. While this portion is being played, the media player begins loading next small portion of the video file from the TrueCrypt-encrypted volume to RAM (memory) and the process repeats. This process is called on-the-fly encryption/decryption and it works for all file types, not only for video files.
LEARN TO USE TRUE CRYPT or another encryption system TO PROTECT YOURSELF FROM THE PRYING EYES OF BIG BROTHER AGENTS WITH THEIR ARROGANT AGENDA OF PRIVACY VIOLATIONS. DOUBLE ENCRYPT (AT LEAST).
From: http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/
rueCrypt is a software system for establishing and maintaining an on-the-fly-encrypted volume (data storage device). On-the-fly encryption means that data are automatically encrypted or decrypted right before they are loaded or saved, without any user intervention. No data stored on an encrypted volume can be read (decrypted) without using the correct password/keyfile(s) or correct encryption keys. Entire file system is encrypted (e.g., file names, folder names, contents of every file, free space, meta data, etc).
Files can be copied to and from a mounted TrueCrypt volume just like they are copied to/from any normal disk (for example, by simple drag-and-drop operations). Files are automatically being decrypted on-the-fly (in memory/RAM) while they are being read or copied from an encrypted TrueCrypt volume. Similarly, files that are being written or copied to the TrueCrypt volume are automatically being encrypted on-the-fly (right before they are written to the disk) in RAM. Note that this does not mean that the whole file that is to be encrypted/decrypted must be stored in RAM before it can be encrypted/decrypted. There are no extra memory (RAM) requirements for TrueCrypt. For an illustration of how this is accomplished, see the following paragraph.
Let's suppose that there is an
Note that TrueCrypt never saves any decrypted data to a disk - it only stores them temporarily in RAM (memory). Even when the volume is mounted, data stored in the volume is still encrypted. When you restart Windows or turn off your computer, the volume will be dismounted and files stored in it will be inaccessible (and encrypted). Even when power supply is suddenly interrupted (without proper system shut down), files stored in the volume are inaccessible (and encrypted). To make them accessible again, you have to mount the volume (and provide the correct password and/or keyfile).
I am not allowed to show the files on my laptop to the customs agents due to HIPAA regulations. So I guess either I refuse, and go to jail, or allow them to look at it, and then go to jail once I set foot inside the U.S.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
The argument against child pornography is that the desire to obtain it creates a demand industry, which means that children will be hurt. That is a danger to society.
But the digital media itself cannot hurt anyone by the simple nature of what digital media is. It is nothing more than a sign that this person might endanger children.
Looking at it from that angle: What if you had a piece of paper with a marijuana leaf drawn on it in your brief case. You were not in possession of marijuana nor did they have any evidence that you have ever touched the stuff. But it's a sign that you like to use drugs or perhaps that you are even a dealer. Is that a good enough reason to keep you out of the country on the grounds of that drawing alone?
What's on my laptop is a 320 gigabyte AES-256 luks-encrypted LVM volume set sitting on an encrypted physical drive. This is unlocked using a 32-character passphrase which is not stored anywhere but in my brain. Without that passphrase you basically unpack a kernel and recognize the hardware... and that's it.
I use Ubuntu on my laptop, and this is all configured out of the box on that distro.
Requiring me to unlock my encrypted volume using that password immediately violates my 5th Amendment rights, and is hence, unconstitutional.
So once again, Privacy 1, Government 0.
They seem to keep forgetting that it is the PEOPLE who gives the government their power, not the reverse.
This is *exactly* why the average consumer should utilize encryption. Encryption isn't about hiding your information, it's about protecting your privacy. If you don't want the government to search your laptop all you have to do is encrypt your data. Granted, if you encrypt the whole disk you could be asked to provide the password. That's why you should use an encrypted volume. You can keep a few dummy files on your machine to throw off investigators and keep your private data on your encrypted volume. It staggers me that more people don't use encryption to keep their privacy intact.
"... government gets to meet its agenda."
What happens if your laptop is encrypted? Can they tell you how it is supposed to work if the boot code is temporarily disabled? Can they expect you to supply a password? What happens if you carry the laptop hard drive in your pocket?
