Slashdot Mirror
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."
"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.
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
What could you possibly find on a computer that couldn't also be transfered digitally over the internet using encryption?
...and that's more true every day.
I would not believe this if I were not seeing it.
How does this differ from warrant-less searches of anything else when crossing US Borders (pockets, glove box, trunk, luggage, etc)?
If you are traveling with a laptop, why on earth wouldn't you be using full disk encryption? It seems like you'd want that for plenty of other reasons too, like to protect your data in the event of theft of the laptop. And this full disk encryption would also protect against such "inspections".
It's 2011, not 1991.
I travel with a laptop for remote access to business stuff, even on holidays (emergencies only, of course). Because of travel to the USA I've specifically bought a EEE that could be confiscated without too much out of pocket expense, but it's a real pain to operate some things on the tiny 10" screen instead of my purpose-bought Dell.
Does this seriously bother any other /.-ers? Having to double my personal hardware just to accommodate US travel is a pain in the ass for the overwhelming number of legitimate travelers, and there's nothing that couldn't get-into/leave the country via the internet anyway. Seems like there's no benefit at all to this nonsense.
-Matt
--- Need web hosting?
can someone explain what justification they are offering for this decision? besides what seems to be the only obvious answer of simply allowing the law enforcement to do whatever they please?
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
I work for a subsidiary of a large defence contractor and we've been told via an IT Security Policy announcement never to keep work data locally on our devices (laptops, phones etc.) when crossing any border. We are to connect to the VPN after we get there and download it if we need it. This is even the case if the whole point of going overseas is to demonstrate an a purely IP-based/digital product. This policy was announced at the start of the year, I wonder if it's related.
You simply won't get your computer back or won't be let in the country.
Just take a 'traveling' computer on overseas visits. And 'fly casual'. You don't want to attract too much attention. Always give them something. It's like when being robbed, you want to have just enough in your wallet to satisfy the assailant, so he'll leave..
And please, don't think for a second they can't see your 'hidden' partitions. You're only deluding yourselves..
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
If you have to travel outside the US, make use of FTP, webmail, etc to move your sensitive data. And own a cheapass laptop that you don't mind getting confiscated.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Then the Constitution needs to be fixed.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
The problem is people who are still prepared to travel to the USA. You are the ones making this acceptable. You are the ones happy to bring your productivity and your coin into a country which should be ostracised until it stops treating visitors as criminals and returns to something resembling reasonable.
I gave up my business interests in the US following their slow bastardisation of the notion of rights after 2001. I made a personal loss, but I feel all the more human for it. And it serves its purpose. After all, no empire and no regime lasts forever - it will only be a matter of time before things become unbearable and people start standing up en masse. We must start making our stand one by one.
Why aren't you doing the same?
Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but before we all start quoting 1984...hasn't this kind of search always been legal in the United States?
"That searches made at the border, pursuant to the longstanding right of the sovereign to protect itself by stopping and examining persons and property crossing into this country, are reasonable simply by virtue of the fact that they occur at the border, should, by now, require no extended demonstration...Authorized by the First Congress (1789)"
http://law.onecle.com/constitution/amendment-04/18-border-searches.html
Great decision. Win-win for everybody. You don't want to come here, and we don't want you here.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
This is just wrong. The Declaration of Independence says: "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." It doesn't say "citizens", it says "men". The history buffs will remind me that the Declaration is not law, but we are straying pretty far from fundamental principals that were the bedrock of our country. Should the government be allowed to do this with H1B visa recipients? Folks trying to establish citizenship legally? The best way to avoid this quicksand is to never start getting into it!
does this mean they can take all of my luggage for no reason at all. The government needs to stop making rulings about digital ownership and the ownership of the physical hardware that is my laptop, just because it is convenient way to not give me the rights that i deserve. guess we will all have to run VM's and switch to thin client laptops. can't wait for the excuse for that one.
I don't have an issue with Constitutional rights being restricted for those who are registered criminals. They broke the law, proved their untrustworthiness and now are having to contend with that... it's called consequences. However, there ARE no such clauses in the Constitution and until such exist this is unreasonable search and seizure, regardless of who the man is, what he's done and what they've found.
