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."

Comments

Fight it if you want to.

[khasim]

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.

Re:Fight it if you want to.

[PPH]

This is Slashdot. All the guys here have girlfriends with the last name of JPEG.

Re:Fight it if you want to.

[timholman]

Use a separate laptop for travel, or else keep the sensitive stuff on removable partitions (SSDs, USB keys, etc) which never leave the house.

This is absolutely the best tactic. In my research group, it is standard procedure to use a travel laptop when traveling to conferences out of the country, even to "friendly" venues. In my case, I use a MacBook Air with the screensaver and firmware passwords enabled. I don't even bother to encrypt, since nothing goes on the SSD that is the least bit sensitive.

Granted, there is always the remote possibility that someone might succeed in compromising the OS during a business trip, and hoping that I or one of my colleagues will bring that laptop back behind our firewall. When in doubt, that is dealt with by re-imaging the drive as the first order of business upon one's return.

We often joke (half seriously) that the day is going to come when we will buy disposable laptops that will be abandoned or destroyed when traveling to certain countries. Yes, we are paranoid, but are we paranoid enough?

It's common sense, just as it is also common sense to presume that every conversation is being recorded, whether by phone or in person, when meeting colleagues overseas. Despite pious protestations to the contrary by some parties, one can be certain that there is no government on the planet that wouldn't do so if given the opportunity.

Re:Fight it if you want to.

[Anonymous Coward]

"We often joke (half seriously) that the day is going to come when we will buy disposable laptops that will be abandoned or destroyed when traveling to certain countries."

Why is that a joke? That's what I do.

I don't carry devices of any kind when I travel - usually to the UK and Ireland for the purpose of buying antiquities to resell.

I buy a $200 laptop, and download my encrypted backup from my U.S. server. It takes 20-30 minutes to get my environment back. When I leave, I backup, encrypt and upload what needs to be backed up (if anything), wipe the drive with shred, reinstall the original image, and then (usually) give it as a gift to whoever expresses an interest.

I buy a disposable phone, and chuck it somewhere destructive when I leave.

I'm older, so when I go through customs I play the luddite ("Computers? Bah!"). It's amazing how quickly I'm on my way: just that convenience is worth the cost of the laptop. And on my next trip I have some remembered good will...

Completely off Base

[bill_mcgonigle]

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 trip to a major US lab in the 1980's

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:The real issue: U.S. government corruption.

[Sabriel]

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?