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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.
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.
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.
TrueCrypt can help. Put your encrypted hard drives somewhere else in your luggage.
Very bad advice indeed. These things can be found in the luggage searches, and then they have clear signs of deception and can give you the special treatment.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
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.
Maybe you don't understand how truecrypt works?
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
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.
I've often thought about doing that, using plausible deniability, and making the password for the "safe" partition: GoFuckYourselfYouFascistPig . The first time they ask for the password I would answer "Go Fuck Yourself You Fascist Pig", and after that I would simply ask them if they had problems hearing me the first time. When I got to court and they tried to screw me for failing to reveal the password I could state all innocent like: ... but your honor. I told them! It's GoFuckYourselfYouFascistPig . ;-) Of course, that was back when we had due process :-( [not to mention it is obviously pure fantasy, and not something I would ever actually do ... but I sure wish someone would ]
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
I happen to be an expert on the use of cryptography. I know in detail how TrueCrypt works and its design is a sure recipe for getting you into extremely hot water if your devices are searched at the border. It may also get you thrown in prison for a while, because you refuse to hand over the keys to your hidden partition (never mind that they cannot prove you have one and that you may actually not have one in the first place...).
And there is the thing that you "hid" storage devices in your luggage, which already makes you suspicious. Having TrueCrypt on them will just finish you off.
The only good advice to TrueCrypt users is to actually have a hidden partition and to immediately hand over the keys for it when asked at a border inspection. Anything else is is pure folly. http://xkcd.com/538/ applies without restriction.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Just having a loose hard drive in your luggage with "random" data is enough to make them suspicious. You'll crack down before they do.
Well, you can be childish all you like. When you sit in border-jail, remember me.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Yes that type of encryption will not be opened but the use of such methods will stand out to quality software scanning/cloning your hardware.
Then you become very interesting and might get to be involved in "living document" "colour of law" US legal reform. The hand over your password before you 'forget' it, not the expected self-incrimination rights case.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Er. Ah. No. I won't. You see. There's nothing to "crack down" about. It is just random data. You really think that every person who goes through security with an unformatted hard drive is held in purgatory forever? Also, I don't doubt that you would crack. The very fact that you believe I would tells me that you know you don't have any balls, and you assume I don't either. By the time I was done screwing with them they would be so angry they would be in tears (and yes, I have experience with exactly the situation I am describing.)
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
And I accept your claim that you don't know how rubber-hose interrogation works.
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.
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.
... and I accept your claim that you are a Pierce Brosnan fan.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
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
And I accept your claim that you believe that you're some sort of badass. ;)
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.
His point is that everybody knows truecrypt does hidden partitions so if you don't hand over the key for a hidden partition they are going to make your life hard - even if you don't have a hidden partition.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
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
Hmm a Kickstarter to cover the legal fees could be quite popular.
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
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.
Indeed. Quite obvious. Thank you. This idea seems to be well beyond Zero__Kelvin however.
The problem is that not only can they not prove that you have a hidden partition, you cannot prove that you do _not_ have one. The design of hidden partitions in TrueCrypt prevents both very effectively. So if they just assume you have one, because "it is a standard feature of TrueCrypt as everybody knows", you are screwed, unless you can give them the key to that hidden partition. But if you did not give them the keys to both the normal and the hidden partition when they asked for your passwords, you are already screwed, because giving them the key for the hidden partition only when they specifically demand it has you already guilty of deception.
The concept of hidden partitions has some merit. It specifically keeps your adversary in the dark of whether there actually is something or not, but only if you are willing to withstand considerable pressure, including jail-time and torture. If you are not willing to do that, hidden partitions do more harm than good, because they create a false sense of security.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
The only good advice to TrueCrypt users is to actually have a hidden partition and to immediately hand over the keys for it when asked at a border inspection. Anything else is is pure folly. http://xkcd.com/538/ applies without restriction.
I disagree thoroughly. If you're travelling then encrypt your disk, but don't keep any personal files on your machine whatsoever, store it all in encrypted archives and upload it.
