Slashdot Mirror
EFF To Fight Border Agent Laptop Searches
snydeq writes "The EFF and the Association of Corporate Travel Executives have filed an amicus brief with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals requesting that the full court rehear and reverse a three-judge ruling (PDF) that empowers border agents routinely to search files on laptops and mobile devices. The case in question involves US citizen Michael Arnold, who, returning from the Philippines in July 2005, had his laptop confiscated at LAX by custom officials after they opened files in folders marked 'Kodak Pictures' and 'Kodak Memories' and found photos of two naked women. Later, when Arnold was detained, officials uncovered photo files on Arnold's laptop that they believed to be child pornography. In addition to raising Fourth Amendment issues, the amicus brief (PDF) reiterates the previous District Court ruling on Arnold's case regarding the difference between computers and gas tanks, suitcases, and other closed containers, 'because laptops routinely contain vast amounts of the most personal information about people's lives — not to mention privileged legal communications, reporters' notes from confidential sources, trade secrets, and other privileged information.'"
Strong encryption is obviously the answer to keeping data safe from prying eyes. What I don't think is legal is the government keeping an image of the disk just for having passewd through customs with encrypted data.
Can't I just refuse to let them access my laptop? Sure, they can turn it on to prove that it's really a laptop and not a bomb, but besides that they shouldn't be allowed to go through photos of me giving my 6 month old son a bath.
Personally, what I'm more worried about is that the pillock on customs manages to erase data from my computer / SD card.
Summation 2
...with my company laptop which I will bring with me this monday ? Should I let it be searched by customs, or should I call the legal department of my (very large) company to handle the situation ?
:)
As this is on topic here, some advice would be nice
The EFF and the Association of Corporate Travel Executives have quite the fight on their hands.
Really all the government has to do is use the branding of we are looking for child pornography terriosts that have weapons of mass destruction and guess what, poof there goes any right to privacy. Right now, they pretty much have a free ticket to do just about what ever they please.
Every time I hear stories similar to this I think back to an episode of the Simpsons, where Helen Lovejoy keeps saying, "Won't somebody think of the childern?" It was satire that they would do just about anything, if it was for the childern.
Historians will look back on two things this decade, how hurricane katrina changed how oil companies charge people for gas (they can also do just about anything they want) and how 9/11 affected personal freedoms and privacy.
I've said it before; trade secrets will be the most important aspect of this (whether or not they should be is of minor importance); especially for foreign business travelers, since American intelligence agencies have shown themselves time and again incapable to contain themselves when it comes to passing around business secrets to local competitors.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
Simply use a USB Hard Drive and Ship it to your destination or use the following line: The National Secrets act prevents me from displaying the contents of my USB encrypted hard drive to Border officials due to your lack in clearance, Are you Secret or Higher? (Unless the border officall is Cleared to the Highest level which is unresaonable, they would not legally check your portable hard-drive without incidient) if they ask what you are doing with "Sensitive" information, you tell them that your clients are the Military, NSA whomever. There's a pecking order in every government, the grey area is around the civil service.
I work for a Russian company and mostly Russian and Ukranian native co-workers. They say that the U.S. becomes more like the Soviet Union every day.
Please don't try and conflate the issues of Illegal Search and Seizure with border security.
I find this entire situation vile. While it's disgusting that this guy had kiddie porn on his laptop, it is NOT the business of customs to be searching through this guy's personal info on a fishing trip for possibly illegal stuff. That's Totalitarian behavior.
Incidentally, I put many of these types of incidents at the feet of a unionized and unaccountable customs bureaucracy. Why the heck do we respond to the issue of Islamofascist terrorism with a bureaucratic nightmare organization that blanket targets everyone with no due process? It's moronic, ineffective and self-defeating.
However, properly securing our borders against infiltration by both Illegal Aliens and Foreign Agents is an integral part of National Defense. Not to mention that it spares the border environment the horrific amounts of garbage Illegals have been leaving in our delicate sub-desert ecosystems.
I'm all for making easier to legally emigrate to America. Less red tape and paperwork is always good. I think America should rightly welcome all who wish to come here and participate in Freedom and Free Enterprise by working hard (or smart) and earning their way to a comfortable and happy life for them and theirs. However, I am NOT interested in paying for those who would come here ILLEGALLY, flaunt our laws, commit all sorts of crimes, and try and use our social welfare systems as a hammock while they send cash back home. Sorry, America isn't your sugar daddy.
So you see, even a died-in-the-wool Conservative like me can see that these are two separate issues, and it is possible to support them both without being either a pedophile or a racist.
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
As a person who once made the mistake of trying to drive a Volkswagen Bus from Canada to the US, as a US citizen, no, the Constitution does not apply at the border.
My vehicle, without any just cause, no drug dog etc, was completely taken apart and destroyed by Customs officials, and I had no recourse. This was in 1989. They cut up and removed the seats, dash, headliner, carpet. They drilled a hole in the gas tank and drained it. They removed all 4 wheels and the tires from the wheels. They took all my luggage and dumped it out on the ground. Then, when they didn't find anything, told me I had 30 minutes to remove everything from their parking lot or it would be confiscated and destroyed. 30 minutes to remove a vehicle with no gas and a hole in the gas tank, no seats and no wheels. I basically packed up my suitcases and bags, grabbing as much as I could carry, and left the vehicle behind. Walked across the border, hitched a ride into town, and took the Greyhound home. Never did find out what they did with my Bus.
While they were tearing apart my vehicle, any protest I made was greated with the usual "You are interferring with Customs Officials, if you continue, you will be arrested."