Slashdot Mirror
NZ Traveler's Electronics Taken At Airport; Interest in Snowden to Blame?
An anonymous reader writes "A New Zealand backpacker stripped of all electrical equipment at Auckland airport suggests attending a London talk on cyber-security following the Edward Snowden leaks may be to blame. Samuel Blackman was returning home for Christmas on 11 December from London Heathrow to Auckland via San Francisco when a customs officer at his final destination took the law graduate's two smartphones, iPad, external hard drive and laptop, demanding the passwords for all devices." For a quieter version, see also The New Zealand Herald.
It is baffling how easily civilization reverts to medieval behaviors.
We'll take your stuff, which you possibly use for your business or work, and won't tell you why, or for how long.
There need to be laws and yes, intelligence agencies, but barring a crime, this ends up being bad PR.
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
taking the piss out of the Soviet Union, the Iron Curtain satellites nations and their citizens for the entire "Papers, please!" nonsense that occured whilst I was growing up in the 70s-80s. Is this crow I taste?
And my girlfriend wonders why I encrypt and password protect my phone and laptop. "Give us your password." "No" "We won't let you back in the US." "Um you can't do that to a US citizen." They might confiscate the electronics. Luckily I have the ability to work without the laptop I travel with, and I'm not a fan of this kind of political intimidation. I can't be bothered to do the same to my Kindle Fire though. Unless they want my recently watched shows of netflix, a couple of ebooks (paradise lost, GOT), or my browser history of ESPN and google news, they aren't going to find much.
is NEVER carry sensitive information on you when entering an international airport. Use a clean computer/ personal devices when traveling and access all sensitive data in encrypted form from remote servers. Smartphones are a no-no unless they are cleaned of all personal info.. and he had 2 of them..and a tablet as well! Sounds like he was carrying his whole life with him!
By smart. Carry a minimum of gadgets thru the airport. It'll save you the embarrassment and cost of replacing your equipment as well as sharing your most intimate details with the minions of the state. If you really need to carry something, MicroSD cards are your friend!
That's why I've enabled wipe my device after 10 password attempts on all of my devices. I imagine I would be very nervous and shaky as I tried to unlock them.
I guess the next step in this array of bullshit is for random folks to dress up like cops, secret service, airport authorities or any other scheme that fits the area, and detain people randomly and take their stuff. If enough people do this, then maybe people will remember why the fuck laws exist at all, and why the legal authorities have rules to follow as well. If we all allow for mere mankind to represent the universal authority (unquestionable authority; same authority that makes gravity a "law") then we're all doomed, as mankind is not fit for such authority.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
...the gun.
all your passwords are belong to us.
Looks like Saruman is now running The Shire.
[Insert pithy quote here]
Best to stick to the ground and not use any Eagles for assistance.
Don't play that game.
The whole issue is contained in the US Constitution where it says,
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." - Amendment 4.
This needs to be a universal human rights declaration world wide and it needs to be a condition where no government is tolerated forcing people to give up their computers or their passwords. In the mean time anyone taking a computer on international travel is an idiot! We also need that every computer has a kill password where it is reset to factory default condition and the disk is wiped with a single password. You just give the government demanding your password the kill password and the game is over for them. Every OS should contain this in the future.
What are your rights then this happens? I guess you need to know all the laws on a country by country by nationality by nationality basis.
How about for a UK citizen getting back into he UK.
Think I'll stay at home.
I try to take an almost ridiculously reasonable and neutral stance on most things. For example, I'd like to believe that, actually, this guy might be reasonably suspected of being a "cyber-terrorist" by the powers-that-be and the fact that he attended a cyber-security lecture is correlated to, but not direct causation for, his being stopped.
I'd like to believe that...
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
The list of countries you shouldn't travel to if you don't want to be detained and would like to keep your stuff: US, England, New Zealand.
So, let me get this straight.
Some guy got all his electronics confiscated by New Zealand customs.