You can be stopped and searched anywhere within x number (I forget how many) miles of any US border.
Just try to not get stopped while traveling down near Mexico. There are road blocks, checkpoints, etc. where they can and will search your stuff, question you, etc. All without any suspicion of anything. Search Youtube for videos of confrontation between US citizens and the police in these areas.
I don't see why electronic equipment would be any different.
"Warrantless" may be necessary; the alternative is to detain people and their laptop for as long as it takes to get a warrant. "Suspicion-less" I have a real problem with; this sounds like an open invitation for agents to exercise their personal prejudices and punish anyone who doesn't kiss their ass. If you are going to confiscate something, you should as least be able to clearly state a reason for doing so.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
The same rules apply to US citizens crossing the border into their own country. And no, we aren't fans of it either.
If you aren't suspicious of your government's actions, you aren't doing your job as a responsible citizen.
And the Terrorists WON!!!!
:T:R:A:N:S:
From a Nova TV show the NSA gets a copy of all the data coming into and out of the US at the border routers.
every time a site is selected, it should be explicitly pointed out that this is the reason the US was not selected. Be sure to cc the US Chamber of Commerce, and the US Hotel and Airline lobbyists.
This isn't about being stupid or careless and getting apprehended with inappropriate/illegal information.
This is about them being able to confiscate your laptop, digital camera, phone, and pretty much damned near anything ... on a whim, without suspicion, and without recourse.
Some jackass of a border guard who is having a bad day or doesn't like my haircut can decide to basically appropriate my laptop and anything else he pleases, on a whim, with no grounds, warrant, suspicion, or defensible reason.
If you think that's Darwinism, you're a fool. If you think this is the sign of a free society, you're a bigger fool. This smacks more of banana republics and the stereotype of "papers please" and other crap from the Communist Bloc countries in the 80s.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Right, because cloud storage is so secure!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
The part about searching for obvious contraband is understandable when crossing a border before entry is granted but it appears that all the legal headedness in these district courts suffer from selective ignorance since they ignore the plain language of the Fourth Amendment, especially the "unreasonable" working that is specifically included in it.
Also the key paragraphs of this article and decision deal with the transportation of equipment away from the border. This requires the taking of this equipment away from the person, which steps all over the seizure part since the equipment is taken away from the person.
On top of this "probable cause" is required for search and seizure so that little bit about "no heightened suspicion" is pure bullshit.
I think these Federal Judges need remedial education to go back and re-read the constitution in plain English.
about border search being different from search inside the country.
What it says is
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Doesn't even say "citizens". Just says "people". I.e., this whole thing about warrantless border searches is and always has been unconstitutional.
But I don't expect the Alice in Wonderland court to overturn it. They'll just point to the turtles going all the way down and say that's what they've balanced the world on, therefore one more turtle will be fine.
There are no rights in those zones. Those zones will be growing to encompass the entire country, soon.
Fight Spammers!
Why would they need to compel you to give out your passwords? Easier to just compel the cloud operator to hand over the data.
They dont call it the Ninth Circus for nothing
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
If you read TFA, the guy was a REGISTERED SEX OFFENDER in California according to TSA records.
WHOAH, how is that fact even relevant? Even convicted criminals have civil rights. Just because you find this guy personally repugnant doesn't mean that he isn't a person under the constitution.
Replace 'sex offender' with the word 'jew' and try to repeat your statement without sounding like a Nazi. Go on, I dare you.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Considering the way the government is behaving today and the way the courts are acting, I don't think anything short of a Constitutional amendment is going to protect our property against unreasonable searches and seizures. But something like that would probably never get the 2/3 majority it would need in Congress.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
There's actually a precedent for something similar, a few centuries ago: foreign sailors arriving in the US would have to line up and pull their pants down to be checked for STD's. One day the Europeans decided to do the same thing to American sailors arriving in Europe. It didn't take long for the US to stop the practice.
Right, because no other countries do this. /s
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Welcome, Comrades!
Welcome back to the Glorious Union of Soviet Corporatist Republics!