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).
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.
You don't have to know anything about how encryption works at all to be aware that normal citizens have been compelled to turn over their passphrases just because encryption just makes it look like you have something to hide.
In fact, the more ignorant about encryption itself, the more you are likely to come across stories that resulted in the "plausible deniability" encryption, where you take one container with innocuous but private material, like bank accounts, and an alternate container with the good stuff. Which is exactly what gweihir recommended.
It drops off at some point, at the zero point of encryption knowledge you would be unaware of any story.
As a general rule, if you have to qualify yourself or give a personal anecdote, you are undercutting your message. It doesn't make it any less true, just harder to believe without looking, or knowing. But having read slashdot since 2000 or earlier, I've seen a goodly number of stories. Search the archives and read in wonderment.
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
Um, the GP knows about hidden partitions and plausible deniability. Here, I'll quote: "never mind that they cannot prove you have one and that you may actually not have one in the first place". The GP also knows that, yeah, usually some bored border agent will take one glance at your booting laptop and wave you through with a yawn.
The GP also knows that if, for whatever reason, you do get flagged for extra attention, and they then realise you've got encryption capable of plausible deniability, that they will not give one iota of a shit about your protestations that you don't use it.
It's not about how technology works, it's about how people work, and people tend to react badly when they think you're hiding something - regardless of whether you're actually doing so.
So, yeah, you may eventually leave the interrogation room after the maximum legally-allowed eight hours and fifty nine minutes later (depending on jurisdiction and assuming they haven't found some pretext to "indefinitely detain" you), having missed your flight, your luggage thoroughly ransacked, your every last piece of electronics down to and including the xbox controller confiscated, your name permanently engraved on their hassle lists, your house searched, your neighbours and employers queried and your every phone call tapped for the next two years, but hey, you sure showed them, right?
that's why all my encrypted volume are named things like.
Justin Beider's greatest compilation album.mb3
Celine Dion My heart goes never where.mb3
security through obfuscation while overall weak is usually the easiest fence to use. you don't only use it. but as part of a multi layer security system it is always easy unless you are being specifically targeted.
Bury those 2 files in collection of legally owed music and you will have to see the odd file size(if your OS shows bytes and not megs) to know something wasn't quite right. and even then you can fit a lot of data into a couple of megs even encrypted.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
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?
If we're indulging in fantasy, but wanting something milder, perhaps "unreasonable search", so that when they blink at you, you can add, "that's the password, and also what I love to sue people for. Denny Krane!" as you hand them your law firm's card. The one that says "Denny Krane" on it. :p
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.
As a US Citizen returning home from overseas, while they do, at least under shaky legal pretenses have the legal ability to search you and your devices (though this might be tested in the SCOTUS in the near future), you are under no obligation to actually divulge any passwords or encryption keys as a condition of your passage through the border, or for that matter, answer any other questions other than anything that directly establishes that your identity as a US Citizen.
As a US Citizen, they are legally obligated to let you (not necessarily your stuff, however) return unconditionally; this has been established as a legal precedent.
They can seize your stuff and let you pass, but you don't have to decrypt anything. You are not under obligation to help them access the contents unless/until you are actually charged with a crime.
Although I do agree, as a matter of pragmatism, it's simpler to take unencrypted disposable phones and laptops (with minimal personal information contained within) with you overseas so that if they do decide to search, they won't have much of anything to look at and will hopefully let you pass with no fuss since they have nothing useful to look at.
In that case, a TrueCrypt hidden partition may be for you.
But still, it is a lot easier not to be carrying anything in the first place and using the net to transfer. You do not have to use couriers even in these days, as long as you have some technological competence. I still do not understand why Greenwald had his partner carry data. There really is not need for it. Just get a virtual server anywhere, or use Amazon S3. Put GunPG encrypted files on it. If paranoid, add several layers of encryption and use long RSA and El-Gamal keys. Pull them off via ssh or SSL, if it is a web-only account. Done. A number of other possibilities exist, some even more secure. Sure, data will be transferred, and may even be traceable to you, but so what? They already know your names.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
. It may also get you thrown in prison for a while
On what charges? They may deny you entry, and detain you for a little while, but actual imprisonment without charges seems like it would be a huge constitutional issue.
what exactly is border-jail? Can you find me a legal basis / definition, or name one?
