Judge Allows Bradley Manning Supporter To Sue Government Over Border Search

Fluffeh writes "David Maurice House, an MIT researcher and Bradley Manning supporter, was granted the right to pursue a case against the government on Wednesday after a federal judge denied the government's motion to dismiss. 'This ruling affirms that the Constitution is still alive at the US border,' ACLU Staff Attorney Catherine Crump said in a statement. 'Despite the government's broad assertions that it can take and search any laptop, diary or smartphone without any reasonable suspicion, the court said the government cannot use that power to target political speech.' The agents confiscated a laptop computer, a thumb drive, and a digital camera from House and reportedly demanded, but did not receive, his encryption keys. DHS held onto House's equipment for 49 days and returned it only after the ACLU sent a strongly worded letter."

Comments

Inconsistent?

[DoofusOfDeath]

If they can't violate the 1st Amendment, then why can they violate the 4th?

Is this just setting up a contradiction that will land in the Supreme Court?

Re:Inconsistent?

[ae1294]

I'll just leave this here...
https://www.aclu.org/national-security_technology-and-liberty/are-you-living-constitution-free-zone

Re:Inconsistent?

[EdIII]

Which is why if I travel international from now on I remove my hard drives and replace them with a sanitized factory OS that only contains pictures of kittens and puppies. Anything really important can be retrieved over a VPN and then decrypted. Coming back into the US I have the hard drives removed and shipped before hand. Fuck em.

Of course that is a temporary measure and most likely useless when the DHS greatly expands its role to bus stops, truck weighing stations, interior border checkpoints, and the friendly mall nearest you.....

Eventually they will solve unemployment by making some barely educated moron, who graduated their fast track "degree in the security arts", pat me down entering and leaving my house.

Re:Inconsistent?

[jythie]

Actually, the 'corporate personhood' in the US started as an outgrowth of how British law handled the issue, so the basic framework did indeed come form England.

Strongly worded letter

[PatPending]

Anyone have a link to (or copy of) the ACLU's "strongly worded letter" to the TSA? Its contents might prove useful to others in a similar situation.

Re:Police State

[eldorel]

While there are more than two parties, the simple fact is that no third party candidate has even been on the ballot in every district in the past 20 years.

I've already talked about this in other threads over the past few years, but here it is again.
Last presidential election I was asked to leave my voting district after asking for a write in vote because the candidate I wanted was not available.

I even called the police department about it, expecting to have an officer preset to insure I didn't "disturb the peace".
Instead I was told to just vote for one of the people on the ballot and play nice.

How can we get anyone through the system that isn't a republican or democrat if they aren't allowed on the ballot, on TV, and aren't even allowed to participate in the "Open Debates" in places like ohio?

Re:Police State

[TheRaven64]

Expecting a new party to stand a chance in the presidential elections is like expecting to become CEO on your first day at a company. Start with local and state elections. Get a few people in and show that they're competent. Then stand for congress. Once you've got a few people in congress, use their voting records and speeches when campaigning for president. The only time I know of political parties becoming established and successful more quickly than this have been in new democracies or when they were formed by a group of people leaving an established party.