So border searches have always been legal. The Supreme Court has ruled before that you've no expectation of privacy at the border, and that nations have the right to secure their borders by searches. This has been pretty uncontroversial for a long time. However the thing is these searches were for security and for preventing smuggling and the like. So what they could do (and did) was check your bags, your car, etc for contraband and/or dangerous items. Then you were on your way.
Well laptops are different and make two new problems:
1) They are actually seizing them, with no evidence of anything wrong. In past searches they could look through your stuff for any reason or no reason at all, but if everything was fine, you went on your way. With laptops they claim the right to seize them, and hold them for an indefinite period. That is real different than a search. Imagine if at the border they took your bag and said "We are going to take this off to check. We won't tell you who gets to look at it or when you can have it back. We don't have any evidence there is anything wrong, but we are taking it anyhow."
2) Computers are like journals, or other personal writings in many ways and those were not searched/copied at the border. So while they could go through your bag and look for drugs, they couldn't take your personal papers, copy them, and read through them. They weren't allowed to pry in to any and every detail of your life, just check for security reasons or smuggling reasons. You can see how a laptop, particularly one that has e-mail stored on it, would be very similar to personal papers.
That's the issue here. Nobody is saying they can't have a look at the laptop to make sure it isn't a bomb, or hasn't had its innards removed and replaced with drugs. What they are saying is they shouldn't be able to take the laptop, hold on to it for an indefinite time, copy the data, hand it out to other federal agencies and not tell you who, and so on.
I object to this because I am an American. Many, many of my fellow citizens have sacrificed life and limb to establish protection from unjustified or arbitrary search and seizure and to defend us from tyrannical governments over the past two and a half centuries. Whether I have something to hide or not is immaterial. I consider myself a free man and my private life is my own business. As long as I do not break the law I have a constitutional right to hide any and all of my personal activities.
The "something to hide" argument is for morons who will not understand and appreciate their rights until they have been lost.
This is the one to ram the point home!
http://www.aclu.org/constitution-free-zone-map
live in the orange? then this story applies to you!
they can search whatever the hell they want if you live there.
no warrant
no recourse
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Under the international treaty, NAFTA, signed by all participants, Canadian citizens still have their Canadian constitutional protections against such warrantless searches of their data.
Just saying.
The US Constitution states that international treaties overrule your local laws.
If you don't like it, don't sign treaties.
But get your hands off my Canadian citizen data!
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
You get to keep YOUR laptop!
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Can you imagine being a business with sensitive material, and having your laptop confiscated by a foreign government? That can be "sent away" for who knows how long to a 3rd party for forensics? Makes me think twice. I can't wait until the first security breach where a device in their possession is compromised and leaked, oh the lawyers will feed then I tell ye. If you have branches in the US, not a big deal, just use local machines. If you don't or are doing business with other companies you have to watch out for key loggers and other software hi jinks going on in the background of whatever devices you happen to be using.
What is really stupid, is that anyone in the know, that really wants to transport electronic "bad stuff" across the US border, there are hella easier ways to do it than putting it on a freaking laptop and driving across the stupid border... like for real? How abouts I just send it to myself encrypted across the stupid internet for one.
So other than allowing the government to see what personal pirated mp3's and porn you have I don't see an actual point.
They're not working against american citizens. They just want to keep out us evil canadians with our filthy hard drives full of curling-themed porn!
Absolute bullshit. If users from my company are coming back into the states, they likely have drawing and other files from our customers that were too big to mail to us, or things that were created by our people who were working offshore. Internet connections in other nations can be a pain, so simply uploading the content is not always an option. If the TSA goons take our laptops, we lose valuable customer data and project specifications, thereby threatening our very existance.
I certainly don't agree with everything Donald Trump has to say, but his recent comment about this nation going to hell sure seems appropriate in this situation.
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
I've been to America twice.
First time, was student's exchange in 1999, where we flew into Canada and drove over the border into Detroit.
Result, entire bus emptied, told to stand in a line with our stuff in front of us, all asked 'is this yours?' as they searched our bags... we were all 15...