His point that they can imprison you sounds like utter garbage. They can deny you entry, but I am unaware of any instance of a traveler being imprisoned SIMPLY because they didnt provide encryption keys-- what would you even charge them with?
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
have been compelled to turn over their passphrases just because encryption just makes it look like you have something to hide.
Has there been a court-case establishing this? Can you give an example where there was not already probable cause?
Man I love mb3 files.
For Linux, use plain dm-crypt. No headers whatsoever.
BUT: If they are after you, they may reverse the burden of proof, and suddenly you have to prove that this data is not encrypted. Tough luck. Also you seem to think that a mathematical proof trumps a legal suspicion. Not so, unfortunately. The judge in question may not even be able to understand the mathematical proof, but he will surely understand the legal suspicion. You cannot assume your adversaries are rational.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
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.
. It may also get you thrown in prison for a while
On what charges? They may deny you entry, and detain you for a little while, but actual imprisonment without charges seems like it would be a huge constitutional issue.
They only need to suspect that you are somehow involved with terrorism to hold you indefinitely. With six degrees of separation plus an encrypted partition, it's not that hard to see that happening. Don't you just love the Patriot Act. Just about everything in it is something the founding fathers/patriots would have called tyranny.
I don't think we disagree. I omitted that of course you do not put anything secret into both the primary encrypted partition and the hidden one. At least not anything you want to keep secret against the border inspection. As for using the net to transfer anything that you want to keep hidden from border inspection, I completely agree.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
I've often thought about doing that, using plausible deniability, and making the password for the "safe" partition: GoFuckYourselfYouFascistPig . The first time they ask for the password I would answer "Go Fuck Yourself You Fascist Pig", and after that I would simply ask them if they had problems hearing me the first time. When I got to court and they tried to screw me for failing to reveal the password I could state all innocent like: ... but your honor. I told them! It's GoFuckYourselfYouFascistPig . ;-) Of course, that was back when we had due process :-( [not to mention it is obviously pure fantasy, and not something I would ever actually do ... but I sure wish someone would ]
You realize that under the Patriot act, you don't necessarily get to go to court. You piss them off all, particularly with something that can be considered antagonistic and hating of America in their eyes and you could have a very nice Carribean vacation at Gitmo.
Two things to keep in mind. Never joke about hijacking a plane at an airport and don't piss off the border guards. Doing either one can make what you used to consider your worst day ever not seem that bad after all.
If you want to see what you are risking consider the "professionalism" or lack thereof in Homeland Security and then read about a few incidents with corrupt police in the Third World. You don't want to pull this stunt when somebody is looking for a way to inflate their arrest figures. You may as well be wearing a t-shirt that says "Arrest rate down? Pick me! Lots of confusing time in court for sure and nobody will blame you if I get off". Considering the disproportionate response with computer crimes you may find yourself violently restrained. I've never understood this, it's almost as if they see people with computer skills as some sort of dangerous wizards that can control people's minds with a few words as in "Snowcrash".
I think the advice of people above comes down to "don't attract attention from the guard dogs" while what you are suggesting is like running past the dogs with pants made from bacon.
Still risky, but possibly the best approach at this time if you have to carry the data. (Which I think you really do not.) Of course, you will end up in gitmo as a copyright-terrorist if they notice ;-)
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
You do not that there are non-US citizens that cross the US border, right? All this talk about "US citizens" misses the point. Sure, they claim to be doing all this stuff only to non-US citizens, but once the capabilities are in place, that goes out the window. Wanting to complain about being denied rights you thought you had as US citizen? Here is this nice national-security letter (or equivalent) that forbids you to talk about it. This has quite obviously been done to a number of people already.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
(1) The article *is about a US citizen being harassed at the border returning home*, did you even read it?
