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High-Tech Gadgets Can Pose Problems At Mexican Border
TechnologyResource writes "Going across the border will be a more 'interesting' experience since Customs and Border Protection will now be checking laptops, digital cameras, cell phones and any other electronics on your person or in your vehicle. It's not a new authority, according to Angelica De Cima, Office of Public Affairs Liaison 'They've always had the right to inspect your person, vehicle, baggage, anything on you. Nothing has changed from before,' De Cima said."
"He said anyone coming across could be a terrorist, drug dealer or someone trying to carry or take information out of the country by hiding it in a smaller device."
Why not just FTP it. Or hide a microSD card inside a cake? It should bake okay, the chip inside gets put under higher temps than the inside of cupcake when they place them on a PCB. The plastic on a uSD might melt a little, but I suspect the information will still be there.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
... that US customs agents will some of the first thugs against the wall when the revolution comes.
There is a war going on for your mind.
I wonder what they'll do when they search my 'unusable' Linux laptop.
"Blue corvette with three gringos heading south route X should pass through your village in 20 minutes. They have laptops, top-notch cellphones, some GPS stuff and wallets full of cash. I'd say some $15k in various assets. Remember, 10% is mine."
Searching the 9/11 hijackers wouldn't have stopped them. It's not like they had their plans saved on their computers. Why do we accept this kind of crap whenever anyone says the magic words "9/11"? We don't even need to change the policy at the airport...people are going to beat down hijackers now, on their own.
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. Ben Franklin.
...which is rather scary. Used to work for US Customs many years ago (before it was ICE), and we were legally permitted to basically search *anything* entering the country (including personal mail, something that is a federal crime in most other instances) other than diplomatic mail and pouches. Nothing was off-limits: If it comes from overseas, ICE has the constitutional right (backed by many years of case law) to search it.
I'm not saying this is a good thing, but every international traveler should be aware of this. Whining about your constitutional rights being violated while standing in the "red" line at your port of entry will simply prolong the agony.
I think I've finally found a use for those virus infected disks I kept from years ago.
I support the troops. I pay f'ing taxes.
It is both new and interesting.
For years, you fill in the form on the airplane, and walk thru customs after a perfunctory stamp stamp, here's your paper, no questions asked, no passport, no ID even looked at upon arrival at the Mexican Airport. Once in a while the "Red light" went off depending on how seedy you looked.
But by and large, getting into Mexico entailed less scrutiny than returning to the states, where questions were asked, documents were demanded, and bags were scanned and opened.
Times change. But Mexico has always been lax.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
I think from a Constitutional perspective they are correct that they have the right to do such inspections. However, doing them on a large scale is a really bad idea. However, stupidity is not unconstitutional.
Captain Koons: The way your dad looked at it, this iPod was your birthright. He'd be damned if any US Border agents gonna put their greasy hands on his boy's birthright, so he hid it, in the one place he knew he could hide something: his ass. Five long years, he wore this iPod up his ass. Then when he died of dysentery, he gave me the iPod. I hid this uncomfortable piece of metal up my ass for two years. Then, after seven years, I was sent home to my family. And now, little man, I give the iPod to you.
Apparently this is one of those times where the feds take advantage of that massive loo-pole in the fourth amendment effectively allowing them to disregard it in the case of "reasonable" searches and seizures...
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Heck checking your laptop is nothing, they can probe up your ass if they really want to!
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
What's the search pattern for *leaving* the US?
Are the boarder countries as paranoid as the US?
That depends on which way you are crossing and if you are a citizen of the nation your are crossing into. If you are an American citizen then the laws about search and seizure do apply so there are some limits. That said I don't think that these would in all likelihood violate those limits.
First - this is fishing. You aren't actually accused of anything... we are going to search you till we find something. What was the famous quote - something like: "give me 6 lines from the hand of an innocent man and I'll find something to convict him".
Second - the fact that they found something. After trampling over the rights of 221 million passengers, they found a paedophile. Is that worth the cost? How many rights are you willing to give up to find that paedophile? Having rights and freedoms means that sometimes bad guys get away. To catch all bad guys requires us to live in a panopticon.
Third - the tone that if you object to this program, you obviously support the paedophile.
