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DHS Allowed To Take Laptops Indefinitely
andy1307 writes with a Washington Post story giving details of Department of Homeland Security policies for border searches of laptops and other electronic devices (as well as papers). (We have been discussing border searches for a while now.) DHS says such procedures have long been in place but were "disclosed last month because of public interest in the matter," according to the article. Here is a link to the policy (PDF, 5 pages). "Federal agents may take a traveler's laptop or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed. Also, officials may share copies of the laptop's contents with other agencies and private entities for language translation, data decryption, or other reasons, according to the policies, dated July 16 and issued by two DHS agencies, US Customs and Border Protection and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement... DHS officials said that the newly disclosed policies — which apply to anyone entering the country, including US citizens — are reasonable and necessary to prevent terrorism... The policies cover 'any device capable of storing information in digital or analog form,' including hard drives, flash drives, cell phones, iPods, pagers, beepers, and video and audio tapes. They also cover 'all papers and other written documentation,' including books, pamphlets and 'written materials commonly referred to as "pocket trash..."'"
Worst part is despite the searches and seizures, they accomplish very little. You inconvenience and step all over the rights of average, law-abiding citizens to give the impression of safety.
What is even worse is that if you try to use encryption to maintain a level of privacy and security, that will just mean they'll keep it longer while they try to crack it.
Just because their little law says they can do it doesn't mean it doesn't run afoul of the Contitutional protections. Were this to be challenged, it would be killed pretty quickly: one cannot instigate such as this in the name of "terrorism" and not expect at least one challenge on "unreasonable search and seizure." You cannot fight global terrorism by turning the USA into a police-state. All that accomplishes is angering the populace....and you remember the last time Americans became angry with their government?...
Normally I would put together a verbose, and perhaps even eloquent, response to such information. But I can only think of two words.
Bull shit.
We are losing, people. We are losing our rights and there will be more to come. That our own personal property can be seized "to fight terrorism" on the terms presented is absolute, unadulterated, pure and uncut bull shit.
"Yeah, you'll get your stuff back in, uh, fourty years. Sorry, rules are rules. And only if it doesn't get lost or misplaced until then."
And when are they going to start confiscating pacemakers and hearing aids ? Last I've heard, these things can also store information in digital form.
You have to be *in* the US for your rights to be in effect. Once you're at border security, you're not in the US anymore, so your rights don't apply. At least that's the argument, however dubious.
You know, as an American I can say that I would gladly give up my "right" to security for this crap to just go away. Let the people protect themselves from the invisible enemy and force the government to focus on problems that really matter. Like the country's growing illiteracy rate, or the growing rate of obesity, or hey... how about the economy going to shit. Oh I forgot, we need those fat and stupid people working for the DHS at airports and other "high security" areas. They need jobs too. Homeland Security was just another huge mistake by the Bush administration that I hope will be corrected at some point in the near future. I love my country and all, but if the United States keeps following down this road, I am gone.
What if your laptop contains trade secrets or the like? Wouldn't that constitute industrial espionage to decrypt said information? What if a DHS employee has a relative who competes in that field? I can only imagine the potential messes there.
Ah, the magic words!
I reckon you could even implement gun control in the US, if you reported that peados were using guns!
I cannot think of a single example where I would want to move sensitive data on a laptop. I may live in a sheltered world but in that world we live in the era of the Internet. If for some reason I wanted to transfer sensitive data across any border, I would think ssh would provide superior security.
Actually I can in a few minutes push quite a lot of encrypted data to four different countries. If I were physically where I wanted the data it would be even easier.
I guess this is just another example of reductions in privacy that solve no problems what so ever...
Sounds like a good way for DHS officials to get laptops, iPods, etc real cheap.
Step 1: Find someone with a laptop, iPod, etc that you'd like to have.
Step 2: Take it in the name of National Security.
Step 3: Item "gets lost" and you have a new gadget.
This is especially useful during the holidays. DHS officials can shop on the job. "Hey Frank, didn't you say your kid wanted one of those new iPods? Well look at this guy walking up now."
I wonder what, if any, protections are in place to keep this from being abused. (Any more than giving someone the power to confiscate any item of yours for little to no reason and keep it indefinitely is an abuse of power from the start.)
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Back in Europe when strikingly similar measures were in place we used to call the implementers ``fucking Nazis``, then ``fucking Communists`` and we would often risk our life to escape and be able to live at the land of freedom, in the USA.
Then we thought the Nazis were gone and then the Communists lost too... But have they?
The fact that this kind of rule may be unconstitutional means exactly nothing unless you can convince the judicial branch to rule it so, the executive branch to respect that ruling, and the legislative branch to bitchslap the executive if/when it refuses to behave.
