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The Legal Purgatory at the US Border: Detained, Searched, and Interrogated
An anonymous reader writes "America may be the land of the free, but upon arrival millions of visitors cross a legal purgatory at the U.S. border. It is an international legal phenomenon that is left much to the discretion of host countries. In some cases, this space between offers travelers far fewer rights than some of the least democratic and free countries on Earth. Limited access to legal counsel, unwarranted searches, and questionable rights to free speech to name a few. One of the more controversial — and yet still legally a contested grey area — are the rights travelers have in regards to electronics and device searches."
But first off, don't be stupid. Sanitize/Sterilize ALL of your data PRIOR to starting your trip.
They cannot find what you are not carrying.
Border patrol/customs doesn't just harass visitors, they harass US citizens reentering as well. I remember one time coming in 3 different agents asked me if I had any DVDs with me. I must admit the harassment is much worse when coming from the Pacific rim than when coming from the EU.
Which way is up to you.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Until we can actually identify and search everyone coming in, people who want to bring contraband into America can just cross the Mexican border (they could cross the Canadian border too, but at they would have to get into Canada first and Canada has restrictions similar to those of America).
Build a border with a big enough deterrent effect that anyone attempting to cross can be assumed to be up to serious no good - like drugs or arms smuggling - and you can shoot any border-crossers because they won't be people coming for jobs or family. At that point we can also amnesty illegal immigrants already in the country.
Then we can talk about rule for border crossings and immigration policy in general. You say you have a policy if you refuse to enforce it.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
Wat.
Signature intentionally left blank.
Just living within 100 miles of a US border gives them the right to conduct those searches of you and your property.
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/02/09/0054212/dhs-can-seize-your-electronics-within-100-miof-us-border-says-dhs
Extensive checks and searching goes back centuries. Keep in mind that import duties (taxes on imported goods) used to be the major source of funding for the US government. Making sure everything was declared and combatting smuggling was a major effort.
Some people think the term "bootlegging" is from the 1920s prohibition era but it is much older than that. Those prohibition era folks with a liquor flask in their boot we copying sailors from earlier centuries where the sailors tried to sneak small expensive goods past customs officials. Having a federal agent tell you to take off your shoes is something as old as the country.
TrueCrypt can help. Put your encrypted hard drives somewhere else in your luggage.
But the real issue is U.S. government corruption. Officials do what they want. The rule of law and human decency no longer matters.
this space between offers travelers far fewer rights
No.
Rights aren't offered, they're innate (or God-given, if you prefer) and can only be infringed. Until everybody is (again) well-educated enough to say, "this space is one where governments infringe rights with reckless abandon," then little progress will be made.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I am a Canadian -- I hate the morons at the border -- they are not intelligent, minimum wage types that can make you day or ruin it -- depends on how you interact with such idiots. So treat them as your buddies, dumb down all answers as they like dump simple answers. cross the border in a rented car as driving across the border in your vehicle means the border guards do stupid things such as break all the penicils in your back pack, I am not kidding -- had that happen. I was going to the USA for a training course for 1 week to sell products in canada from an american company -- they also broke all my pens -- can I say morons? I had a canadian passport.
Back in the 1970's we actually laughed about how we could get across the border without a birth certificate/passposrt -- just needed a canadian tire credit card -- now it has gone to the extreme opposite.
American US border security are morons.
Yes, border patrol is intrusive. In all countries. I've had interesting experiences entering Canada (on a flight from the USA) and traveling in the UK. Welcome to the real world.
If you don't need the data, leave it at home. If you really need access to your data after you leave, encrypt the data, and send it first. This could mean mailing a hard drive, it could mean uploading it; just don't try and take private data through the boarder with you, since they can stop you and ask for passwords and such.
I've researched and watched law develop and have litigated as a prison "writ writer" (jailhouse lawyer), and the pattern is that our post-Reagan judiciary has steadily lessened prisoner rights and, worse, has reduced citizens' rights closer to this lowest prisoner level as a matter of "deference" to other branches of government. Now we are at the point where the Fourth Amendment is an openly-violated anachronism. Who's the terrorist?
and don't visit countries that abuse visitors, unless you absolutely have to. Back when I was 15, I dreamt of moving to America, the land of opportunity and individual freedoms. By age 24-25, I no longer had the rose-tinted glasses. Now at 30 I am no longer even interested in coming for a visit.
So what is a recommendation for a pre-paid cell phone to take from the east coast US to Canada (Toronto area if it matters), so I can leave my smartphone at home with my laptop?
I was going to meet a gf working in an art concervation lab in massachussets for the july 4th weekend in the mid-80's.
I took a bus from Toronto to Albany as I was a grad student and did not have a car as I could not afford such a beast.
The border guards held up the bus because I had a few textbooks on materials -- which I was reading on my long bus trip -- I was also taking a side trip to the GE R&D center in Schenectady to meed somebody who could help with my research in plastic fracture mechanics. I am Canadian born and have never been a member of a communist party -- needless to say was run thru the wringer. I made the mistake of admitting I was stopping over to meet a researcher at GE research facility wrt to my PhD research. OMG can you say ripped apart my luggage, all my materials and held up the bus which all other passengers thought I was a criminal. Thus bus was delayed by 1 hour because I admidted I was off to visit a researcher at GE HQ R&D in Schenectady NY. Well doughhh
20 years later learned to tell border guards I am going to visit car parts manufacturerers for sales calls.
Big difference. Back in 2000 the following happened:
My VP of the time was crossing 20-30 minutes after us and was bragging he was a VP of a Hydrogen fuel cell company. I told the border security we were selling auto parts to GM which was true -- my VP bragged he was selling Hydrogen Fuel Cells to GM and the detained him, ripped the car apart because all they heard was hydrogen and associasted with a hydrogen bomb -- morons -- needless to say they ripped his car apart.
Moral to the story is keep your info to a minimum and assume the people you are dealing with are morons as they are.
It's all in the understated hand wave you do when you say the words. It works every time at any border crossing. Trust me. Try it. You'll see.
It's only the land of the free for the very very rich, the rest of the people have an insane amount of restrictions on them.
So where is yahwey defending these people?
Sorry, Rights are only given to the people by the government to the point that the people force the government to allow it.
