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FISA and Border Searches of Laptops
With the recent attention to the DHS's draconian policy on laptop searches at borders, a blog post by Steven Bellovin from last month is worth wider discussion. Bellovin extrapolates from the DHS border policy on physical electronic devices and asks why authorities wouldn't push to extend it to electronic data transfers. "...it would seem to make little difference if the information is 'imported' into the US via a physical laptop or via a VPN, or for that matter by a Web connection. The right to search a laptop for information, then, is equivalent to the right to tap any and all international connections, without a warrant or probable cause. (More precisely, one always has a constitutional protection against 'unreasonable' search and seizure; the issue is what the definition of 'unreasonable' is.)"
Much as I agree that there will probably be a change in course, rights, once take away, are very slow to return. I can foresee that a new president keen to lose his 'inexperienced' image would be reluctant to take that strong a stand against the powers that be at Langley, etc.
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
And the land of the free begat the great firewall of America?
The government agrees that they should have the right to investigate each and every connection that goes in or out of the United States, no warrant required. It's impractical to actually watch every connection in real time, or to store them all, but they certainly believe they should have the option to investigate whichever connections they choose at a whim.
Write your own Choose Your Own Adventure. http://www.freegameengines.org/gamebook-engine/
No offense, but the ridiculous visa situation, warrant less searches and other issues certainly will secure the US borders.
After all, any country is safer if nobody wants to go and visit it anymore.
"I want everyone to remember why they need us" - liberties and freedoms that are eroded in the name of security and protection never seem to return once the threat is lifted again, and each one is another step on the path to Totalitarianism.
Since the Supreme Court has said that the Constitutional limits on Copyright, "for a limited time", that "limited" means whatever Congress says it means, then it follows that "unreasonable" means whatever Congress says it means, too.
The cops opened my unlocked garage and "had a look around", I guess that's reasonable. They searched my car because it was parked outside a dope house (I had no idea; my passengers were collecting money owed them by a slumlord they were cleaning houses for) as well as my person. I guess that's not unreasonable, either.
Why is it they had to amend the Constitution to outlaw alcohol, but not other drugs?
The Supreme court, in effect, says that the Constitutuon is meaningless. We, the people, no longer have any rights. And you can bet your wife's ass that they're already reading your mail and seeing who you connect to on the internet. The people running things today don't believe in the rule of law.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
is equivalent to the right to tap any and all international connections
Yes, it is. And you can assume that all international traffic is, in fact, tapped by the US and other nations, including data, voice, SMS, Skype, other VoIP, and FAX.
I think the real question is what kind of legal cases this information can be used in (so far, it appears, none), and which cryptographic protocols have been compromised.
the best taxes are the ones that are labelled 'temporary', those are most certain to never disappear.
MP3 Search Engine
Here's my prediction, on record: this policy will be a real boon for micro laptop companies like Asus. Who is going to want to travel with an expensive laptop that can get snatched up by an avaristic or paranoid border cop? It bothers me to no end that they don't need due processes for this because I have a new MacBook Pro. The thing is worth $2,000 and is precisely the sort of thing that would become a target of something like this where the cops turned seized cars into a private car rental service for their own pleasure.
So I guess what'll happen is that people will take an Eee PC with them, and then download the data as needed from some offsite backup service. That, and the whole problem of people avoiding business travel to the United States.
"he next administration (assuming Obama wins) will probably be more interested in taking away our "treasure"."
Actually I hate to be the one to break it to you but your treasure is already gone. what is likely to happen is your going to get the bill for it by the next president.
In our (as a country) fear of Terrorism and our fear for the safety of our children, we are slowly strangling ourselves of our vitality. Soon, we as a country will be like scared little children hiding under our beds from a thunderstorm. And in the meantime, the rest of the World will eventually pass us by.
How odd; tha grandparen troll is unmodded, the guy who says "getting nailed to a log just for suggesting that people should try to be a little bit nicer to each other" gets modded offtopic? THE WHOLE THREAD IS OFFTOPIC!!
I'll tell you what Jesus would say - when he was asked if you should pay tribute to Ceasar, he asked whose picture was on the coin. He would say "unreasonable" means what the Supreme Court says it means. Man's laws are no concern of his, he has bigger fish to fry.