Fourth - I'm from outside the US, but I travel there frequently for business. The entry requirements have risen from a form to being fingerprinted and photographed and carrying biometric data at all times. Is there an upper level to this? What would happen if they require DNA swabs to enter? Is that a step too far? Right now in Chicago, they take a nude photo of you using a new scanner to be able to fly. That is so screwed up.
In any case, your rights when attempting to cross a sovereign country's borders are pretty much whatever they say it is. Get over it. This isn't a new or interesting development.
Which is exactly why I'm never transiting through the US again. Plain fucking worth to spend an extra 50 euros to fly from Amsterdam to Toronto instead.
They have extended the thickness of the border by 100 miles as well, so that now 80% of the population can be summarily stopped and searched at anytime.
Isn't it great?
This is always how it is done. Pass laws that are extreme enough so that people say "no one will ever use them"...wait for a while... then use them when there is no chance to roll those laws back.
This is why Thomas Jefferson said "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Fine, the law says they can conduct a forensic search, but there's no reason I have to make it easy for them.
If you take this approach, it may be some time before you get your device back, if at all. If they find that they *can't* get into it, they will assume there is a reason they *should* get into it, and they will not give it back until they crack it. If they can't, you mey not see it again. So exect to lose youe strongly encrypted device. Hope it didn't cost too much...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
No, they do not have the "right" to search. They have the power. Big difference.
and probably up to 100 miles inland from the actual border, too.
https://www.checkpointusa.org/
It's not "High-Tech Gadgets Can Pose Problems At Mexican Border", it's "High-Tech Gadgets Can Pose Problems At United States Border".
I am officially gone from
I figure by 2100 in many areas of Texas, New Mexico and California, English will be taught as a second language.
Because our primary language will be Chinese.
The same can be said for many countries. Ever flown through Ireland, not even as a final destination? It's worse than any American customs stop I've been through.
It's not just the US. It's ANY country that sees "terrorism" as a threat. I've not been to Japan, but I've heard it's a treat there too.
Why does this American Federal employee talk like Speedy Gonzales?
Oh, I get it, besides being ignorant on how people in Mexico speak, you were too lazy to look up who the CBP is. Here's a hint, the first two words in the full name are: United States: http://www.cbp.gov/
Hollow words will burn and hollow men will burn.
It's just a way for the man to try and control you.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
They have the power. Not the right. There is a difference.
SD cards are so small that have to be one of the easiest items to hide in the known universe. There's a brazillion places you could tape one to a car or hide it about your person. Dogs can't sniff them out so unless they're going to start strip-searching *everybody* and dismantling every car then they're not going to find them.
It's just more pointless stupidity from the DHS.
Don't even get me started on micro-SSD or FTP.
No sig today...
Well, most high school hackers can get around this issue. Suppose that you want to bring in information on a laptop. You take your information and run it through a compression and encryption algorithm. You then run an utility which writes this data inside a deleted segment of the hard drive. Unless the border security are exceptionally bright and computer savvy, I doubt that they can find even where to look. Maybe they have a utility program at the border which automates this process. I doubt that unless you are a strong suspect, most security guards have any idea of how to approach this issue. Personally, I like the idea of hiding the SanDisk in a cupcake or an iPod up your ass. BTW, isn't this a great way to get rid of your old computer hardware. Just rename a garbled file as AlQuida battle plans and drop it off at the border. Maybe you might get a free trip to Gitmo.
But if it were more commonplace, they would lose interest. Border patrol operate like cops setting up speed traps. They don't care how many smart people slip through, they care about finding the technique that nets them the largest number of arrests. If it becomes pointless, they'll change it at a policy level.
I have a 120 GB drive in my netbook that is maybe half-full. How long would it take for YOU to search the entire drive and make sure it's "clean"? Keep in mind I could have info in the meta-data of my MP3s, or in /etc/default/bluetooth or even in a small encrypted text file that I don't have the software or password to open.
And that's ONE person's stuff. There's just no way to enforce this.
As a foreign college student that has to deal with the customs every year coming back in to states from my own country, nothing is more painful than experiencing 'Customs and Border Protection'. It is fairly understandable that U.S. government is sooo strict about the incomers that may possibly possess the harm against States. But there will be some kind of loss from too much inspection such as losing elite business men's interests in visiting U.S. and I might not across the border on this spring break even if I've been wanting to visit MEXICO for so long. Just too much inspections to handle. And no, I don't do or bring or take or hide anything that threatens this country.