What we see here is a populace not informed enough, and too complacent to keep the government in check to keep these rights available.
This may sound trite, but it's still true. The fundamental difference is that you don't have to cross. Crossing the border is a voluntary act and subject to certain restrictions and scrutiny. In order to enter most countries you need to be the person you represent to be, and you need to be there to conduct whatever business you have a visa to do. I'm pretty libertarian, but even I can see that this is absolutely fundamentally different than the cops coming in and searching your house our your person as you walk down the street minding your own business.
In virtually all cases the restrictions are absolutely known before you cross. You may not know how much you personally will be subjected to, but you absolutely know (or should know) what is in store for you and make travel plans accordingly. Last time I checked you can't go to a major sports event or concert without being searched. Don't like it? Don't go.
Legal citizens of the U.S.A. on return travel to the U.S.A. are denied any and all local, state, Federal, International and Civil rights, according to the edicts of Obama.
The Nationale Securitate Investigador Agencia where U.S.A. citizens in particular are robed and violated. The Crowning Achievement of the Obama Regime is the Federal Prison Facility Contiguous USA.
Bravo Bravo Obama, you managed to butt fuck the people who you hate most.
Doesn't a tear come to your eye that Obama has such concern for the sarin victims in Syria and nothing for HIS VICTIMS in the U.S.A.!
Sniff sniff.
Whimper whimper.
In Albany 2000 I was there for a business trip for 3 weeks -- was wearing safety boots as that was required by the client -- on the way out I was wearing my boots as I was leaving directly from the clients site (GE), Needless to say I was pulled over by the TSA people who then felt me up -- did not mind it so much as it was a female staff but it was yet disturbing. I guess it was a guy thing and did not report it -- she got a good feel. It caught me off guard. If I was in town I would have asked for a date LoL.
When the rules are reasonable, you complies. When they are only to oppress and harm, you ignore then or kill anyone trying to force them. Good luck with your tourism.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
Preach. Everyone loves to hate the U.S., including a ton of Americans, until they need something that only the U.S. can provide. The U.S. isn't perfect, but show me a nation that is. Small Scandinavian countries don't count, as they have neither the demographic issues that are problems for the U.S., the sheer size (measured in population, low population density, nor square mileage), nor are they forced to provide the vast resources to N.A.T.O. that afford them the opportunity to keep a virtually non-existent military.
Anyone that wishes to leave the U.S. is freely allowed to do so. If things are so broken, feel free to leave. There are plenty of hard working immigrants who would gladly take your place, while you troll the Internet screaming about the U.S.' violations of civil liberties from your comfortable sofa.
Can't have foreigners taking your place at the only thing your good at, right?
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
Really, this is old news. Just ask Jacob Appelbaum.
Far, far more frightening though is the possibility that you may find yourself shipped off to a foreign country (Syria say) to be tortured and imprisoned. What happened to Maher Arar (and others) is more than enough to make me avoid crossing the US border for any reason.
You may believe you're innocent, and that there's no reason why you would have problems, but so did he.
Three Squirrels
This will surely help tourism. I put USA on my list of not-safe-to-visit list after the 9/11 false-flag military operation in 2001. My sister asked me if I wanted to join her on vacation to the US a few years back. She's one of those people who never understood 9/11. Now even she refuses to visit that country.
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
Anyone that wishes to leave the U.S. is freely allowed to do so.
So long as they pay taxes the rest of their life.
And they're not on the 'no fly' list.
And....
How quickly we forget 9/11. If our government had been more vigilant in who crosses our border, it would have never happened. Border searches are one of the few powers I am happy to grant my overgrown, bloated, ineffective federal government. If you come to the U.S. with bad intentions, I hope they catch you.
I was in Massachusetts meeting a client for 2 days in post 9/11 circa 2004.
I met the client north of Boston in a hi-tech company -- after two days of meetings got up at 3 am at the hotel, checked out. found the nearest gas station as I was in a rental car and driving back to boston via the big dig.
As I was filling up the car gave an extrta squeeze -- at circa 4 am one is not as reactive to an overflow and notice that massacussetts gas nozzles did not have an overflow protector.
Needless to say, I got sprayed on my dress pants with gasoline.
I showed up to the car rental place -- dumped my pants, tried to clean my legs with water & paper towels, threw out the pants and replaced them with pants from my luggage. Turned in my car -- asked me if if filled up -- said oops np i can smell the gasoline -- got on the bus to the terimal -- bus driver kept on saying I smell gasoline. Went to the air canada line, yep everybody smelt gasoline. Surprisingly I got thru the United Airways security which Air Canada shares -- as I was packing up my laptop finally a guard remarked -- i smell gasoline -- told him my story -- looked at me as a moron and told me to go away. I got on the plane and the stewardesses freaked out they were smelling aero fuel -- told them it was me & my story looked upon me as a moron. Got home again thru customs but had to explain again and they looked upon me as weird -- but explained is it not weird that I am coming thru customs after a flight? Looked at me and said go away.
Man I was sure I was going to spend a winter in Guantanomo Bay -- hey Canada -- Cuba -- it was disturbing that Cuba actually looked good LoL
My experience with the US/Canada Border.
What's up with the lack of updates since 2012-02-07 for its v7.1a release? Is the project still alive?
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
They cringe, they huddle in fear, they buy guns and ammo, their minds are overwhelmed with fear and panic...
I'm Canadian, ad I used to spend up to a month's vacations in the US.
Now, I go elsewhere.
Your country has gone insane with fear and paranoïa.
Going through customs is a coin flip... you either go through or get stuck or get rejected, with the same info as last year...
I will NEVER try to get into your country again, as long as this insane fear and mental illness has got hold of your government, and probably of your people.
Remember, in history, there are a number of instances countries have lost their collective minds, the most famous being Germany in the 1930's...
Come to your collective senses !
Or face isolationism and it's consequences.
My wife came back recently from a vacation to her home country. Green-card permanent resident alien. Detained at customs in the airport for three hours. She sat by herself in a room with no knowledge of why she was being detained. After three hours, an officer came into her room and said, "You're clear to go." She asked multiple times to multiple personnel why she was being detained, and everyone said, "We're not at liberty to say."