AFAIK the bible doesn't say anything about privacy or your rights. So the very question is moot. But the whole Bush administration has been pretty unreasonable if you ask me.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
The policy is over the line with the indefinite seizures; however, HISTORICALLY the government has always had the right to search anything entering its borders. I've got NO problem with that, particularly for non-US citizens. The indefinite crap has got to go, though - they need to be able to search laptop info a little better than that.
About 5 months of this nonsense left at the time of this post, and all these wacky rules can be repealed after that, thank goodness:
http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/blbushclock.htm
You do realize that most of these rules are at most rewordings and formalizations of what was already policy in 2000?
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
From here : At a Senate hearing in June, Larry Cunningham, a New York prosecutor who is now a law professor, defended laptop searches--but not necessarily seizures--as perfectly permissible. Preventing customs agents from searching laptops "would open a vulnerability in our border by providing criminals and terrorists with a means to smuggle child pornography or other dangerous and illegal computer files into the country," Cunningham said.
What I want to know is who exactly "smuggles" child pornography around on a laptop. They may have it on their laptop, but they're not "smuggling" it into the country. They more than likely downloaded it from someplace that's already accessible to anyone in the country anyway.
You may be able to prosecute them for it, but it's not going to save any children. Anyone that wants it will just hide it better, and you'll end up arresting people that have a suspect image or three in their browser cache that they've probably never even seen. This is just more bullshit fear-mongering to further strip us of our liberties.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
the next administration (assuming Obama wins) will probably be more interested in taking away our "treasure".
It's Bush that has taken away our "treasure", by spending upwards of $500bn on a useless war. We will be paying for that for decades to come.
If you look over the last 50 years, it's clear: Republicans are bad for the economy and are fiscally irresponsible.
If you want fiscally responsible policies, vote Democrat.
Yes and the other party will not stop pointing out how the Democrats increased taxes (to pay for it all) and people will buy into it electing Republican again in 4 years who then will continue to rape your rights and take your money. (Democrats and Republicans can be easily changed above)
As long as people do not start voting for an alternative, there will be no alternative. If you say that voting for an alternative will not work, please repair your democratic system before you try to export it.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
I forget where I read it, but I recently a news article that mentioned the "Streetlight Effect".
We all know the classic joke. A man is walking down the street when he sees a drunk, on his knees, looking for something under a streetlight. The man stops and asks, "What are you looking for?" and the drunk replies. "My keys." So the man gets down on his knees to help him find his keys.
After a half-hour of fruitless searching the man asks, "Well, where did you lose them?" and the drunk replies, "Over in that alley, but the light's better over here."
This sort of security theater reminds me of that joke.
We can't find Bin Laden. We can't stop al Qaeda. We can't (won't) secure our borders with Mexico. But we damn well make air travel a living hell for millions of innocent air travelers because, well, the light's better over here.
your laptop contains copywrite material, that you probably don't own. under us law you need the copywrite owner's permission to copy this. the border agent is violating copywrite law when he/she images your drive. if you have a login then that counts as a copywrite protection device, and that means a dmca violation as well. i'm surprised nobody has taken this to court yet.
You haven't been reading the other /. articles today, have you ?
this is part of the reason you should all be pro gun. an armed society is a polite society. if the cops thought there might be someone with a gun on the otherside of the garage door, they wouldn't be just strolling in to take a look, they'd be thinking twice and only go in if it's REALLY worth it.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
You know that scene with all the slaves crucified along the main road at the end of Spartacus? Guess what? That was pretty much the ONLY thing in the film that was pretty much accurate. Later, the Romans would go on to pretty much ethnically cleanse Dacia and rename it "Romania," or as a Briton leader once told Agricola, Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant. (A loose translation: "Stealing, killing, raping, all under the false name of Imperium, and where you make an emptiness, you call it peace.") Monstra fuerant.
"Tax and spend" meets "borrow and spend." Who do you think will be paying for the Bush years, a leprechaun with a pot of gold?
It's not that the Bush admin had zero interest in being the party of balanced budgets, they had negative interest! Pushed the throttle all the way, man - he robbed you, me and everybody else. Record deficits, and do you think the Bush tax cuts would somehow never come home to roost? The perfect setup, "We Republicans cut your taxes, and look what the Democrats did they raised taxes." Well, duh.