The only thing the customs guy would say is that they were looking for illegal/indecent media. I'll paraphrase as child porn.
The only possible conclusion is that it is the jack booted actions of an oppressive government retaliating for attending some Snowden related event?
I guess it's possible, but based on the evidence, it seems like a stretch.
P.S. Does New Zealand law require that you produce your passwords? They probably won;t like that all my passwords are EatShitClown!
Seriously, wait till they start charging people on the spot with copyright infringement.
My personal laptop is setup to wipe itself if you fail to give the correct credentials enough times. "No" you may not have my password, or better yet, "Password99" Try using that one a few times ;-)
Of course there are things like Google Docs, so there isn't anything on the machine itself. I can stop at a store on the way home from the airport, pick up a cheap replacement and be back in business in the time it takes to logon to a hotspot.
And I don't have anything to hide. This whole process was setup when I lost a machine a while back. The machine is now immaterial.
So go ahead and take my 'portal'. You'll get nothing, and I'll be in touch with my lawyer before you can even attempt a second login.
"Go fuck yourself!"
I am a US citizen and I've dealt with US customs before, but not New Zealand customs. In my experience, customs generally has no interest in your phone and laptop if you are truly a Joe Backpacker kind of guy. They are very interested in you if they think you are trying to smuggle drugs or something else. A couple of years ago I got back from a trip to China to visit my girlfriend and the guy I talked to at Customs at the US airport became convinced that I was smuggling Chinese herbs, so he made me go to a special line so my luggage could get examined. I was a bit amused as I knew they would find nothing as I brought no herbs of any kind with me and very few souvenirs of the trip. The guy who examined my luggage actually got annoyed because he found nothing. I was immediately allowed to leave with my luggage. I am sure that there is much more to this story than the backpacker is telling because he knows that Customs probably had a very good reason to be interested in him. For example, he may have worked with Wikileaks, been in contact with Snowden, or have some other non-Snowden issue that caused Customs to be very interested in him. In fact, don't be surprised if we get more information and it actually has nothing to do with Snowden because he transited through San Francisco and apparently US Customs had no interest in him. If US Customs felt that he was a source of useful information about Snowden, they'd have confiscated his electronics there. I'm pretty sure that New Zealand customs does not randomly target backpackers for confiscation of electronics and this is not an example of a police state gone mad. I'm sure he knows the real reason they took his stuff and he doesn't want to mention it because he wants to play the "I'm being singled out for nothing!" angle to the press right now.
(and our pm was born in the US)...
You mean your unidentified guest?
No left turn unstoned.
The biggest surprise here is this happened in AKL instead of SFO. There is no transit freedom in the united states. If you're connecting you need to clear US customs and immigration and then re-check into your connecting flight. So if this was really a US demanded search one would think the phones and electronics would have been taken in SFO.
governments in general dont need to care about what particular policy or procedure to which one may object or find questionable. random crackdowns like this one on dissent are designed to impart a chilling effect that would discourage any challenge to a plutocratic united states governing policy. The take-home lesson of this hardship the government wishes you to embrace is that questioning the war on terror, its means or its methods, is absolutely forbidden.
but why? in america heart disease, obesity, cancer, and car accidents kill more people by the day than terrorism has ever aspired to. but these afformentioned blights on american society can be explained away by freedom to consume, the capitalist healthcare and societal model, and the idea of personal responsibility; none of which pose a threat to the government. Terrorism is the forceful demand of very reasonable requests that have been iterated thousands of times over the past fifty years to a deaf audience of american plutocrats. people forget that Osama Bin Laden had rather reasonable requests of our foreign policy that were familiar, even embraced by a number of americans seeking to reduce foreign spending, but entirely ignored by our empire: Namely to leave Saudi Arabia, withdraw from Iraq, and withdraw support from Israel.