(2) NSL's apply to service providers, businesses, and etc. pertaining to business records about their business dealings with people/persons; they are not sent directly to individuals in their capacity as private citizens (despite your claim)
(3) The right of return for US citizens is enshrined in case law; while case law can evolve, until it does, you have the right to return with encrypted data and not cooperate with their wishes to inspect it as a condition of return.
If a right is infringed without consequences, that's the same as not having the right in the first place.
Do you have any source. or example. or statute?
AFAIK, border guards have no authority except to question you, and to deny visitors entry. They have no authority that I am aware of to arrest you or imprison you. Even TFA says as much.
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".
No they dont. I really want to see them find the 64 gig micro SD card that is with the other crap in my checked luggage. OR let's see them find the truecrypt volume in the SD card that is in my Digital camera.
TSA are a bunch of bumbling morons. Worry if you have been detained and the NSA guys show up to ask you questions and do a rectal cavity search.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
And his point is a straw man that will never happen argument, he might as well have said that they randomly kill someone in line just to keep people on their toes. It's as credible as his horrible made up scenario. Prove that I was "hiding" storage devices with my camera and memory sticks in my luggage. They have to prove intent, and sadly the people we have manning our airports for security receive the worst quality of training and management than any other department in the USA.
They are 100% ineffective and theater only. Anyone claiming otherwise is just a fool.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
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".
From MaximumPC.com, re: TrueCrypt:
"The Hidden encryption method actually allows you to create two mirror OS’s protected by different passwords. Using this method, should you be coerced into entering your password by a third party, you will have the option of using a password that presents them with a version of your OS which is completely insulated from the other."
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
Rights aren't offered, they're innate (or God-given, if you prefer) and can only be infringed
It's okay, Bush got permission.
a) reading comprehension would help you.
b) as to (2), the equivalent for individuals exists, also see a)
c) good luck with that
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
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.
Did you not RTFA
Well, you clearly did not. The article talks about how they kick you out, not how they imprison you.
Slashdot: Where hysteria and ignorance meet.
They have to prove intent to get a conviction. There is a lot they can do without bothering to take something to court to make a person's life miserable.
This sig intentionally left blank.
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".
The GP also knows that if, for whatever reason, you do get flagged for extra attention, and they then realise you've got encryption capable of plausible deniability, that they will not give one iota of a shit about your protestations that you don't use it.
So you give them the information they need to decrypt your hidden partition of porn and they send you on your way, never realizing you have a second hidden partition full of seditious text.
But Sir, I am transporting one way path encryption keys.
nosig today
The point is: of course the authorities know that TrueCrypt can have a hidden partition. Therefore, they throw you in jail until you produce two working passwords. So you better be prepared to hand over two passwords, or your trip will last a bit longer than expected.
You seem to be laboring under the impression that you would have some sort of rights that would prevent that sort of thing, that they'd need some sort of proof of something? Not if you're in the constitution-free zone, where most Americans live.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
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?
They can detain you for questioning. You're not "arrested", which just means you don't have access to an attorney. They no longer require any evidence of wrongdoing to make a copy of all electronic data and question you to their heart's content.
Per the DHS, customs officers "have the authority to "take and consider evidence concerning the privilege" of any person to enter the United States." No clue what statue the DHS is quoting there, but note the wording: "privilege" and "any person".
Here's the WaPo story linked off the ACLU page. That was 5 years ago, and the trend is not in our favor.
It's later than you think. They aren't wearing jackboots and death's head patches this time, but I suspect that's because they have the confidence not to need to strut.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
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
"Was" must date back before the early-to-mid 1980's. And I'm not sure about various times in the past (and periods before that, modulo a lower population in those times).
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.
You really think that every person who goes through security with an unformatted hard drive is held in purgatory forever?
Every person? Of course not. As long as there are no Arabic-sounding names anywhere in your phone, I'm sure it will only be a token hassle so that their statistics don't show racial profiling of the people they do hold in purgatory.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
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.