Six years ago, my sister-in-law was immigrating to the United States for the very first time. She came over on a fiance visa. Prior to her arrival, they had decided to wed in her host country before coming over to the United States. My brother called USCIS on three separate occasions to see if this would be acceptable.* Three times, the helpline said yes. When my sister-in-law arrived at her port-of-entry, the customs official casually asked where they were going to get married. My brother said that they had already wed overseas and had plans to visit the immigration office the following day to file the change-of-status paperwork. The officer immediately detained my sister-in-law, made a few calls, then provided her and my brother one last opportunity to exchange luggage, say goodbye, and then placed her on the same plane on the return flight back to her home country. There was no opportunity to argue, make phone calls to lawyers, senators...nothing. Another ten months, 32 pages of government paperwork, and $800 dollars in immigration fees later, and she finally stepped foot on American soil.
You show me a customs officer, and I'll show you a sadist. Nothing gets these people more excited than the opportunity to concurrently fight terrorism and inflict misery in the process.
* For those ignorant to the immigration process, the line between a spouse and a fiance is not as defined as you may think. In fact, most spouses immigrate to the United States on a fiance visa, because it's faster to file and process. (Google "Immigrating a spouse using a fiance visa" and find out for yourself.) But legal-story-short, the way my brother did it was not the way the customs agent accepted it, despite three different representatives at the USCIS saying otherwise.
Is not so easy leaving an country, as broken he is. Especially if it is your home country. You need money to go away, need to leave your house, leaving furniture and anything that you do not have enough money to take along with you.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
This is common practice, not just in the US. Canada's borders is just as bad and have their share of equally belligerent assholes. I haven't had the (dis)pleasure of crossing any other international borders, so I can't attest to those, but I hardly imagine they're any better.
My brother is a customs officer. He jokes about it's so great that he doesn't need a warrant or probable cause to search absolutely everything, aggressively demand answers, deceive and manipulate you for the sake of lording it over you, literally tear your car apart and laugh while you struggle to put it back together, strip off your clothes and dehumanize you, explore any of your bodily orifices for drugs, use any amount of force with practically no oversight...
What you should take from this is that border crossings are a rights-free zone. Cross at your own risk and be willing to part with anything you have along. This includes not only your personal belongings, but your freedom and humanity.
I have a $1400 laptop that was very difficult to find and is no longer manufactured. Like hell I'm taking that across any border; I bought a used laptop on eBay for a couple hundred bucks that I use for travel instead. If they want to steal it from me (and that's what it is; it's theft, not "confiscation", "seizure", "forfeiture" or some other Orwellian bullshit term), I care exactly fuck-all about it. Good luck breaking the heavily-encrypted hard drive.
(captcha: "export")
You have got to be kidding me. You are the new USSR.
You're delusional if you think America is the land of the free.
Maybe it was, but it isn't anymore. Today's America imprisons millions and tortures people.
Yes, it's bad that this is happening at US borders. But it's happening everywhere else too, so why this obsession with the US?
"until they need something that only the U.S. can provide" - can you list, or give a few examples here?
"forced to provide the vast resources to.." Forced by whom?
"... who would gladly take your place..." - not really, the US would just H1B them, so they are not really immigrants like the old days where you came to the US and eventually got your citizenship. Now you go there, work and pay your taxes and in 6 years you go home.
I don't know why people bang on about hidden partitions so much. It's a rather lame feature, for the reason you mention. However, there's another feature that Truecrypt and Diskcryptor have that Linux options still lack: encryption without any headers. Just make sure your boot partition is on an SD card or USB drive, which you DON'T bring with you on your trip (you can download and set up a new one later, preferably on something cheap enough to be disposable.) The encrypted partition is statistically indistinguishable from a 'shredded' partition. Of course, for this to go off smoothly you should have a decoy OS installed, preferably on different physical drive so it looks like you simply have a recently erased second drive in your machine. (If pressed, you could claim you just bought it from a guy off of craigslist, etc.) It's mathematically impossible for anyone to prove it's anything but random data, of the sort that practically every secure deletion program uses. Brits, I hope you're taking notes.
You're out of your mind. Rights exist only because and to the extent that people recognize them, particularly governments that are in a position to defend or deny them. There are no god given rights and if there were, you weren't offered any right to privacy according to any religion that I know of. As for their being innate, that can't be true. If the were innate, people would have had the same rights everywhere and throughout history. They manifestly have not and do not. Your rights depend on where you are and who you are with. Thinking otherwise is simply asking for trouble you can avoid by recognising the facts.
Anyone that wishes to leave the U.S. is freely allowed to do so. If things are so broken, feel free to leave.
I"ve heard redneck morons like you spew their "love it or leave it" bullshit for decades.
You idiots are all the same. You don't have the brains to understand that there are
serious problems in the US so you think everything is fine and that anyone who
disagrees is a malcontent.
Seriously, I hope you get cancer soon and die. That's right, I hope you die. I detest assholes
like you and the world will be a better place with you gone. Put that in your pipe and smoke it,
you white trash moron.
The GP said innate which in part means something you were born with ( a synonym for inherent ) and then added you could call it God-given if "YOU PREFER", which I took as "if you want to call it that since you were born with it and franky not worth arguing over for the purposes of this discussion".
"Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man."--Thomas Jefferson
Anyone who things the Constitition of the US has "given" anyone any rights, has failed to even read the first three words of it with comprehension. NO legal document has ever given or taken away any rights, instead they have only been used to propagandize false justification for tyrants and fools to abuse those rights.
"It has been objected also against a bill of rights, that, by enumerating particular exceptions to the grant of power, it would disparage those rights which were not placed in that enumeration, and it might follow by implication, that those rights which were not singled out, were intended to be assigned into the hands of the general government, and were consequently insecure. This is one of the most plausible arguments I have ever heard urged against the admission of a bill of rights into this system; but, I conceive, that may be guarded against. I have attempted it, as gentlemen may see by turning to the last clause of the 4th resolution." - Speech on proposed Bill of Rights to the House of Representatives, June 8, 1789
They sell 32gb USB drives that are about the size of a US quarter. They look like those tiny bluetooth receivers that you plug into your laptop.
It can easily be hidden to pass any primary and secondary search. If they're going to do anything more thorough, you probably have bigger problems than the data you're carrying.