The free, open source TrueCrypt works with Windows and Linux and now encrypts the boot partition, on the fly, while the the computer is being used.
Just like drugs, counterfeit goods, and unlicensed freon.
It is the border agents job to prevent this stuff from coming into the country. Busting a guy at point-of-entry for child porn isn't stepping outside their bounds whatsoever. It's precisely why we have border security in the first place.
And who in their right mind ever thought you had a right to privacy when border crossing?
Anything you hand-carry is subject to search. They will sift through your underwear, open and inspect your deoderant container, they even pulled the inserts out of my shoes.
Here's a scary thought: THEY CAN READ YOUR DIARY TOO! even if you write "TOP SECRET! NO BOYS ALLOWED" on the cover.
There's plenty of things to get upset about. This isn't one of them.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Frankly, I think you're viewing the past with rose-colored glasses. I mean, slavery wasn't exactly a great stride in terms of freedom. Nor was the fact that women couldn't vote. And those controversial sodomy laws weren't just introduced with the Patriot Act, right? What about internment camps for Japanese CITIZENS in WWII? They just oozed Bill of Rights, didn't they? Or putting people with different skin colors in different schools.
These great freedoms for which you pine have both come and gone, ebbed and flowed throughout the history of this country. It's disingenuous to act like everything "used to be" fine and now it's all falling apart.
There have been abuses and victories in terms of freedom, but never has the strength of this country been put into question simply because some tool whines about canceling his trip to the States. It drives me absolutely NUTS that governments in the US (of all levels, e.g. eminent domain at municipality level) breach real Constitutional rights, but it bugs me because they're breaching Constitutional rights, not because it might encourage some putz to personally boycott travel here. I don't care if some guy in another country doesn't like my country, whether it be a migrant worker from Central America or a self-important full-time student from Central Europe.
But it doesn't matter. When I say the above, then I'm xenophobic and selfish or maybe even jingoistic. But if I go the other way, I'm soft and foolish.
stepping off soap box now...
Please don't use "umm" or "err" or "erm".
There is actually a pretty easy way around this. (Albeit, there are some variables that effect practicality). If I were to travel across borders and knew I had material I did not want seen (private photos? personal docs), I would simply sftp them some place safe and delete them from my hard drive. Once on the other side, I sftp my files back down. The border guards can search until the cows come home for all I care. Screw all that encrypted file system crap. :)
PLUS, if my laptop gets broken or stolen, I don't lose all my important docs.
Can all fish swim?
CGI child porn is still illegal.. and hey-- no children involved!
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
And just why are you taking personal patient data around with you on a laptop in the first place?
Because it is required in order to perform my job duties. If I was assured of a way to get access to the data I need while abroad, then I wouldn't even need to take my laptop, just make sure they had a workstation for me wherever I happened to be going.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
...what matters is what they decide to put on it.
Don't assume just because "something" was found on a hard drive, the owner was the one that put it there. You have absolutely no way of proving that any data on your hard drive was planted. Once anybody has free, unfettered access to your storage device, they can do whatever they please with it and you have absolutely no way to PROVE that the data had been deleted, revised, planted, etc.
This is why it is absolutely imperative that your right to be secure on your effects be absolutely and undeniably PROTECTED at ALL costs! YOU are the one who must prove you are innocent in our country. Innocent until proven guilty is the feel good catch phrase of our legal system. It is a fallacy that does not exist in the real world.
The only protection you have from corruption is to keep the corrupted out of your personal effects. It is an inalienable right that must be fought for tooth and nail to keep protected.
Would you find somebody defending child pornography.
BTW movies where where they muder people are illegal last time I checked.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
If I ever want to move sekret data over the US border, that absolute last thing I'd think to use was a laptop.
There is this invention called The Internet which lets you move gigs and gigs of data into and out of the USA with excellent public key encryption. You can even store the data encrypted in the US and access it from from your secret pirate island with complete safely no problem.
If only moving drugs around was so easy.
Other then slowing down the border that much more, I can't imagine catching anybody with a clue.