He does know how authorities work, however.
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.
The article you linked uses the word "detain" twice, both for documents. THere is NO indication that they can hold you for any length of time, because they cannot.
Show me a source of someone actually being detained, or stop spreading bull. The last thing we need in these discussions is more ambiguous crap-- the government puts out enough of that without pro-personal rights folks spewing crap right back.
I'll be the first to admit that the US government has issues, but it's not like they're the only ones. Apparently, the Canadians are just as bad. My sister tried to cross the border a year ago, and the border patrol there thoroughly searched her car and all her stuff, insisting she must be carrying drugs. After they were done, it took her half an hour to repack everything.
Sit, Ubuntu, sit. Good dog.
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.
"actual imprisonment without charges seems like it would be a huge constitutional issue."
Guantanamo.
what would you even charge them with?
Terrorism and obstruction of justice.
Extreme Programming - Redundant Array of Inexpensive Developers
"America may be the land of the free"
Must be some kind of joke story. I'll stop reading there.
What if you kept two hidden partitions (with a few fake financial record documents or something in one), and only gave them the key to the decoy hidden partition? They would think you've given them the access to the hidden data then, right?
(yes I can see this potentially becoming an arms race where the border agents always assume you have one more partition than you've given them access to).
So how do you boot the laptop to demonstrate that it's a real laptop? I've been asked to do that at a US border before (leaving, at the time). They didn't care what was on the laptop, but they did care that it was actually a laptop and not a bomb made to look like a laptop. Getting to the 'enter password' screen was enough for them.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Or they just confiscate it, hand you a receipt and tell you to take your complaint to somebody who cares. Better hope it takes a long time to reach whatever TLA data cruncher it's destined for that can detect your second hidden partition.
Solution: make more than one hidden partition. Make it so that providing the key to one does not make any other visible. Put some soft porn on one of the hidden partitions and the stuff you actually want to keep secret on the other(s). When you are asked for the keys, provide the key to the soft porn partition.
So the bigger question is: why doesn't truecrypt have an option for multiple hidden partitions, so you can have your "encrypted" partition with your personal correspondence, then a "hidden partition" with something legal but more sensitive (e.g. soft erotic pictures), a "superhidden partition" with something questionable (movies 'in action' with your mistress), and a "megahidden partition" with the stuff you actually care about. How can they know how many partitions you have?
What would be better, however, is to have an encrypted filesystem based in "data files", e.g. excel sheets or csv files with plausible column names (case no, var0001 ... var0090) and random seeming numbers, so you can claim that they are measurements or analysis files or whatever. Since the file (or files) is contained in your regular file system, no need to explain missing hdd space and no fear that you accidentally overwrite the sensitive data as you risk (iirc) when using truecrypt with the hidden partition hidden.
Glory to Arstotzka
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.
So, yeah, you may eventually leave the interrogation room after the maximum legally-allowed eight hours and fifty nine minutes later (depending on jurisdiction and assuming they haven't found some pretext to "indefinitely detain" you), having missed your flight, your luggage thoroughly ransacked, your every last piece of electronics down to and including the xbox controller confiscated, your name permanently engraved on their hassle lists, your house searched, your neighbours and employers queried and your every phone call tapped for the next two years, but hey, you sure showed them, right?
Well, that's proof of a highly dysfunctional society atleast.
However, given the two alternatives using truecrypt with a hidden volume or leaving all sensitive data at home, the former is still strictly better. If they suspect you have a hidden volume you will get shit for both options, and if they don't you won't. The only difference is that in the former you will actually have access to your data.
"" How about taking the safety labels off everything, and let the stupidity-problem solve itself? """
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.
TrueCrypt is nice but the U.S. or other governments will simply order to you give them the passphrase under pain of very nasty punishments.
If you want to keep a secret don't carry that secret though airports in any form.
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.
In the UK, there is a specific offence of failing to hand over keys - under RIPA (2000). There already have been people imprisoned for it.