If you're really determined, the trick of creating a vanilla sector to hide the real sector is well known. So even if they find it, all they get is love letters to your girlfriend which can make it look like you're hiding the fact that you're cheating on your wife, who is in on the gag.
I've crossed a lot of borders in my life, and the people who man those crossings are of a certain type. Not hard to deal with if you give them something small to find. They are human and have human limitations.
If you're an international criminal or trying to do something bad, guess what? You're human too and likely to fuck up. Too bad, so sad. If you are not those things, you have a very good chance of maintaining your privacy with a little bit of forethought.
We still have a window of opportunity to roll this police state insanity back. It's really important that we don't give in to it, even if you believe you have "nothing to hide". Shit, hide it anyway. Even if it only keeps you feeling free, it's worthwhile. If you don't feel that little bit of personal inviolability, it's going to be hard to fight the larger battles to stop this insanity. Remember, the people you encounter at those borders also have families, lives, they know well how insane it all is. Don't be a jerk, but don't give in. The worst thing you can do is say, "I don't care because I've got nothing to hide". If that's what's in your head, you are already defeated and of no use to a free people.
Having said that, if your case gets escalated up the chain to the point where you start to meet the "True Believers", you're fucked. At this point, an average person encrypting data or refusing to use email or even encrypting your regular communications (it's not hard at all), is not yet enough to get you escalated. God help us if it gets to that point.
You are welcome on my lawn.
-g+k = Anyone who thinks the Constitition of the US has "given" anyone any rights, has failed to even read the first three words of it with comprehension.
Second time in similar wording that I have made that same typo in recent months. embarassing..
If a right is infringed without consequences, that's the same as not having the right in the first place.
In Australia we had one corrupt idiot, in charge of an ethics commitee no less, go the extra mile there. He posted a shot of the head of his penis flopping in a glass of red wine. He's not on in charge of ethics any more (partly because of dodgy expense claims to steal from the taxpayer, but mostly because of that photo becoming front page newspaper material) but is still in office.
In another state the treasurer is infamous for sniffing the seat of a chair after a female staff member had vacated it (along with bra snapping incidents). That state is going deeply into debt during a mining boom - surely as incompetant as Alan Bond somehow managing to go broke selling beer to Australians. Next week the entire country will probably be led by a guy that managed to convince the jury that he touched a woman without her consent only on the back and didn't grab her genitals as charged, and managed to convince a different judge that his theft of a traffic sign should not be recorded as a criminal conviction. The "conservative" side of politics here are helping to reinforce the idea that "Australia is populated entirely by criminals".
"Until we..."
There is no "we". They would kill you if for some reason they wanted that. The U.S. government has, partly, become an enemy of humanity.
Por qué la gente de los Estados Unidos toleran el asesino Obama? Matar a Obama.
There are 3 rights that were listed as innate: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. They are innate due to the fact that everyone (mostly) is born with alive, everyone is born with the ability to make choices, and is born with the ability to choose to what end their choices are made. That is why they were called "endowed by God".
Rights such as "congress may make no law abridging the freedom of speech" are not innate. It requires reason to understand why you don't want congress to be free to determine what people can and cannot communicate.
Referring to rights as "innate" does more to harm than good to the goal of freedom. Consider someone who thinks that neglecting rights at borders acceptable. You want to change their mind. You have 2 choices:
1) Tell them that rights are innate
2) Reason with them about pros and cons of neglecting rights at borders
One of these approaches is going to further alienate opponents, one of them might actually be capable of persuading them. Please stop referring to rights that demand reasoning as simply "innate". It is an incorrect understanding of what the Declaration of Independence meant by innate and it is an obnoxious argument that "begs the question".
Which is precisely the reason those Rights are spoken of as innate and inalienable. The only position one can take to force a government to defend a right is to argue its innateness because clearly ever other method is consistently infringed by government who would like nothing better to infringe them in pursuit of the politics of the day.
You should look into deism, then. It seems pretty clear that the human condition demands things like the right to speak, the right to travel, the right to privacy, and the right to justice system based on fairness--but a small list of things. Deism exemplifies the idea that a non-interfering God has left man to explore and expound upon the very things that are human rights and make up a person's humanity. The whole Age of Enlightenment very much was upon this discourse and spoke in terms of such things. Now, if you want to argue that Deism is a philosophical construct because it's not an organized religion, well, that's another matter.
And you confuse the idea that something that is innate cannot be infringed. Well, I innately can see, but I can be blinded. Is sight not innate? Because mail delivery didn't exist since the dawn of time, does access to mail delivery suddenly not become an innate right in a society where mail delivery can, is, and can be a common thing? If you think that because there are parts of the world, even today, which are so tyrannical or so impoverished to not the high standards expected of the enlightened that such things cannot be innate, then I'd argue you don't understand the concept of how a positive right can be innate. This is because the innateness of rights comes not from being inborn or being from the dawn of time. They stem naturally from the experience of man in seeing the world and understanding exactly the things that innately are without interference from a tyrannical government or corporation or such and hence are inherently rights.
And you think the trouble is chicken and egg. The trouble runs deeper. To argue something is innate and inalienable is to believe, at one level, that something cannot be infringed, broken, or removed. Yet is clear that the argument for innate and inalienability is precisely such that rights are recognized so they will not be infringed, broken, or removed. To frame the discussion as if your rights are all but that which are written down chains you not only to the very finiteness of past experience and imagination but chains you to alterations to the paper they are written on. It is why the 9th Amendment as written is so clear and dear: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." The words "innate" and "inalienable" rights are a rallying cry that we do not step down the dark path we now tread. And trying to semantically dissecting the words only further dissects are freedom.
I think that's the reason for the rallying cry of "kill all the lawyers". In the end, though, it should have always been "kill all the legislators".
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
kill yourself, troll
Rights aren't offered, they're innate (or God-given, if you prefer) and can only be infringed
It's okay, Bush got permission.