Second time, Chicago, computer game convention in 2007, got taken to the side and all my stuff searched and pulled out again, pat down, questioned etc.
Third time won't happen, America has been classed as a 'No go' now, its just getting more and more ridiculous, especially now with the full body scanners and hard drive inspections.
And I thought the UK was a 'friend of America', seriously would rather go to Russia that cross any American border again.
One method I used for this some years ago when I was traveling on business was to create a very lengthy random encryption key and have it written down only at my home (protected against searches by constitutional provisions not yet invalidated by court rulings) and sent to someone in the place to which I was traveling (who had no idea what it was, or even where it was once I got there). I NEVER MEMORIZED IT. Truly. It meant, of course, that my computer was useless en route, but it was secure from anyone's prying eyes because I could NEVER be forced to reveal information I did not possess. Not that I was ever stopped for that or anything else. Had a LOT more trouble when I travelled with my wife, because she was disabled and had to ride a mobility scooter, which needed special security precautions.
... will have Guns.
... So only Criminals have the need for encryption.
Give me a break!
I don't think anything short of a Constitutional amendment is going to protect our property against unreasonable searches and seizures
Why would a new amendment make any more difference than the ones we already have?
All the comments I've read focus on laptops, but let's not forget that this readily includes smart-phones, PDAs, tablets, iPods, flash drives, Kindles, portable DVD players, Gameboy/PSP, digital cameras....anything with memory/storage. Heck it might even apply to programmable calculators and your uber-cool, geek-chic calculator watch.
Uh huh. A few centuries ago would be 65 years before the United States declared independence, and a full 73 years before the revolutionary war ended.
Methinks you troll.
If fate makes you a motorcycle, you become a motorcycle.
More importantly, fight with your votes. Vote for politicians who promise to end warrantless searches and wiretapping. Oh wait...
As a fellow Canadian, I'm very interested in the source of your claim. Care to point to the relevant NAFTA article?
BTW, it's completely up to the discretion of the US Customs agent whether to permit you to enter their country or not. You could be denied entry for no reason at all. You will certainly be denied entry for refusing to hand over your computer. You don't have a right to enter US, it's a privilege.
You ever seen a picture of a perfectly executed Golden Zamboni? It's spectacular.
I'm pretty sure that this, combined with the "Tim Horton Double-Double", is what got this policy enacted in the first place.
Terrorists and doctors. Patient info is protected under Federal law and is a quagmire even to reveal it to law enforcement. It's practically illegal not to have it encrypted.
Considering the way the government is behaving today and the way the courts are acting, I don't think anything short of a Constitutional amendment is going to protect our property against unreasonable searches and seizures. But something like that would probably never get the 2/3 majority it would need in Congress.
You mean something like:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Already there, they just ignore it.
kjb
The current wording of the 4th Amendment SHOULD already protect us from these kinds of searches/seizures. The government is simply ignoring it, and We The People are allowing it to happen.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
You mean something like:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
That's PERFECT! You mind if I use that language for the proposed amendment?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Shouldn't there be a 100-mile circle around every airport?
That searches made at the border
The point is, that the word border is being redefined to cover places where 66% of US citizens live. Basically this means that officials can seize the personal possessions of most Americans without any legal recourse at all.
Perhaps you believe that these officials can be trusted. Perhaps that is the case today. However, there is a reason why "malfeasance" is a word in the dictionary.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
When you travel outside of the Peoples Republic of Amerika do not bring your "regular" laptop, instead bring the cheapest netbook you can buy, one that can be made to boot from SD, leave the remove the original HDD and set it aside replacing it with a blank unit that you format as a data drive (Truecrypt) put a bootable Linux (http://www.pendrivelinux.com/) on a SDHC card boot from it and save your data to the Truecrypt HDD, now when you are ready to return to the US mail the HDD to a remailing service in Canada (wherever) to be sent home (alternative locations) mount the original HDD (the cherry one) back in place, remove the SD card and put it in your junk pocket!
Take my netbook, please!
And when they return it to you, sell it on Craigslist, it's been compromised!