Similar laws exist elsewhere, and even where they don't there is usually some form of "contempt of court" that can lead to jail time once they have a court / judge order you to hand over the keys.
Two years for the keys plus whatever they add on for failing to comply with the questioning. Under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act in the UK, for example, you can be questioned at the border without access to a lawyer and refusal to answer is an offence. This is what they used to detain David Miranda recently, and others have been convicted for refusing to answer without a lawyer, and some appeals have recently been heard and failed.
This is the whole point of the article - you might think you have certain rights, but at a border, suddenly you don't.
"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."
But Sir, I am transporting one way path encryption keys.
One time pad?
What is "one way path"? Sounds Budhist?
Watch this Heartland Institute video
. It may also get you thrown in prison for a while
On what charges? They may deny you entry, and detain you for a little while, but actual imprisonment without charges seems like it would be a huge constitutional issue.
Two words.
Enemy Combatant.
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.
Simply reply "Fifth Amendment" and require a lawyer if they try to charge you with anything
Higuita
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
If you want to play games, couldn't you just have a decoy hidden partition for which you hand over the keys immediately when asked, and an additional one you say nothing about?
Anyway that's just hypothetical - in real life I agree with you that when you put yourself in a situation such that someone else can do whatever they want to you, your best bet is trying as hard as you can not to annoy those people regardless of who is right. My solution (which has been working so far but I don't know if it's feasible to keep it up forever) is simply not to travel to such countries. Certainly if I were travelling there for pleasure I wouldn't bring any kind of laptop (and would consider buying a not-so-smart phone for the trip - one that does nothing but calls and texts which means less content to worry about).
The problem is, let's say I'm sent there for work, which sometimes requires me to travel overseas. And carry a laptop. And for that laptop to be encrypted with TrueCrypt (no hidden partitions, just plain old visible encrypted partitions). And by handing over the keys to anyone without a court order or warrant I would be breaching my employer's data security policy (grounds for instant dismissal, with potential for follow up legal action ... I would also be exposing them to legal action from their clients so I've doubt they would have much sympathy). What advice would you have for me (in hypothetical land) then?
"Why are you watching the washing machine?"
"I love entertainment, as long as it's clean"
I'm not an american, fifth amendment doesn't apply to me. Also terrorism trumps all amendments. Maybe it's the law, but what use has your lawyer when you can't see him when you're in gitmo and nobody want's to even admit that you are held there?
Extreme Programming - Redundant Array of Inexpensive Developers
I'm pretty sure truecrypt will let you have as many hidden partitions as you want, so your megahidden partition idea is perfectly doable.
It can also have them inside files that are visible in the main partition (although I don't think you could make it so that the file is also seems like a valid Excel file, although that would be a nice touch if the devs are reading this...)
"Why are you watching the washing machine?"
"I love entertainment, as long as it's clean"
Do you have any source. or example. or statute?
AFAIK, border guards have no authority except to question you, and to deny visitors entry. They have no authority that I am aware of to arrest you or imprison you. Even TFA says as much.
They can detain you for questioning. Then they can detain you while they wait for transportation to send you to the next government agency, that can take up to a week depending on your priority. But technically, they cannot detain you indefinitely, they would turn you over to the FBI or some other agency for that.
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
No, no it does not. Refusing consent to a search does NOT provide probable cause. Stop spouting shit.
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.
.... of course you do. Why wouldn't you? To a Pierce Brosnan fan, pretty much everyone is a badass.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
The point you forgot to mention is that encrypted files are easily spotted by analyzing the entropy of the decrypted disk blocks. That's why hidden containers WILL often stand out like a sore thumb. And this is precisely the reason why Truecrypt is just a poor tool at steganography.
However, unlike Truecrypt, some encrypting file systems do an excellent job at hiding data in a much more effective way. Of course, using such an OS/Filesystem combo is in itself a dead giveaway that you've got something to hide. So your point has merit still.
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.