The occupy protests are another fine example. it would have cost nothing to begin engaging protestors in constructive dialog and working to mitigate their grievances. We could have helped ensure the disenfranchised among them had a voice in the decision making process of their elected government and emerged championing the american way. Instead they were systematically targeted and demonized by media, their message marginalized and obfuscated. the protestors were arrested, beaten and some killed. free speech areas were closed and voraceously defended from protestors. A new I-Phone came out and as intended, america changed the channel.
many will see that in america, "protests arent allowed to go on forever" and this is true for a number of reasons. grass is trampled, sidewalks are congested and eventually the government grows tired. but like every government we demonize around the world, our leaders laud the idea that protests are not allowed to go on forever. That if they can control the media outcome of the event, they stymy the calcification of resolve and interest in the protest and never have to do anything more than continue with business as usual. Protests in america are as genuine and lawful as protests in china in many respects, because instead of addressing fundamental failures of north american capitalism ad foreign policy we patch over the cracks with arrest warrants and detention camps. Its the reason protests at presidential inaugurations do not take place anywhere near the inauguration, and why Occupy new york does so nowhere near Wall Street.
Good people go to bed earlier.
OK, first I have to say I travel a lot and I know they can check your devices at a lot of airports, and I hate that as much as everyone. However, my question is why don't they just make a copy/backup/etc of all the devices you have and give them all back? Why do they have to take everything away? It's not that I'd have something sensitive or illegal on my devices: I never take sensitive information with me on travels, I always access them remotely on our servers, all the software I use is legit or free, and I buy all my music and videos. However, taking the devices away can cause a lot of problems, the most important being making you unreachable (and making you unable to reach people). Yes, you can buy a new tablet or a new laptop, and you can buy a new phone, but good luck trying to convince your phone company to forward your calls to a new number if you don't actually have the device and you're not even in your home country... and propagating your new number to all your important contacts could be a real PITA. Yes, some can use Google Voice, but others would be simply fscked. All in all, I don't see how one could come out OK from such an encounter.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
You should take out replacement insurance for any gadgets when you travel and never have the only copy of anything on those devices.
Would a chromebook make a good travel laptop for this sort of situation? Let's say you have two Google accounts, one with a bland public persona and one with any sensitive information you care to work with. Delete your sensitive account from the machine before you transit through customs and add it back when you get to a safe(ish) network. Keep all your data in the cloud.
I wonder what Chrome OS does with local files of deleted users?
and give us a constitutional representative democracy before our international terror network spreads any more.
In 2008 I had a computer confiscated they asked me for the password I said the stress of the confiscation made me forget the password. They said to me "do I take them for fools." I said yes but what has that got to do with the password? The laptop was a Dell Computer and it was broken the keyboard did not work and it also did not have a hard drive I had taken it out to use it with another laptop. They never returned the laptop not that I wanted it back anyway. They really are stupid people they just tick boxes and do as they are told they are a special kind of brainless human being. The solicitor told me to make a claim for the laptop "the value of" for a brand-new working computer although I never did. They were looking for clone mobile phone numbers. I have a stubborn rebellious nature that is antiauthority and unfortunately I cannot control my stubborn rebelliousness.
And they can check the HDD for contraband such as drugs or foreign species, but that doesn't mean they get to keep his kit, that's called theft.
My phone has an option to unlock on face and voice. What can anybody's customs personnel do if they take a phone, but need the owner's face to unlock it?
Flip side -- my phone says this option provides weaker security than a password. Why is this weak?
stuff like this is why I keep my porn on your computer
Flash devices need a failsafe password mechanism that, if a particular password is entered, it immediately does a device erase on all flash memory.
The point of this is to communicate to the ordinary citizen to not read about the leaks, not talk about the leaks, and to avoid anything about the leaks - or else!
New Zealand is part of Five Eyes
It is never the victim's fault when rape occurs. This is rape of civil rights, writ large. That the rapists are governments and government officials makes not one whit of difference. That they're raping us "for our own good" makes not one whit of difference. That the world is made safer (it isn't, but impossible to explain that to the public,) is not an excuse.