I likewise have found the US border guards in Canadian airports to be extremely professional and intelligent. However I used to fly between the US and Europe and the US border guards in the US can sometimes be very different. I think the difference is that the powers of the guards in US pre-clearance areas in Canada is far more limited. All they can do is deny you entry to the US, they have no power to detain you and you can leave at anytime. Everything you submit to is voluntary - the only compulsory rule is that you must answer their questions honestly. I would guess that not being able to order indefinite confinement and compulsory strip searches means that such a posting would not appeal to those guards which ironically terrorize people in the name of catching terrorists.
Shame the founding fathers didn't think like that.
"Gee. I really don't like this whole taxation by a foreign government thing. Let's just move back to England".
Figured the set that wouldn't consider it wouldn't be interested anyway. In any event my post is like a mirror. What you see in it reflects what you want to see in it.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Good luck shooting your way through that border crossing, Mr Bond.
It's hard to imagine a more peaceful country or one that's less of a threat to the US.
I know several who have been put through the wringer, for no reason whatever. One was a visiting celebrity chef who had all his cooking equipment seized.
There is no longer room to pretend this is about safety any more.
I have an encrypted loop back file that auto-mounts upon log in, requesting first the account password via getty, then the disk password in .bashrc
Interesting thing to note kids:
Never use mass transit without pulling out your "Sunday go to meetin'" laptop. You know the one I mean.
The one that, first thing you do, is to DOD wipe the drive (Thanks DBAN!), then load the OS (Linux, of course.)
If you mount a drive over a directory that already has files in it, you can't see the files in the original directory. .pdf showing the credit card transaction, banal stuff like my tax returns, the in box for the email address I hand out when I -know- they are going to spam me, browser history when I don't care when someone sees what I'm browsing, megabytes of files created by /dev/urandom and dd. That sort of thing. If I'm asked about the "gibberish" /dev/urandom files, I tell 'em the truth. They are there to confuse people that somehow get access to my system. They are completely worthless, and in fact, can be deleted. Here, let me delete them for you just to prove the point. Oh, you don't want me to? OK. But really, it's just
So, in my encrypted directory, I have many many files of Porn that I bought the files. Carefully recorded in an invoice.txt file in the directory
along with the bank account
gibberish. Nothing to see. Honest Injun!
On the base directory, I used to have my "real" files. Now I do something far sexier than that dodge. I used to just not give the loop back encrypted drive
a password, it would fail to mount, and I'd have my real files.
The key takeaway here is "Give 'em something to titillate them while at the same time hiding your real private files. Sensitive files belong in a encrypted cloud drop box outside of ANZAC treaty partners. Remember to delete history on that kiddos. Not ALL history, just that which shows you accessed a drop box."
I have to wonder though. Why am I more afraid of my own government than I am of "terrorists"?
I don't want to hurt anyone, and I don't have a "statement" to make that requires more than a few harsh words to select people behaving badly.
The below has been my tag line almost since I opened a Slashdot account. Sad to say, it's more true now than it ever was before.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
"America may be the land of the free"
Except that, it is not.
Air traffic control and soon thereafter FAA knew four commercial airliners were off course the moment their legitimate pilots reported a hijacking. They weren't sure they were suicide weapons (after the 2nd tower was hit, the 1st people thought was an accident) instead of the usual hijacking m.o. until much later, and the fourth aircraft still in the air responded appropriately.
I always travel in border areas with my laptop, information and all. I have it well encrypted, bios, login and screen saver password protected. When they ask for the passwords (and they almost always do) I gently and politely tell then to fuck off. I don't carry anything that sensitive, mostly my personal information....but that's not the point. The more we willingly give up the more they will take. Yes, they are willing to take, er...try to take no matter my level of cooperation and I have lost many hours defending my own freedom, as well as yours. DO NOT cooperate. DO NOT make it easy on them. DO NOT give in or give up. If we all did this we would make it clear to those in power that we will not be abused so easily. We will not be complicit in our own freedom's demise. It all reminds me of a famous quote. No, not that tired Ben Franklin quote about liberty and security although that does apply. It reminds me of Dylan Thomas. Not so much about the dying of a man but the death of freedom and democracy's light in the world.
Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
"America may be the land of the free"
Must be some kind of joke story. I'll stop reading there.
>> You're out of your mind. Rights exist only because and to the extent that people recognize them, particularly
>> governments that are in a position to defend or deny them. There are no god given rights and if there were, you
>> weren't offered any right to privacy according to any religion that I know of.
We make the rights because we are the ones who make governments.
When governments grow too large as they are wont to do, they try and mislead people, and people like you come along
to mislead everyone as well. Great work! Nice job! Kudos for being a moron!
This is why governments do not make rights. Because we make governments. Take some responsibility for the world you live in for christ's sake. Your actions have effects. You are government.
God == government == people == religion == god == government == people == religion.
It's all just people making up crap for their own ends. Because that is what people do.
With the obvious that you pretend to overlook out of the way (why? what interest do you have in
maintaining illusions?) you are agreeing with him.
So why are you calling yourself out of your mind? What are you really trying to say?
There are an infinite supply of religions, since they are man made. Just like there are an infinite supply of governments, since they are also man made. Hence, the reason governments and religions cannot be trusted. Because the men who make them cannot be trusted.
>> Your rights depend on where you are and who you are with.
>> Thinking otherwise is simply asking for trouble you can avoid by recognising the facts.
Please, try the truth, wisdom, experience, and reality. So much of it goes bad just sitting there, ready for you.
If you gouge yourself on facts, how will you have room for anything else?
Facts are meaningless in reality. Quite, utterly meaningless.
As evidence, I submit your post, which has not one iota of truth in it, but reeks of facts,
implanted in your head by a helpful "government" no doubt.
Seriously, where do you come up with your crap?
How can you really believe that? Are things that bad you must pretend?
Are we all that screwed we just avoid trouble now instead of doing what is right?
Jesus semicomma christ on a slashdot!
No. There is a difference between having a right and having one recognized. You mistakenly assume its the same thing.
If you want an analogy with that take laws of nature. When one recognizes and consequently understands some law of nature, one gains an opportunity to improve ones wealth, wellbeing and so on. However not recognizing a law of nature does not make it disappear, you are just worse off for being ignorant.
It goes the same with rights - they are immutable and when people recognize it, then the whole community is better off. Your conclusion about history is simply false as people from different ages and regions have no reason to think alike. Having a right is innate but recognizing one is a choice.