There's at least two items in the list that I won't be holding my breath for.
Worst part is despite the searches and seizures, they accomplish very little. You inconvenience and step all over the rights of average, law-abiding citizens to give the impression of safety.
It's not for nothing. They are not stupid, there's a very good reason for this: power. Information is power, and if they know about your data (it doesn't matter if it's something legal or not), they have power over you.
There's a hidden treasure in Python 3.x: __prepare__()
The constitution doesn't apply until you get past the customs officer. And even then only to US citizens.
Do you have a citation for the Constitution not applying to non-Americans on American soil or are you just talking out of your ass?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Vietnam didn't. I travelled there several times with my laptop and never had any issues.
Can somebody give me a good reason why I should not continue my personal boycott against travel to the US?
I would have to leave all my gadgetry behind at home. Absolutely appalling. It is not the fact that a seizure can happen, but that nonchalantly the authorities have the power to keep your stuff for as long as they please. Nice way to nick an iPod.
I used to go to old U.S. of A. once a year, spending a reasonable amount of money each time (hotel, plain tickets, etc.) and a few times I took stop overs in the US in my way home when visiting my family, for which uncle Sam surely derived some money as well.
I know nobody cares, but more and more people are *actively* avoiding the US when travelling.
I went to Canada instead earlier this year, and the difference could have not been starker: I was granted a visa on arrival (I am Mexican, no bloody way that would ever happen in the US, even if I was coming from Europe, as I normally do), the people are friendly and although are losing soldiers to the Taliban more than what would be reasonable to expect, they are not idiotically paranoid.
USians: when are you going to recover the essence of the goodness that your country promised when it was founded?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Yup. The terrorists have already won. It's not yet clear to which extent, but they certainly did have their way with the USA. The economy is badly damaged and will not recover as fast as before as people are becoming wary of doing business with American companies, especially when that involves sending reps over. Tourism has probably taken a hit as well; I certainly don't want to be treated like a criminal when vacationing. Much of the rest of the world agrees that the USA have become a bunch of paranoid dickheads and America's own intellectual elite is wondering whether the government is still legitimate.
Let's face it, three and a half airplanes were enough to kick the USA from "#1 Superpower and Most Important Country in the World" to "uncomfortably well-armed paranoid hegemony in decline". The terrorists have won and it's unsettling to see how much indirect damage they've done so far.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
I find all of this very frustrating. Not because I have anything in particular to protect (indeed, I can think of very little that is that important that I would object to a reasonable law enforcement official taking a look at it), but because of whats happened to us in just under seven years.
The agenda of the terrorist is -not- particularly to kill people, it's to get their agenda into the front of your mind and to encourage you to bend to their point of view in order to stop the pain. Now, it so happens that killing people does that quite well, but just how many times in the past seven years were -you- affected directly by a terrorist, and how many times were you affected by the window-shopping measures put in place to "protect us from terrorism"? Every time we lose another liberty, the terrorists get another point....not to mention the number of very dubious practices that we accept now in our day to day lives because they allegedly make us safer.
I'm tired of this. Security and protection of the populace is done in back rooms with a low profile, not by folks with machine guns stomping around in airports for PR purposes while punters shuffle, barefoot and half naked, through some electronic gizmo that is then monitored by a human being with a statistically proven error rate in the order of 5% while wondering if they're going to be allowed to keep their own property when they get to the other end.
I feel a dammed sight safer flying through a European aiport than any US one, that's for sure although europeans are starting to succumb to the 'visible security' mantra now....I saw a great case of this yesterday - one lane in three through security at the airport had an electronic explosives sniffer, the other two had conventional scanners....trouble is, you get to chose which queue you join!!!
We seem to have lost the understanding that you don't have to knacker peoples rights to have a good level of protection. We need to stop helping people with abhorrent agendas keeping them in the front of our minds, and the best way to do that is to stop eroding hard earned freedoms in the name of terrorism protection.
From their perspective, all searches are reasonable. WE'RE AT WAR AGAINST A TACTIC, you know.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
I've been in the military for 21 years now, partly because I love our Constitution and believe that somebody has to be willing to sacrifice for its defense. I've also been a Republican for my adult voting life. However, it's events like this that make me question both situations. The Right will let me keep my firearms, but will steal my computer. The Left will let me keep my computer, but will steal my firearms. What is a reasonable person to do these days????
You'd better not update mplayer, then! :-)
God is imaginary
Well, now you've published that idea, it would take them a couple of minutes at most to check all the binaries on any machine. Why not just use your wife's name + her birthday? They'd NEVER think of that.