Use a patched version of Truecrypt, and create multiple hidden OSes. Give them the key to one of those hidden OSes, and chances are you'll be fine.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
No.His point was that they will take away your freedom forever if you don't give them a key that very well might not even exist. They won't make your life hard. They might make a few hours of your life a bit uncomfortable. That is all they can do, because, as you openly acknowledge they have no idea if you actually have encrypted data on the drive or not.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
You openly acknowledge that they cannot possible know if you do or not not have encryption, then go on to say: , and they then realise you've got encryption capable of plausible deniability
How, prey tell, does this not throw a "code not reachable" compiler warning?
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Shouldn't just about everything they do be a huge constitutional issue? We also have people getting molested at airports by government thugs. Since when does the government care about the constitution?
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
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.
That would be an awesome Boston Legal scene! :-)
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
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
Why are you pointing out what I already clearly acknowledged?
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
I'm staring to think that people can't read anymore. Seriously. What part of "not to mention it is obviously pure fantasy, and not something I would ever actually do" was too hard to grok?
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
No. The point is that they have no idea if there is encrypted data on it or not, and there is a completely plausible explanation for the random data that doesn't involve encryption. The point is that people wipe hard drives and there is no way to distinguish between such a drive and a truecrypt drive. The point is that they can insist that you must have such data, but all they can reasonable do is confiscate the drive and send you on your way. Sure, they can delay you, but absence of probable cause they cannot detain you and file charges against you. I'm not laboring under any delusions of anything. I merely have a brain and use it, which is alas, a severely lacking quality of so many in this thread.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
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.
I highly doubt he has as much experience with it as I do. In fact I'll go one further and guarantee it. If he did, he wouldn't confuse the empty threats they will make with those that actually carry weight and upon which they can actually act.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
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!
From my earlier post, and directly from what you quoted:
Why are you pointing out what I already clearly acknowledged?
I was responding to the post I responded to, not your earlier post.
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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law
Huh? Isn't that what you get with cryptsetup without LUKS? You can generate a keyfile stored somewhere else.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
But the whole point of this article is that at the border you're in a Constitution-free zone.
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.
Just put the data on a MicroSD card in your phone. It won't show up in the phone's music library or pictures so if they just casually search the phone they won't find it (assuming you don't have a file browser on the phone). You can retrieve the data by plugging your phone into the computer and mounting it as a thumb drive. If you want to distract them, have another thumb drive with your relatively innocuous stuff on your keyring.
I've had border guards poke around and make sure that the phone's not a bomb. I've had them comment that I liked some of the same music they did. I've never had them remove the SD card and make a copy of its contents.
Meaningless, if amusing, posturing...
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Here is the thing.
If they want to arrest you, or beat you, they can and will do it anyway for looking suspicious. Encryption is not a magic bullet, no one component is.
Very true. Yet people keep believing that TrueCrypt hidden partitions make them invulnerable. I am merely pointing out that this is decidedly no so.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
The point you forgot to mention is that encrypted files are easily spotted by analyzing the entropy of the decrypted disk blocks. That's why hidden containers WILL often stand out like a sore thumb. And this is precisely the reason why Truecrypt is just a poor tool at steganography.
Ah, no. TrueCrypt overwrites the whole primary encrypted partition with cryptographically generated randomness, i.e. every sector in there already has high entropy and that remains true for never used (!) sectors after decryption. For a hidden container, it places a header-less secondary container within the primary one at an offset. That container is only identifiable if you have its passphrase. So no, entropy analysis does not help.
There is another problem though: Writing to the primary encrypted container can damage the secondary one. For this, TrueCrypt protects an opened secondary container by intercepting writes to the primary one and blocking them if they would go into the secondary one. That leaves traces. Also, you will always see that there is a (more-or-less) large part of the primary encrypted partition that does not have files in it. If a FAT/NTFS filesystem is new, it is normal that no data is stored towards the end of the partition, as they both cluster data at the start. When it gets older, the used area wanders towards the end though. (These filesystems try to overwrite deleted data as late as possible to allow recovery, in contrary to typical UNIX/Linux filesystems that just use the whole disk. One reason UNIX/Linux filesystems have significantly better performance.) Now if the used area wanders, at some point it will either damage the secondary (hidden) encrypted partition, or the write restrictions become obvious. If you just do not write to the primary encrypted partition, that also is obvious.