Republican politicians know their constituency; people like you have short memories, no sense of history, and will vote 'em right back in to rob us all over again.
O lord, bless this thy holy hand grenade, that with it thou mayest blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy.
A) They don't have to take any of them.
B) They don't have to give them back, and you have no recourse.
Intercepting electronic communications would be the moral equivalent of copying your laptop's drive if the copy could be made without depriving you of the use of your laptop and/or delaying your crossing your borders. To date you can't copy a typical laptop's hard drive in the time it takes to move through the X-ray machine. At least, not cheaply.
If they take your laptop and as result you are without it for 15 minutes, or worse, so long that you miss your connecting flight, that's real damage over and above the privacy issues.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
The US was founded after a long fight for freedom from the UK, an oppressive parent country - and the constitution reflects that, deliberately enshrining and limiting the rights of the government, not the people. If the right was not granted to the government, the government didn't have it.
Specific limitations were explained where they contrasted to the old system. For example secure in your person and papers, right to form a well organised malitia, absolute freedom of speech etc - all these things defined as actions the government could not interfere with, where previously they were frequently interfered with and/or denied.
Since that time, the common interpretation seems to have reversed; it is now assumed that if the right is not granted to the people, the people don't have it.
So where clearly the point of privacy in mail was meant to contrast to the previous system by granting privacy in communications (like mail), it has now been taken to mean no privacy in any form of communication except mail.
Is crushing a suspect's child's testicles illegal?
John Yoo: "No, [if] the President thinks he needs to do that."
Aren't there easier ways of bringing in naughty pictures and files than sneakernet?
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
Everyone quotes the Constitution and argues law.
Perhaps it would be better to consider a quotation from the Declaration of Independence. Remember that document? The one that put the whole lot of dirty laundry out for all to see and said:
"We Aren't Going to Stand for This Anymore"
(quotes, ed.)
Decades of abuse by a government out of control were a major cause of a war for independence. Could these same abuses, now at the hands of the current government be the seeds for a true revolution?
Looking back over the decades of dirty politics and lies perpetrated by America's elected officials and their bureaucracies, I am able to see at least some glimmer of acting in the common good. I'm not saying that it was all proper and that it was not often criminal. I am saying that I see nothing in the last 20 years that was done for any purpose but to line the pockets of a politician or corporation at our expense and to our detriment.
As though the rape of our financial well being is not sufficient, now the government seeks to remove any and all means to communicate in privacy, and to do without due process or allowing us any capability to seek redress.
I think that perhaps you should all read the Declaration of Independence. Perhaps with a mind for a couple slight updates? I think we need to publish a new one.
"We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed.
"That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is in the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security."
Nah. Canada has a system similar to this, and yet no matter who I vote for, every time there's a legislation vote that matters, the US Government gets 30% of the vote, US Industry gets 50%, Canadian Industry gets 10%, and the other 10% is on vacation.
they should counter with some factual arguments about tax-and-spend policies in the White House
I'm sorry, what? First off, I think you mean "cut-tax-and-spend" policies. It's not the Democrats (who are traditionally painted with that brush) that have fucked up the US budget, it's the Republicans (who're supposedly fiscally responsible).
Secondly, *factual* arguments? We're talking about the US public, here. Let me illustrate how this would go:
Congress: Here's the budget. As you can see, we're cutting back on spending in key areas in order to reign in expenditures. In particular, in order to control growth of the ballooning national debt, we've been forced to reduce funding for various military operations, including Iraq.
President: The democrats don't support the troops! They don't support the troops, everyone! See? No troop supporting!!
Congress: Well, given the outlandish spending and unreasonable tax cuts of the last 7 years, we've been forced to make some uncomfortable compromises so that we can begin balancing the budget, something that's critical during a weakening economic outlook.
Pressident: SUPPORT THE TROOPS! SUPPORT THE TROOPS! TERRORISTS! 9/11! TROOOOOPS!
Repeat, ad nauseum. In short: the US public hasn't demonstrated the wherewithal to comprehend a nuanced argument regarding US expenditures. You make not like it, but that's the truth. As such, the dems are plain and simply caught between a rock and a hard place. Cut funding, they look bad. Continue spending, they look bad.