Glory to Arstotzka
Gets mega flags.
Came into Tokyo with hdds, no problems. Left Tokyo with 10-15 smaller laptop sized hdds in my luggage, pack them in there for shock absorption, usually have chargers and electronics shit all through my bags anyway.. Shot lots of video while I was over there. Plenty of 1080 HD time lapses, 5 hour shots etc.. Multiple drives for redundancy and powering via USB on laptops, when on battery, great when in the middle of nowhere etc.
Customs guy didn't really speak English and really wanted to know what they were (bare hdds - most people hadn't seen laptop sized hdds in 2009). Tried to look at them and figure out what they were, if they opened up. Looked quite frustrated after I showed all my film gear (prosumer stuff) as it seemed legit. Let me go.
Arrived back in New Zealand, first airport, they wanted to perform 'random search' for drugs/bombs etc..
After connecting flight to my city. They said same thing again! So my family said no, you said that back in CHCH, piss off, effectively.. they let it go. Funny how it works..
And US border control is the most horrible, shitty experience out of every country I've ever been to. And that includes some really shitty places in Asia. You are treated like a criminal immediately. Spoken to with disdain, consistently to all passengers.. Finger prints. Random waiting room with some fruit and snacks after cattle processing. Probably porn-vision scan nowadays included too.
Fuck that shit. May only visit US a few times in future on business. IF I can be bothered to go through that BS.
Meanwhile the Boston bombers were flagged + heads up given to FBI by Russia and internal agencies.. but no action taken. Real nasty guys will find a way in either way, border control is mostly about the war on drugs charade.
The times call for faking normalcy, especially if you happen to belong on either end of the ideological/political/etc bell curve. So the best advice isn't to take extreme security measures like cryptography or a thumb drive you can insert up your ass, but to prepare a "normal" persona for those times you have to travel to places where the surveillance is more than the typical data mining of everybody's data. Your Jekyll persona will include gadgets that have been populated by work-safe data, which would necessarily rule out porn of any type or copyright-infringing media. Just remember that you'll also be suspicious if your laptop or smart phone looks as if it's been factory reset.
The problem is that one of the rights you do not have is the right to go wherever you please.
Thus, the government is not infringing on your rights. They are requiring that you waive certain of your rights in order to obtain the right to enter their territory. Merely protesting against it won't help.
We steal your stuff, so what are ya gonna do about it?
You're out of your mind. Rights exist only because and to the extent that people recognize them, particularly governments that are in a position to defend or deny them...
Your idea of rights is the complete opposite of the ideas upon which the United States was founded.
From the Declaration of Independence:
"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. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..."
People who agree with these principles believe that their rights exist with or without the existence of any government. Many people, including non-Americans like myself, consider this Declaration to be among the most eloquent and profound documents ever written. To label its adherents as "out of their minds" seems a rather dim point of view.
The 1st Congress, whom we can assume knew what the constitution meant, passed a law specifying border entry areas as being free from the normal protections against warrentless searches.
"America may be the land of the free"
Define free, and the things happening at the border to US citizens are illegal, period.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
As for their being innate, that can't be true. If the were innate, people would have had the same rights everywhere and throughout history.
Before asshat politicians came along and started making laws, people pretty much had the same rights everywhere and throughout history. It's a sad state of affairs when people don't understand what rights are.
From Wikipedia:
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
Why not? Maybe is a good time to do this. But you right, it is better to simply leave this paranoid people lock themselves in their corner and not try to visit them.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
I am not sure why my post was deleted but here it is again:
No. There is a difference between having a right and having one recognized. You mistakenly assume its the same thing.
If you want an analogy with that take laws of nature. When one recognizes and consequently understands some law of nature, one gains an opportunity to improve ones wealth, wellbeing and so on. However not recognizing a law of nature does not make it disappear, you are just worse off for being ignorant.
It goes the same with rights - they are innate and when people recognize it, then the whole community is better off. Your conclusion about history is simply false as people from different ages and regions have no reason to think alike. Rights are innate but recognizing them is a choice.
Is there a reason a moderator keeps deleting my posts? Here it is yet again:
No. There is a difference between having a right and having one recognized. You mistakenly assume its the same thing.
If you want an analogy, take laws of nature. When one recognizes and consequently understands some law of nature, one gains an opportunity to improve ones wealth, wellbeing and so on. However not recognizing a law of nature does not make it disappear, you are just worse off for being ignorant.
It goes the same with rights - they are innate and when people recognize it, then the whole community is better off. Your conclusion about history is simply false as people from different ages and regions have no reason to think alike. Rights are innate but recognizing them is a choice.
About the only rights people had before asshat politicians came along and started making laws were the "might makes right" kinds of rights.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Wrong. Rights exist only as long as people fight for them. As soon as they take them for granted and stop acting vigilantly to keep them, they slip away like sand. Look how civil liberties (one special form or rights) have eroded all around the world since 9/11. If rights were innate, this wouldn't have happened.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
Thomas Jefferson was a politician. He was pushing a political agenda (IMO a good one) when he said that. The fact that I wish it were true doesn't make it actually true. And read what I read again. I didn't say a legal document gave anybody rights. I said PEOPLE give each other rights.
You're conflating what people generally WANT with what they ALLOW EACH OTHER TO DO WITHOUT INTERFERENCE. The latter is a right. The former is not. People are not born with any fixed set of rights. They're born with whatever rights that their people allow them.
Yes that's true. They were arguing a political agenda and using whatever they could think of to justify their act of rebellion against a tyrannical authority. And most of them believed in a God that I do not believe in. Like all religious people at every time and place, they projected their own desires into the mind of god. Likewise the king imagined God had given him the right to rule over them.
You should be aware that the self-evidentness of rights was a novel concept in the Enlightenment. Up to that point, it had been anything but self-evident which is to say that it wasn't. The political theory that governments derived their powers from the consent fo those governed was both new to the enlightenment and contrary to the facts of thousands of years of history in which foreign goverments imposed themselves upon unwilling populations. It was even contrary to the regime that half the States imposed on a considerable portion of their own populations. The preceding theories were (1) that God had appointed certain people to rule over others and (2) that certain people imposed government upon the willing and the unwilling by force of arms. As much as I would like to believe differently, I think #2 is the truth because we see it happening in every age.