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
They broke the law, proved their untrustworthiness and now are having to contend with that... it's called consequences.
I appreciate what you are saying. Without turning this into a black-and-white issue, consider the following points:
+ A reasonable proportion of people from disadvantaged minorities end up with wrongful convictions. For example, DNA testing showed that 15 of 205 death-row inmates were innocent.
+ There is such a thing as self-fulfilling prophecies. For example, if you go into a meeting expecting someone to be unreasonable, they more likely will be, and vice-versa. That is a measurable empirical fact of life. Our expectations of each other are powerful influences.
I would not advocate that convicted criminals should get a free pass. Obviously it is an imperfect world.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Great idea!
I would propose maybe the following wording:
I follow a few people who have had this happen to them, some real smart people (read: were persons of interest with FBI investigations into Wikileaks). And the best thing they did was just say no. How? By not taking data through an airport. Hand them empty, wiped devices and just smile and say you don't have any data to declare.
I8-D
In other words: Stay the fuck out of the USA.
If they take a pocket knife you forgot to remove, or a flask of water because it's 110ml instead of the allowed 100ml or whatever other insanity they have at the airports these days - that's an inconvenience, but nothing major.
If they take your notebook, that can easily be a 2000-3000 US$ loss.
Oh, you think you're going to get it back? Certainly you should. It just might take weeks or months, and by then you're out of the country again, and it might, just might be all kinds of hassles. And then there's plenty of stories of stuff seized that was never returned, usually on some pretext.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
What would be the point? Whatever new amendment can be ignored just as easily as the the original bill of rights. In this situation, there is simply no reasonable way that computers shouldn't be covered by the 4th amendment, digital documents carried by computer should not be legally distinct from other kinds of papers and effects.
You wrote:
"You don't have a right to enter US, it's a privilege."
It's not a privilege. It's more like a punishment..
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Considering the way the government is behaving today and the way the courts are acting, I don't think anything short of a Constitutional amendment is going to protect our property against unreasonable searches and seizures. But something like that would probably never get the 2/3 majority it would need in Congress.
You mean something like:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Already there, they just ignore it.
kjb
Hear, Hear! Since the existing constitution is not being followed, what would make a new amendment be any better.
Did you mount a military-grade, variable-focus MASER on an unlicensed artificial intelligence?
The actual opinion is published at http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2011/03/30/09-10139.pdf . Pretty calm and sensible, actually. Search of laptops falls under border doctrine. Issue was whether border doctrine extended to a place 170 miles away, and over a period of time. The reason they shipped the laptop to a forensic facility was because they had a known sex offender with portions of his hard drive encrypted. Unlike a suitcase, which can easily be searched at the Port of Entry, an encrypted laptop cannot be. Pedophilic images are evidence of a crime against children. Where there are pictures of children being abused, there's a child who's been abused. Seeking and trading such images create demand for someone to abuse a child. The pedophile sought to have the evidence on his laptop suppressed. The Ninth District said No. From the opinion: "Today we examine a question of first impression in the Ninth Circuit: whether the search of a laptop computer that begins at the border and ends two days later in a Government forensic computer laboratory almost 170 miles away can still fall within the border search doctrine. The district court considered the issue to be a simple matter of time and space. It concluded that the search of property seized at an international border and moved 170 miles from that border for further search cannot be justified by the border search doctrine. We disagree. We find no basis under the law to distinguish the border search power merely because logic and practicality may require some property presented for entry—and not yet admitted or released from the sovereign’s control—to be transported to a secondary site for adequate inspection. The border search doctrine is not so rigid as to require the United States to equip every entry point—no matter how desolate or infrequently traveled—with inspectors and sophisticated forensic equipment capable of searching whatever property an individual may wish to bring within our borders or be otherwise precluded from exercising its right to protect our nation absent some heightened suspicion. Still, the line we draw stops far short of “anything goes” at the border. The Government cannot simply seize property under its border search power and hold it for weeks, months, or years on a whim. Rather, we continue to scrutinize searches and seizures effectuated under the longstanding border search power on a case-by-case basis to determine whether the manner of the search and seizure was so egregious as to render it unreasonable."
