Appeals Court Affirms Warrantless Computer Searches

suraj.sun writes with this excerpt from ComputerWorld: "Laptop computers and other digital devices carried into the US may be seized from travelers without a warrant and sent to a secondary site for forensic inspection, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled last week. The ruling is the second in less than a year that allows the US government to conduct warrantless, offsite searches of digital devices seized at the country's borders. A federal court in Michigan last May issued a similar ruling in a case challenging the constitutionality of the warrantless seizure of a computer at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport. Several other courts, including the Ninth Circuit itself, have ruled that warrantless, suspicion-less searches of laptops and other digital devices can take place at US border locations."

Comments

"Suspicion-less searches" comes in handy

[ls671]

"Suspicion-less searches" comes in handy

"We had your laptop searched for no reason, we never suspected you of doing anything wrong..."

This way, nobody could ever complain of discriminatory treatment based on race, nationality, religion, etc.

Re:"Suspicion-less searches" comes in handy

[MartinSchou]

Am I the only one who wants the ACLU to publish a map of the revised US map, if you remove the parts that aren't covered by the US Constitution

Re:What is the purpose exactly?

[Martin Blank]

It's not always that easy. The Brazilian authorities enlisted the aid of the FBI in cracking the encryption on the hard drive of banker Daniel Dantas, who was suspected of money laundering and attempting to bribe law enforcement. Despite five months of work by Brazil and about twelve months by the FBI, they couldn't get into his drives protected by TrueCrypt using AES-256 and good, long passwords. He was eventually sentenced to ten years in prison, but only on the bribery charges. The money laundering case couldn't proceed without the data on the drives.