You needn't worry about your GPS unit, ever since the Firestone tire debacle. The resulting law said that every tire needed to be able to be identified as being from Lot #X without being dismounted (prior to that lot numbers were printed on the inside of the tire). The manufacturers' solution was RFID chips with unique serial numbers embedded in every tire. Since a DEFCon competition was able to read RFID chips from 67 feet away with only slightly-modified off-the-shelf hardware one can only imagine how far away your tires can be read with custom hardware.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Ever flown through Ireland, not even as a final destination? It's worse than any American customs stop I've been through.
Um, yeah - About three months ago, actually. We got off our plane, followed the signs around this amazingly convoluted set of hallways to the passport-check area, only to find...
No one there.
Waited about five minutes, figuring someone had gone to the bathroom, and didn't see a single uniformed person (got passed by plenty of people walking right on through without even pausing, though).
So, we walked through and onto our connecting flight.
Granted, we went from one "secure" area to another, so I really didn't see the need to go through customs at all, but literally, we merely walked past an unattended desk. Simple as that.
They just take the laptop and return it to you six months later after a thourough search through all your personal files.
I still just don't understand how this isn't in clear violation of the constitutional protections against unreasonable search and siezure. Someone tried to explain it last time this topic came up in one form or another, but I cannot possibly believe the founding fathers intended that, no, the government cannot search your private papers/informmation. Unless, you know, it really *wants to*.
How is it that I, as a U.S. citizen, who has commited no crime, and there is no evidence to indicate I might have committed a crime, lose my right to privacy simply because I choose to visit another country? B.S.
In any case, your rights when attempting to cross a sovereign country's borders are pretty much whatever they say it is.
As a citizen of the country in question, I am (ostensibly) part of the "they" who gets to say what those rights are. There is no reasonable justification for these searches other than "because I can". There is no way a reasonable person can argue that these searches make anyone safer, or prevent any crimes or criminal material coming into the country. Since our constitution prohibits unreasonable searches these searches are illegal. The fact that the Supreme Court has allowed such searches only shows how corrupt our justice system really is. This is nothing more than thuggery.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Time for my goatcex screen saver, and the tubgirl desktop. If they barf before they finish searching, do i win?
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Sorry, but I have to call bullshit on this one - EU Airports abuse people anytime they want without any remorse or pretense of politeness.
Wait YOU call bullshit on this and then proceed claiming that you know the procedures of all EUs countries airports? There is no way in hell you know this. The EU is not one country and there is no "standard procedure" thorughout EU as there is in the US, so don't generalise like that because it makes you sound like an ignorant idiot. And FYI I have never been told to fill out a piece of paper promising that I'm not smuggling snails into the country anywhere else than when I had to TRANSIT through the US. The whole experience was so ridiculous I swear I felt a micro stroke somewhere in my frontal lobe. I'm with the AC parent, transiting through the US fucking sucks horse dick, and you can whip out your biggest patriotic flag without changing that simple fact.
I am the lawn!
I can just imagine how happy the criminal communities will be for such news. Imagine - every single guard with proper authentication can single out people for a "screening" which include all digital identity, including your pictures, digital records which most certainly contain some references to username/passwords to banks and other web-services, business documents such as contracts, contacts, proposals, and so on and so on. Every criminals dream! All in the disguise that they are there to ensure you don't have any indecent pictures or something. How long to we get the first scandal, or has that already happened?
I've not been to Japan, but I've heard it's a treat there too.
Yes, it is. I get in line, show my passport, get my photo and fingerprints taken (this is new, and was implemented in response to the US system), get my bags, hand my card to customs, tell them I don't have any drugs, and walk into the terminal.
Only once has anyone gone through my bags, and it was after a winter of backpacking around Asia, which showed up on my passport as going in and out of China a few times in a few weeks.
My laptop or other devices have never been checked, and I've never heard of them checking them.
On the contrary, when I go back to my home country of the US, I am made to feel like a threat. Paramilitary immigration and customs officers bark orders at me, and one time tried to separate my Japanese wife from me and question her about why she only had $5 for a 3-week visit (joint bank account in the US with her American husband, morons--ever heard of an ATM?). My stuff is riffled through every time, and they have on several occasions destroyed my belongings with their crude handling (scratched an otherwise perfect guitar that I was selling, and put a bottle of shampoo that they had opened back in the bag WITHOUT SCREWING THE TOP ON). --All without my having any recourse to the law.