The only real solution is to pull the hell out of Iraq, at which point they can cut military expenditures without being painted as unpatriotic. But that can't happen until this President has left office (for what I hope are obvious reasons). As such, I'm happy to wait until year two of the next administration before declaring them an abject failure.
IT surplus. You just say they upgraded and you knew a guy who let you get it used for a song. You thought the sticker was so nifty you never took it off.
... its evident that this has nothing to do with terorists and homeland security. Its all about p0rn.
If they were really afraid of al Qaida types, they'd be looking for data going out through the borders as well as coming in.
Have gnu, will travel.
The summary speweth forth:
The fourth amendment gives the specific definition of reasonable:
Probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, a description of the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized, which in turn forms the basis for issuing a warrant, and the warrant itself is the legal pivot upon which the authorization of the federal government to search, or not search, turns.
The states must follow suit because the 14th amendment says "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States." Local jurisdictions must follow suit because they must comply with the laws of the state they exist within.
Any argument about "reasonable searches" not being explicitly defined in the 4th amendment is entirely sophist. The 4th goes into very specific detail on exactly that subject, and was written by people whose primary interest was limiting federal power. You can't say that the conditions required for a reasonable search aren't laid out in there. You certainly can't say that the terms for an unreasonable search are laid out in there -- those aren't unreasonable terms, they're reasonable terms.
With the specific and explicit definition of what 'reasonable" is right in hand, given by the constitution itself, the definition of "unreasonable" is crystal clear: everything else.
Now, if congress wants some other definition of "reasonable" in there, then amazingly enough, there is a mechanism specifically provided for them to get that accomplished; that is article V, Amendment. There is no other way they can legitimately effect such a change.
They can, however, assert unauthorized power by simply making unconstitutional legislation, just as they have with ex post facto laws, the inversion of the commerce clause, various kinds of censorship, and an entire laundry list of other unauthorized power grabs; and in such an effort, they will continue to enjoy the support of the executive and the judiciary, because after all -- they're all part of the same system, and all benefit from accruing additional power.
It is very important that we, as citizens, remain cognizant of the difference between the authorizations of power made by the constitution, and the naked grabs for unauthorized power made by oath-breaking members of the executive, congress, and the judiciary. What little power we have -- essentially that of "throw the bums out" with regard to our own members of congress, and the executive -- should be used whenever we detect such unauthorized activity.
The problem is that most people don't bother to read the constitution, and are wholly unaware that the federal government has widely violated its constituting authority in many areas; there's an almost impossible obstacle to overcome with regard to informing the public as to just how far outside the lines the federal government has extended itself.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
From the parent's quote: "...unless that search is based on a reasonable suspicion regarding that person" (empahsis added)
For my tax dollar, the wording has to be a lot stronger than that to be worthwhile, particularly when the owner of such a "device or media" is a U.S. citizen or resident alien. Replacing "reasonable suspicion" with "search warrant" would be ideal; barring that the phrase "probable cause" would be an improvement over the status quo. For non-resident aliens, the only consequence of refusing a search on an official's "reasonable suspicion" should be denial of entry to the U.S.: no seizures, arrests, or any other punitive measure unless the subject has demonstrably engaged in other, unrelated wrongdoing.
Considering that courts have at least implicitly found such border seizures to be "reasonable" by the 4th Amendment standard (I don't know of any case where a court has barred such a search or seizure in a point-of-entry related context), I don't see how this specific language would qualify as an improvement. Such language, if enacted, would just be a matter of putting lipstick on the pig.
Sadly, this is not true. What it is, is a constitutionally unauthorized law, but it is 100% in force, not null, not void, and the government can and will use its massive power to enforce it unless or until it stopped by the courts. Barring actual revolution, that is.
Some of the most glaring faults in our system are that there is no punishment for congresscritters and judges for violating their oaths; no recompense for people hurt by unconstitutional laws; and there is no review system that ensures that laws are even remotely constitutional prior to them coming into force. All we can do (within the system) is vote 'em out or hope that the courts will return to 10th grade reading skills and thus gain the wit to interpret the constitution as it was meant to be; an exercise in plain English. Unfortunately, our voting system is a process that favors the majority, and the majority are, to put it kindly, uninformed on the one hand; and on the other, the justices at SCOTUS are, again to be kind, incompetent to do their jobs.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.