The problem is that one of the rights you do not have is the right to go wherever you please.
Sez who?
Watch this Heartland Institute video
I'm mostly going from your other posts about being tough enough not to crack under torture and other shit which is all obviously a fantasy, but I thought a relatively polite reply to this bit of the fantasy was probably better than rubbing your nose in any of the other bits of utterly stupid tumorous testicles for brains "advice" in case somebody took you seriously.
Before there were computers, we got along just fine crossing borders without them.
The secure way to bring data across borders is not to do it. The secure way to communicate over the internet is not to send data that matters over the internet.
If you must move data, hide it in a popular porn torrent hosted offshore, wait until there are many downloaders, then grab it while grabbing innocent porn torrents before and afterwards.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
The only position one can take to force a government to defend a right is to argue its innateness because clearly ever other method is consistently infringed by government who would like nothing better to infringe them in pursuit of the politics of the day.
Nonsense. Governments infringe upon people's rights no matter how 'innate' people say they are, and if the government does not recognize your rights, that is the same as losing them. The only way to keep governments from infringing upon people's rights (and even this method fails) is for a significant amount of people who believe they should have certain rights to stand up and try to get a government to recognize said rights.
The words "innate" and "inalienable" rights are a rallying cry that we do not step down the dark path we now tread.
It's not working, and it has never worked; any successes have been due to large numbers of individuals who take action, or something such as that.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
You mistakenly assume its the same thing.
Because it pretty much is. If your government doesn't recognize a right, there is no indication that you have it. All you can do is try to get the government to recognize your rights.
I do not believe in magical rights fairies or whatever other sort of nonsense any of this entails.
It goes the same with rights - they are immutable and when people recognize it, then the whole community is better off.
I believe the whole community is only better off when people take action, not just sit around and live in a delusion where they have rights that no authority figure recognizes.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Your idea of rights is the complete opposite of the ideas upon which the United States was founded.
And? It's perfectly possible to disagree with some of what these documents claim.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
The problem is that one of the rights you do not have is the right to go wherever you please.
I don't remember the constitution saying that the government has the right to harass people merely because they visit certain locations, and in fact, the fourth amendment seems to say otherwise. What location you visit has nothing to do with anything; the constitution applies to US citizens, and perhaps even beyond that.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
And? It's perfectly possible to disagree with some of what these documents claim.
You're missing the point. I am not arguing that no one can disagree with these principles, but that it's a bit much to call someone "out of their mind" for agreeing.
Maybe I'm missing something, but what the hell is the point of even searching electronic devices? It would be like conducting searches at the border if everyone could teleport.
It is hardly as if we compel people to visit the US. Being that coming into the states is totally up to our visitors just what is their real complaint?
Frankly if we ever develop a mode of economy that actually works in the US we might be better off to eliminate tourism into our nation anyway. If you look at US cities that have traditionally focused on tourism they have not done well as a rule. They are similar to failed cities in the rust belt before those cities completely collapsed. Orlando might be a great exception at this point.
I am not sure why my post was deleted but here it is again:
You post was not deleted. It was never submitted, due to your own incompetence (most likely) or a technical glitch (less likely but possible).
You know up front what the rules are, don't like them, don't visit.
I do**, I don't, and I won't.
I would have been a perfectly law abiding tourist to the US (and spent maybe $20000) if your border arrangements were even moderately civilised. I'll take my $20000 elsewhere (and any subsequent amounts). The US is obviously so incredibly solvent it can afford to spit in the face of potential visitors. You must have paid off that deficit, I guess. I don't know why you don't just ban all non-US citizens from the US, other countries can reciprocate, and everybody's happy. You've made it quite clear by treating innocent people like shit that you don't want even law-abiding high-spending visitors so we should never trouble you again with our unwanted money.
**The rules are whatever the TSA man says. He can grope you, steal your stuff for no reason, detain you indefinitely, you are his bitch.
or the UK for that matter if you come from a "non-sanitized" country.....
if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear
Ecuador always on my heart....
Yep, that's exactly what I said. The basis of people standing up for those rights is to frame those rights as axiomatic (innate and inalienable). Without that, the people who do stand up eventually do so purely on their own immediate self-interests.
Morals don't work because people kill. Ethics don't work because misconduct is a given. Religions don't work because not even the most ardent believers are ever 100% sure of their message to follow it exactly. And during particularly bad moments, all these truths are specifically made clear because they're more pressing than usual. Yes, action must be taken to clean house at times precisely for the fact that humans, imperfect and impure in various ways, are the very actors that run each system. It says nothing about the ideological backing of if or why action should be taken and what the threshold of cleaning house should be or what the new house should look like.
In short, I think you're missing the point.
PS - That whole "don't work" speech is part and parcel of the human condition. Whether any given example could ever work in a ideal world is rather beside the point of the discussion. But of specific point, as the saying goes government is a necessary evil. It would almost seem to go without saying that to expect government to respect anyone or anything is silly (corporations are the same, btw), so the whole conversation is inherently about the people and what they believe and do, not just in a snapshot or short span of time but for hundreds or thousands of years. The only real argument that could be made is that the ideology of freedom is rarely if ever the pivotal mover of action of the people. To that I'd agree. It is merely the new construction once the daily evil that starts the insurrection needs to be built, with the whole that (a) the new system lasts longer and (b) if nothing else to accept that the new system is itself a good thing even if it doesn't last.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
He also seems to have an odd infatuation with Pierce Brosnan.
The basis of people standing up for those rights is to frame those rights as axiomatic (innate and inalienable).
No. People stand up for rights because, in their opinions, they believe they should have those rights; it has nothing to do with innateness or any other such thing, or at least it doesn't have to be.
Without that, the people who do stand up eventually do so purely on their own immediate self-interests.
That always happens anyway no matter how people frame their opinions. People act according to their own self-interests to realize their desires.
Morals don't work because people kill.
I meant that claiming that a right is innate has never done anything by itself, but we've since moved on from that.
In short, I think you're missing the point.