The current wording of the 4th Amendment SHOULD already protect us from these kinds of searches/seizures. The government is simply ignoring it, and We The People are allowing it to happen.
Funny what people will give up when they're scared.
I suspect you were going for the dramatic effect of interpretation and not following any logic put forth by the amendment or courts in the rulings.
This matter has been settled fact in the courts for years before your father's father was even a gleam in hit's father's father's eye. The constitution protects you from unreasonable searches, not all searches. It does prescribe a way to get searched, but does not forbid reasonable searches.
The Very first congress of this nation passed a law allowing the unwarranted searches at borders. This was challenged in court some years later and the courts said that the right of sovereignty made it reasonable to search people and their things at the borders. This meant that the 4th amendment was not violated in these border searches. The only thing that has changed since then is the placement of the border and how wide it seems to be when concerning these searches.
A new amendment disallowing all searches or defining a border search would be followed and would be different. But they are not ignoring the existing constitution in this regard..
Are you saying the founding fathers were scared or something? I mean because they passed the first warrant-less search law for the borders back in the second session of the first congress of the US as a country.
The courts have chimed in saying it was within their rights to do so too.
If you want to call something a problem and attack it, at least have the decency or understanding what it is and how it got there first.
I suspect you were going for the dramatic effect of interpretation and not following any logic put forth by the amendment or courts in the rulings.
This matter has been settled fact in the courts for years before your father's father was even a gleam in hit's father's father's eye. The constitution protects you from unreasonable searches, not all searches. It does prescribe a way to get searched, but does not forbid reasonable searches.
The Very first congress of this nation passed a law allowing the unwarranted searches at borders. This was challenged in court some years later and the courts said that the right of sovereignty made it reasonable to search people and their things at the borders. This meant that the 4th amendment was not violated in these border searches. The only thing that has changed since then is the placement of the border and how wide it seems to be when concerning these searches.
A new amendment disallowing all searches or defining a border search would be followed and would be different. But they are not ignoring the existing constitution in this regard..
I agree with the first congress that searches and seizures at the border are "reasonable". I just don't agree with the "border" extending 100 miles inland, as the ACLU claims.
Did you mount a military-grade, variable-focus MASER on an unlicensed artificial intelligence?
Look at it this way. Everyone in DC can have his computer taken and searched for no reason at all. Every politician using a computer working in DC is subject to this. Let that sink through their thick skulls and see how fast this gets overturned.
What happens if the TSA decide to instigate "random" seizures of laptops? If I had to visit the US on a business trip, it would be a nightmare for my business laptop to be *taken* by US authorities without cause or reason. This is simply unacceptable behaviour by a first world nation. Why do rational people allow these laws to stand? There are a whole host of reasons why this is outrageously invasive and unnecessary, not too mention what happened to the presumption of innocence? What if a device has commercially sensitive material on it? Or documents protected by privilege? What happens if material from a seized device is leaked onto the Internet? Can we sue the US Government for damages? If this is how the US is going to behave towards visitors, then you can count me out.
We already have an ammendment for that and it didn't help one bit. At this point it's going to require more extreme measures and perhaps some fatalities.
The problem is the word 'unreasonable' there. Us and the courts are interpreting that word very differently.
Court: It's perfectly reasonable for customs to impound and search at their leisure anything that might have terrorist or drug related material on it that crosses the border, or is suspected of crossing the border, so we'll just say they can impound any kit they like within 50 miles of the border. You know, for the safety of this great nation. And probably the children.
Us: WTF?
Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
I have said this before, but it will bear repetition:
Your state or county registry of sexual offenders is easily accessible online.
It will be in no way pleasant - but an hour spent there will erase every fantasy the geek holds dear about who makes these lists and why.
Okay, I believe in giving people with different views a fair shake; so I took your advice and checked out my local witch list. The vast majority of offenders on there look like homeless street people. There are a few real forcible rapists, including a handful of kidnapper-rapists. There are also a good number of kiddie porn enthusiasts and sexters. But by far the most common offences are "Lewd Or Lascivious Acts With Child Under 14 Years" or "Annoy/Molest Children". Neither one sounds very nice - but both of them sound really, really broad. Also worth noting that quite a few people are on the list for "Oral Copulation".