It is rape, plain and simple.
And I thought I might like to visit New Zealand someday. If the story is accurate, now I never shall. Not if my civil rights can be raped that easily.
He attended a presentation called "Mass Surveillance: The Debate Must Not Be Silenced" and when he returns they take all his stuff so they can look at his pictures and videos, read his ebooks and personal documents, and listen to his music.
Simply attending a presentation about personal privacy gets your personal privacy violated.
Oh wait, someone is knocking at the door. BRB.
Something is missing from the article... some facts that are supremely relevant but somehow left out...as usual-- either this guy purposely got rowdy or started something to try and get in the news, or the "customs" official was some thieving mo-fo, who probably has a history of stealing items from peoples bags and selling them on ebay or something... like these: http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/31/travel/tsa-misconduct/
"While not specifically mentioned in the report, notable cases of theft by TSA agents include a 2012 case in which two former employees pleaded guilty to stealing $40,000 from a checked bag at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport, and a 2011 guilty plea from an officer who admitted stealing between $10,000 and $30,000 from travelers at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey.
The officer in the 2011 case, Al Raimi, admitted he would "kick up" some of that money to a supervisor, who in turn allowed him to keep stealing. The supervisor, Michael Arato, also pleaded guilty to accepting kickbacks and bribes."
FYI, Auckland is in New Zealand, not Australia. Unless you meant "AU" as a short form for Auckland, in which case that's just bizarre and obtuse. Are you bizarre and obtuse?
You don't. I reinstalled my Raspberry Pi just yesterday. And the Ultra2 is a keepsake and connected to neither power nor Internet.
I'm not sure I've ever seen a more blatant example of it taking one to see one. Young and carrying something more advanced than a pen and paper you say, fuck me why didn't they shoot that hipster on the spot!!!
is "G0 FVCK VRSEF!"
No, really.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
That's okay. After the new slashdot layout, there's so much whitespace by default that we no longer need to put it in ourselves.
Snowden must still have some shit on the USA that has them and their allies really fucking scared. Stuff he hasn't released yet if they are still acting like this.
I can't wait to see what is going to get released still.
Be seeing you...
I'm a New Zealander and I thought we were better than this.
The NZ Herald article says that Customs had "reasonable cause" to believe an offence had been committed.,I think the guy reacted it the wrong way and should have dug his heels in, we do have a Privacy Act http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1993/0028/latest/DLM296639.html?search=ts_act_privacy_resel_25_a&p=1 which I understand provisions for privacy of your own information.
If Customs had "reasonable cause" (I say bollocks to "high risk") he should have made a fuss and demands to know under exactly which part (or parts) of legislation the reasonable cause came under. Also, he talks about his tweets etc. Rather than idle conjecture, he could request the information under the Official Information Act http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1982/0156/latest/DLM64785.html?search=ts_act_official+information_resel_25_a&p=1 (That's FOIA for you Americans).
Shame on us New Zealand.
Of course, you should be bringing only data-sanitized devices over borders and accessing data remotely via VPN. When that's not possible, you should be bringing only encrypted devices with decoy OS and data as the default.
Decoy data is not just "free OSS stuff", it's inconspicuous personal data you don't mind being perused by someone else. Customs officers are *not* a technical bunch, they will not find your encrypted data or even know what encryption is for that matter. But they *are* generally assholes who are just itching for the opportunity to take your stuff, so never bring anything across that you aren't willing to lose.
I have a cheap used laptop with above setup, and it's the only one I ever take across. If they want to steal it (and that's what this is, it's THEFT, not "confiscation", "seizure", "forfeiture" or some other Orwellian bullshit doublespeak), and turn me away, I couldn't give a shit. My real data is freshly backed up remotely anytime before I cross with it. Good luck breaking the encryption, if you even find it (or, more likely, if the pawn shop you sold it to finds it)
I only ever bring my phone across if I know I'll need it because it's less capable of such a setup. I can backup and restore to/from an encrypted partition or container on my laptop, but it's cumbersome and time-consuming.