Hence, a TrueCrypt hidden partition can be glaringly obvious unless you are careful and use it right. Basically, you have to create the whole set-up a short time before crossing that border.
However, unlike Truecrypt, some encrypting file systems do an excellent job at hiding data in a much more effective way. Of course, using such an OS/Filesystem combo is in itself a dead giveaway that you've got something to hide. So your point has merit still.
Indeed. However, I am not aware of encrypting filesystems that do a better job. Hiding data is just not something that encryption can do well. What it can do is provide access control. But as soon as they can force you to hand over the privileges (keys in this case), access control is meaningless.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
The use of soft porn is a surefire tell that something is amiss.
...
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!
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 ----
s/ath/ad/
A little translation error.
nosig today
Oh, I dunno, by suit #2 imaging and analysing the drive they found in your luggage while suit #1 is giving you the aforementioned 8h59m interrogation and, oh, hey, what are the odds that the NSA has had a lot of experience in discovering encrypted data, including hidden volumes?
It's pretty clear that you don't know how encryption works.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
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!
They would need a charge, which they would not have, or probable cause, which they would not have.
I think we're done here, if all that we have is speculation and bluster.
Perhaps you disagree.
Perhaps I like to stay in the realm of fact rather than wandering into the Zone of Wild Speculation.
http://16s.us/TCHunt/faq/ - a program that could identify TrueCrypt volumes back in 2007.
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/08/07/17/2043248/schneier-uw-team-show-flaw-in-truecrypt-deniability
What makes you think the NSA can't do better?
As soon as that possibility is known, it becomes just as problematic. The "Terrorist Checklist" employed at the border would just say, "make sure they give you three passwords, try all, detain if given 2 or less or if one does not work".
Fortunately, TrueCrypt only supports one layer of "hidden".
What you _can_ do however (under Linux), is to hide a plain dm-crypt partition by memorizing its offset. Serious risk of damage to that partition and the outer filesystem though, if you do not place it very carefully.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
I do not see anybody in Guantanamo suing them...
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
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.
They would need a charge, which they would not have, or probable cause, which they would not have.
I think we're done here, if all that we have is speculation and bluster.
You are correct, you cannot be held without a charge with the except of suspicion of terrorism or links to terrorism. The Patriot Act allows you to be held pretty much indefinitely without being charged. Just ask all those people in Gitmo. That said, the boarder guards can't do that, that is why they would need to turn you over to homeland security. But they can detain you for as long as it takes for HS to get there and get you. Is it constitutional, no, but it is the Patriot Act.
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!
No it wont. Come on back when you have actually touched one of these. Because I HAVE. They are designed to look for firearmes, bombs, and weapons not something the size of a 1/4 postage stamp.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I’m sure previous A/C meant this as well, but to make it explicit:
And by extension of the hardware being compromised, every bit of data on the FDE would be compromised should you attempt to unencrypt it. See Evil Maid Attack.
I will humor you.
The topic of discussion and your specific allegations were regarding border security. The blog post you linked has zilch to do with border security (it was from NY to LA).
Also, most of that guy's complaint is regarding the actions of a particular TSA agent. Even when way out of line, you cannot go from "a TSA agent did it" to "it is legal" or even "it is policy".
Again: Lets stay in the realm of fact. That is anecdotal, irrelevant (not even what we're discussing), and speculative (the TSA agent's actions are not policy). Im sure I could find a cop who plants drugs to arrest you, but you wouldnt make the claim that its legal, normal, or policy, and you wouldnt bring it up in a discussion on the CIA.
I'd tend to agree. Legal but weird fetish porn might serve you better. Old lady/man porn, perhaps. I'd almost pity the agent digging through that.
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.