If I am, then I don't truly understand why people keep using the words "innate" and "unalienable" when referring to rights; it seems utterly unnecessary to me.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
For corporate travel to China for example, you definitely should use a cheap disposable laptop and don't let it out of your physical possession at any moment during the trip. Disable hibernation and suspend, and fully power it down when not using it. If you ever lose sight of it, you should assume both the hardware and every bit of data not encrypted with FDE is compromised.
How about don't visit?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
No, you comply with "unreasonable ones" ( in your view, not everyone ) too, or you get tossed in the can., or executed on the spot.
I expect no different treatment when I visit somewhere else. I will actually research first, and follow their rules as a visitor when i get there as i don't want to spend my vacation time in jail either. Pretty simple actually.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Obama the Nobel Peace prize recipient. People loved Hitler too.
And why do people believe they should have those rights? I'd say in large part because without some sort of outside interference a lot of the rights are the sort of things that are innate. We all have the power of speech*, the right to liberty, the right to possession (if not outright property), etc. It's heavily the basis of outside force (courts and individual force) that impinge upon those things. And for plenty of the positive rights, they're usually a manifestation of recognizing that to actually live in society almost invariably grants a lot of defacto power to some people which virtually needs to be addressed with a balance of positive force by society for those innate rights to continue to exist in some form--the rights of life, liberty, and property are pretty meaningless if you're effectively reliant upon a local baron who can choose to hire you and pay you in a minimal of food or leave you without work and almost certainly see you starve as you attempt to migrate to yet another baron for work.
You skipped over the word "immediate". That's the salient point. To say and fight that others can speak horrible things about me is not in my immediate self-interest but is in my more long-term self-interest when such a right is reciprocated. Yet coups are more often fought with "us vs them" leaving little room for consideration but the immediate, "don't be labelled as them". Enlightenment and enlightened self-interest is not a process the vast majority of people go through. Instead, people heavily adopt the framework of others to rely upon and to fight for. To sort of highlight the point, there's a reason it is "religion is the opium of the masses" and not "religion is the endorphin of persons".
For the same reason people refer to other things as innate or inalienable. As some point, you have to accept some set of axioms in a logical or philosophical construct as circular logic is invalid. It almost seems like that's an uncomfortable truth to you.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
And why do people believe they should have those rights?
Since when did this become about why people desire things? It's irrelevant, anyway.
I'd say in large part because without some sort of outside interference a lot of the rights are the sort of things that are innate.
I don't believe they are. Abilities are different from rights.
You skipped over the word "immediate".
No, I didn't.
For the same reason people refer to other things as innate or inalienable.
Well, that explains little.
It almost seems like that's an uncomfortable truth to you.
I don't feel uncomfortable, and if you're trying to spout truths, perhaps you should do a better job of getting to the point.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
I'm pretty sure this same discussion was had in 1776 or thereabouts.
Adams: "You're out of your mind, Jefferson. If it were "self evident" that all men were created equal, we'd never have had a king to send this Declaration to in the first place, and such rights as Englishmen have had didn't come from the Creator. They came from a bunch of angry barons that rebelled against King John, captured him and made him sign the Magna Carta."
Jefferson: "I know John, but 'endowed by their Creator' sounds more pious. We're playing for sympathy here. Religious people like to hear about the Creator and we're casting King George as practically an apostate for infringing our freedoms. And you might keep in mind that we're committing treason. We need all the sympathy we can get."
Adams: "OK, I'll give you that. Creator it is. But what about it being self evident that all men are created equal. You own slaves for Christ's sake! Half the Congress does!"
Jefferson: "Well, what do you want to write instead? All white men are created equal? I think that sounds pretty self-serving. Again, sympathy John."
Adams: "Yeah, that sounds pretty bad. How about 'all Englishmen?'"
Jefferson: "We could go with that."
Franklin: "Then the King will say we're not English men but Americans, and don't have the rights of Englishmen."
Adams: "He probably would, the weasel. He's taken everything else away. OK. All men it is."
Jefferson: "I knew you'd come around."
There's a difference between describing what people mean when they use certain phrases and believing that such things actually exist. I know what natural rights are supposed to be. I also know who Tlaloc was supposed to be, but I don't believe either is a real thing. Rain comes from clouds and is caused by heat from the sun. Rights come from people and are caused by a confluence of interests and agreements as to what people will and will not do.
Lets start with the fact that it is 2013, not 2008 and Truecrypt is now at version 7.1a not 5.x. Then we'll ad to that the fact that your first link, which claims it is trivial, refers to a drive that has an encrypted boot partition with a Truecrypt boot loader, not one that has been set up for plausible deniability. This is obviously trivial to discover, and any competent programmer could write code to do it. However, this has nothing to do with the conversation since we are talking about a drive that has been set up for plausible deniability, not one that has not.
Now, your second link makes may case rather than breaking it, since it shows that in 2008, for version 5.x, Schneier identified every problem he could find and they have fixed it. Schneier does go on to say that he cannot guarantee that everything is perfect now, but then again nobody can ever guarantee that so that is a standard disclaimer that any competent person would make.
Finally, the TSA dweebs certainly cannot determine it. Even if someone at the NSA can that person's time is more valuable than Schneier's so they aren't about to use that resource unless they already have other direct evidence that the person with the drive is a terrorist. At that point it is game over. In our scenario, I am an innocent person just going through security with a drive. At no time are they going to have enough evidence against me to justify having their Super-Schneier wasting his time analyzing my drive.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
This is why I take all my data off my laptop and put it all on the cloud. That way I can cross the border into the US and not worry about troublesome searches, as all my data is safely on the Cloud. When I want access to it while done in the US, I simply use the internet to bring it up. I even get a really good connection while I am down there, more so than my country of origin even!
I am not sure why my post was deleted but here it is again:
No. There is a difference between having a right and having one recognized.
No there's not. You mistakenly assume its the same thing.
No, I have correctly reasoned that they are the same thing. There was no such thing as a "right to free speech" until people decided that they wanted one and stopped trying to enforce laws to control speech. The king of France had a right to rule the country as he saw fit until the people decided he didn't and lopped his head off.
If you want an analogy with that take laws of nature.
No thanks. Rights are descriptions of what kinds of behavior are permitted or protected in society. They are not in any way like laws of nature. You are arguing from the way you want things to be. I am describing how people use the word "right" over many centuries of common and legal use.