So can I collect on your guarantee? Maybe your local witch list includes a lot more detail; but I can confirm that reading mine didn't particularly sicken, nor even surprise, me. Pretty much what I expected - a motley collection that tosses "lewd" acts in the same class as violent kidnapping & rape.
What would work is abolishing the Bill of Rights and abolishing the Constitution as it is.
We create a new Constitution that spells out explicitly that we have rights to everything we can possibly think of by default.
We then explicitly spell out our limitations. Such as that we have free speech, but not to the point at which it can cause physical harm or loss of life. Yelling fire in a theater, that type of stuff. There would not be many, just those that are fairly common sense and designed to promote a platform upon which a civilization is stable and prosperous. Don't kill people comes to mind.
Lastly we precisely define what government is, what it is supposed to accomplish, and that it is comprised of people duly elected. Constitutional Amendments from that point on would be to grant the government rights to effect its purpose. Require a 2/3rds vote of the entire United States.
Now if we did that then legislators could only make laws and regulations that are designed to enforce the limitations we all agreed on. Murder laws, libel laws, slander laws, property damage, fraud, that kind of stuff.
Basically turn the whole thing on it's head. Because right now we defined our rights. Government has been very successful in destroying and infringing upon those rights for quite some time.
There really is no point to the Bill of Rights and Constitution at this point. It's spirit is dead, the body is raped and mutilated, the champion that used to actually help the people is long gone in effective practice.
Ohhhh... P.S - Corporations are specifically defined as having no rights.
You're basically claiming that it is legal for the government to comply with the Constitution by selectively redefining the meaning of the words used by specific articles - to the point that said meaning is significantly beyond modern colloquial meaning, the original meaning at the time the article in question was written, or even basic common sense - so as to get the interpretation they want. It certainly is the established modus operandi - first they did it with "militia" to undermine the 2nd Amendment, then they did it to "interstate commerce" to turn the Commerce Clause into a carte blanche. But I'm pretty sure that any of the people who originally wrote or ratified the US Constitution would not imagine it in their wildest dreams, much less consider it lawful.
That's more or less what the current Constitution tried to do. In particular, the 10th amendment says the feds can't do anything not explicitly spelled out in the document, but the interstate commerce clause was judged to include anything that would possibly affect interstate commerce - which is basically everything. "Natural person" was somehow judged to mean not just humans but also corporations. Right were defined to be inviolable except in certain cases, but they have not been.
No doubt any replacement constitution would be vulnerable to having its language twisted as well, no matter how you wrote it.
No, I'm not saying anything at all. The courts have said it and the founding fathers who were in the first government of the United State of America who also most likely ratified the US constitution said it. And they didn't redefine anything, Unreasonable means the same thing then as now. Your constitutional protections is from unreasonable search, not all searches.
No, modern interpretations is more likely wrong. As I already pointed out, the first congress of the US and the courts already said X means X. You are the one with some new interpretation that says unreasonable means all now.
I think if you would follow what I said already and investigate it in the least, you never would have replied and you certainly would never have made this statement in it.
I do not disagree here except they chanced the interstate commerce clause meaning first then tried to redefine the meaning a militia. However, the issue of rightdfully interpreting the 4th amendment to be against unreasonable searches is something that was done in the second year this country existed and was uphelp by the courts just a little later. I hardly think they started assaulting the constitution and misinterpreted it when the very first government was seated and had that misinterpretation upheld by the courts for 90% or more of this nations existence.
I think you should pay attention to detail. Those were the very_people_who_created_the_entire_border_exception to the 4th amendment. It was a law created in the second session of the very first congress of the united states that was organized under this constitution. The law was signed by President George Washington, put into force, challenges several years later and upheld by the very first US Supreme Court that was seated.
This border exception is nothing new and has existed almost as long as this country has. Learn your history, or for fucks sake, at least read the opinions when the exceptions get upheld as they point to the specific parts you need to pay attention to.