I've been in and out of China--a totalitarian regime--and it is far, far more pleasant than the US.
I almost never go back to see friends and family anymore--and, believe it or not, a part of the reason for that is the shitty treatment I get from my countrymen at the border.
While I find sexual acts on children despicable and inexcusable, I am sick and tired of seeing my civil liberties eroded away by the same excuse over and over again.
It does not even help! One can put any questionable content on a memory stick and mail it across countries. If the content is encrypted one doesn't even have to worry about it being intercepted. If it is intercepted, just send another one.
In fact that is probably what I am going to do with private photographs/movies from now on (my parents and I live in different countries). The border agents then can nose around on my laptop all the want, without invading my private life. The point is that I should not have to do that.
Any terrorist actually caught during a border search is likely too stupid to carry out said terrorist act anyway.
Topped
The real difference is going to be when you cross the border driving. There's been waaay too many documented cases of people buying guns (and I mean big guns, like assault rifles) legally in the US with their God-given 2nd ammendment right and smuggling them to the drug cartels here.
Searching "laptops, digital cameras, cell phones and any other electronics on your person or in your vehicle" will stop the gun runners how?.....
Apparently compression has made an awful lot of progress lately.
On the back trip they'll obviously be looking for mexican_family.tar.gz
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
There's been waaay too many documented cases of people buying guns (and I mean big guns, like assault rifles) legally in the US with their God-given 2nd ammendment right and smuggling them to the drug cartels here.
When you say "and I mean big guns like assault rifles", it pretty much shows that you know nothing about firearms and US laws.
The articles you link to all cite the "90% of guns traced to US" lie. 90% of the guns that are submitted for tacing are from the US. Only a small number of guns are submitted for tracing, because there's no point in submitting AKs from China and North Korea with no serial number to the ATF for tracing.
Fully automatic guns (pull the trigger and they rattle off bullets) require a federal license with large yearly fees and an anal probe from the BATFE. They are rarely sold here and are exceptionally expensive. Even the gangs here don't buy them legally here. They smuggle them from overseas - it's way cheaper. I'm behind a censor here, but google "BATFE" and "class III license" to see what it takes to buy a machine gun.
What the ill-informed such as yourself call "big guns - like assault rifles" are military-looking guns that have been altered so that they fire one bullet at a time. To make them or import them here, they must not be alterable to fully automatic fire.
The articles you quote suggest a flood of guns from the US using faulty statistics, then go on to list a bunch of confiscated weapons that you cannot easily buy here. You can't get grenades and rocket launchers here. If they are able to smuggle those in from the third world, why would they pay US prices for rifles that aren't even full-auto?
http://www.factcheck.org/2009/04/counting-mexicos-guns/
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/elections/2009/04/02/myth-percent-guns-mexico-fraction-number-claimed/
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/apr/16/barack-obama/Obama-claims-90-percent-guns-used-Mexico/
She was offered the option of traveling to her destination without her laptop or submitting to the search.
This constitutes and egregious violation of the U.S. Constitution's Fourth Amendment and needs to be challenged at the highest levels.
I can only say that the U.S. is becoming more and more what the U.S.S.R. once was. Think of how much actual freedom has eroded and the past two decades and start fighting it.
*** Don't be dull.***
In all seriousness though, "not alterable" doesn't mean what you think it means. Go to a few gun shows and you will see that they sell kits to "fix" your old pre-1994-assult-weapons-ban gun.
The ban also expired in 2004
Fully automatic weapons that fire continuously have been virtually banned (again, see the federal criteria for owning one - "class III license") since the gun control act of 1934.
None of this has anything to do with the Clinton gun ban, which banned guns that look like military rifles, along with some accoutrements such as bipods, bayonets, scary looking stocks, etc.
Yes, you can alter them to add the bayonets and bipods back. But the guns sold here must have a reciever that cannot fit a fully-automatic bolt group.
You told me to go to a gun show. I'm a collector and I've been to dozens. How many have you visited? Have you ever asked a dealer what you need to do to purchase a fully-automatic rifle or machine gun?
I'd really encourage anyone with strong opinions on the subject to do so, and get some first hand knowledge. Every now and then someone will agree to come with me, and when they talk to the dealers and ask what the laws are, they are generally quite surprised.