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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.
"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?
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.
I highly recommend using truecrypt and incorporating a hidden volume. That way if you need to divulge a password, you can just give them one that allows access to a volume that doesn't have the sensitive data they are looking for.
All things are subject to interpretation, whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and n
You've got two different searches confused.
The search of people flying on any flight is an "administrative search" to look for weapons. It is strictly limited to searching for weapons--if the cops see drugs they can bust you, but they can't look for drugs or evidence of any other crime.
This is not the same search. This is the Customs search at the border and it has nothing to do with flying. Think about going through US Customs after you land in the US. The key is that it's after you've already landed. The government has always been able to look for drugs at US Customs, which has nothing to do with airline safety. (While a couple of kilos of blow might make your flight more entertaining, it's hardly the sort of thing that makes airplanes crash).
There's a very important difference between pre-flight safety searches (applies to any flight, domestic or international) and customs searches (applies to any means of entering the country).
Funny though, our stature in the world seems to be declining along with our freedom. Eventually we'll have none of either left, and the world will continue without us.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Heck, Gonzales once issued a statement once saying that people who haven't cleared customs technically are neither in nor out of the US, and therefore have no actual rights (can't dredge up a reference now). He's certainly said that habeus corpus isn't actually a right.
Basically, for a while at least, the legal opinion was that you could be arbitrarily and indefinitely detained without recourse. You're so far removed from the 5th Amendment at that point, it's not funny!!
Unless things change, you have shockingly few rights at the border -- at least until a court clarifies things.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
When you cry, "think of the children," another right is taken away.
http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/ca9/newopinions.nsf/6D5D931898D8168188257432005AC9B8/$file/0650581.pdf?openelement
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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.