Israel Airport Security Allowed To Read Tourists' Email

wiredmikey writes "Israeli security officials at Ben Gurion airport are legally allowed to demand access to tourists' email accounts and deny them entry if they refuse, the country's top legal official said on Wednesday. Details of the policy were laid out by Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein in a written response to the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), the group said in a statement. 'In a response dated April 24, 2013, the attorney general's office confirmed this practice,' ACRI said, quoting sections of the document which said it was only done in exceptional cases where 'relevant suspicious signs' were evident and only done with the tourist's 'consent'. 'Allowing security agents to take such invasive measures at their own discretion and on the basis of such flimsy "consent" is not befitting of a democracy,' commented Lila Margalit from ACRI."

Comments

My house, my rules

[Anonymous Coward]

Israel has every right to require you show just cause why they should let you in. Just like the US has that same right.

You have no right to enter a country of which you are not a citizen, and they can deny you entry for any reason, and require whatever they want of you as a condition of entry.

That's just the way it is. Don't like it? Don't go to Israel.

Re:My house, my rules

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

The question isn't whether they can require something; but whether they are showing good taste by doing so.

Given that nation states exist largely in a state of nature unless they piss off enough members of the security council, what they can do is a very broad category indeed. That, however, makes judging them on what they do choose to do rather easier...

Re:My house, my rules

[Anonymous Coward]

The USA is but one of many that doesn't play by its own rules. The US government quite blatantly violates its country's constitution, after all.

Re:My house, my rules

[joe_frisch]

The point is to decide which rules you are willing to accept. I will not enter a country that might ask for access to my private accounts, assuming that I can verify that this is really the case.

Re:My house, my rules

[shawn(at)fsu]

IMHO Israel is not worried about what's in good taste and is more worried about national security from countries that have stated in no uncertain terms that Israel should be wiped off the map.

Re:My house, my rules

[Anonymous Coward]

In defense of the US, at least the government still pretends to follow its own rules where it thinks it might get caught and it could cause a stink, costing someone (or several or many someones) reelection, etc. This provides a lot more stability than many governments do. In America, it's actually possible to go your entire life without having to bribe anyone, for example. Living somewhere where they at least pretend to care about civil liberties, etc. is better than living somewhere where they don't even bother to pretend, which explains in large measure why so many people came here, still come here, and why so many stay who could leave.

Being able to leave, coincidentally, is another nice feature of our system. If I want to travel abroad, I don't have to SNEAK AWAY. Can the prisoners... er... 'citizens' of every other country say that? Also, for all the other countries whose citizens CAN, in fact say that, how many might have more repressive governments than they do were it not for America's influence? Historically, this long-suffering and oft derided nation has been responsible for a lot of freedom beyond its borders, thank you very much you fnck!ng ingrates.

For example, if you live in France, and you enjoy not speaking German, (or if you live anywhere in Europe, for that matter, and enjoy not being required to speak German...) you're welcome. If you live anywhere in Asia, and enjoy not having to speak Japanese, if only to ask your masters for water, or for them not to whip you so hard... you're welcome. Has everything this nation done been good, and on the up and up? Of course not - but on balance, if we're not the best, when it comes to civil rights, and being a great place to live, raise a family, etc., then we're certainly near the top of the list, regardless of how some one or more groups who have had the temerity to presume to rate and rank various places' worth, generally by criteria that necessarily skew the results one way or another.

Did we perhaps get overzealous recently? That's probably fair to say. Have some of our policies, foreign and domestic benefited the rich at the expense of everyone else? Clearly. Does that make the entire nation a benighted sh!+hole worthy only of scorn? Hardly. If anything, it underlines the point that people should give a lot more thought to how, and for whom they vote, and less time worrying about whether the people have (D) or (R) after their names, or how slick their hair is, or how menacing they make the notion of their opponents' victories seem in advertising, because most, if not all of the horrible things this country has done, looking back, can ultimately be attributed to a careless, negligent, uninformed, and/or easily frightened or manipulated, apathetic electorate.

The fix for this is simple, though far from easy. Education. Without education, we're doomed. Now if you'll pardon me, I'm going to go read.

Re:My house, my rules

[interkin3tic]

You're making a straw man argument. No one is saying they CAN'T do this.

Re:Article has Anti-Semitic Purpose

[Mr. Slippery]

To generate some sense of outrage against Israel and Jews for doing something that every other country on the planet does

Citation needed. What other counties demand access to tourists' e-mail? And outrage against Israel's human rights crimes is not "anti-semitic" or "outrage against Jews". Anyone with a lick of sense is tired of Israel playing the victim card.

I feel safer walking down the street in Tel Aviv than I do walking down the street in Detroit.

Damning with faint praise, there. And if you're Jewish, that's like a white person in 1965 talking about how safe he felt in Alabama, Bloody Sunday be damned.

Pointless

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

This is a stupid policy because anyone intent on doing harm will just set up a dummy account full of fluffy happy mail to show to airport security. Basically the only outcome of this policy is to deny entry to people who are not a threat.

Re:Hmmm....

[TubeSteak]

I traveled through Ben Gurion airport in 2011 and I have to say, I found the security there a lot less invasive and arbitrary than security at US airports. They didn't make me take off my shoes or walk through a body scanner. And they didn't confiscate my bottle of water.

Israeli airport security is different from American security in one crucial way: they profile passengers.
So if you found their security less invasive, it's most likely because you don't have the wrong name/skin color/country of origin/family background.

Re:Hmmm....

[dskoll]

So if you found their security less invasive, it's most likely because you don't have the wrong name/skin color/country of origin/family background.

Absolutely true. Given the situation in the Middle East, they'd be insane not to profile.

And no matter how politically-correct you are, all security involves profiling. There simply aren't the resources not to profile. So while it may not be as obvious in the US or Canada, you can bet your bottom dollar you're being profiled.