I don't know the person involved, but I suspect he was vocal about his travel purpose and less than nice towards his government. Hence, he was targetted.
I've traveled to many, many different countries - Asia, Europe, S.America, Africa, Middle East - some with attrocious encryption and non-privacy laws. I fully encrypt my Linux-running-netbook and my Android phone with non-trivial passphrases. Further, nothing on the systems is sensitive ... except the way to access remote machines ... which still require base knowledge (password) and a key.
In the last 6 yrs, I've never had my electronics touched at any boarder beyond the normal x-ray scans. I've never been asked to access the system or for any decryption keys/passphrases. I am not vocal about how much border control sucks with my real name and do not post that stuff on public forums that can easily be traced back to me.
A few weeks ago, I visited 2 countries where saying anything negative about the government was against local laws as is saying anything negative about the different religions. I'm an atheist and believe that anyone who thinks there is any "god" or "dog" should be committed, medicated and "retrained" back to sanity. Traveled through 4 different countries on this trip. No issues at all in border checks - plus I opt-out of the new-fangled scanning machines in European and US airports - get groped every time. BTW, in the USA, they are professionals about it and in Europe, they are mostly pros, but once I was hassled leaving AMS ... constantly questioned by a woman/TSA equiv the entire time I was being groped. My "because I don't want it" answer just wasn't good enough for her.
Also, I'm always on "vacation" when I travel, never on business. Tourist probably get hassled less? Sure, we shouldn't have to worry at all about this crap at any border, but I live in the real-world. I can't recall my login password when I get nervous anyway. I'd boot into Window on the netbook - hardly ever used - no connections to my systems, email, web browsing ... they can have that data anyday they want it.
So - don't be an asshat and you'll probably never be bothered at any border.
I once had a strong desire to travel to New Zealand and spend a few months there.
This news ends that desire.
I don't spend my money as a tourist in a totalitarian state.
It seems it would be pretty useful to have a system where when you login with your regular password, you see your normal account, but if you login with an alternate password, it takes you to a different account. So you could give the authorities your (alternate) password and it would work, but without exposing any of your sensitive data. Does this exist?
Born John Phillip Key
9 August 1961 (age 52)
Auckland, New Zealand
I always thought Aucklanders were different, but American?
The NSA would still be spying on everyone, even more so if snowden didn't leak anything. The blame should be on the U.S. Government, and those in power to let the abuse of power go overboard.
So how do you explain the support by the USA of the terrorist organisation the IRA in the 80s & 90s?
FASCISM is to blame!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
If you don't want it grabbed or scanned, send it on ahead. They cannot physically take from you what you do not have in your possession, yes?
Amateurs...
If you don't want your equipment scanned or purloined, don't carry it through airports. Send it ahead or scrub it.
Amateurs!!!
Hardware is cheap. DATA is expensive.
My Dad, a white, conservatively-dressed elderly retired guy traveling from Paris to the US with his elderly wife, got pulled into the back interrogation room at JFK. They did everything but a cavity search. All very polite. As he put his necktie (no kidding) back on, my Dad asked why they'd chosen him. The two TSA folks grinned at each other and said, "Now we can grab anybody we like for the rest of our shift without being accused of racial profiling."
Funny. Not.
Have you seen his Birth Certificate? How do you know they are not just covering up his Americaness hmm?
Customs officials were required to have "reasonable cause"to believe an offence had been committed.
Anyone can say they suspect anyone of wrong doing, but it is a whole other ball of wax to back it up. "We have it on good information that you violated XXX". OK, good information from whom? based on what? or do you not have the right to know/face your accuser in NZ?
Nah...it's not me, maybe you're thinking of Sauron.
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"
You absolutely should have claimed for a new laptop. If everyone just rolls over, they'll keep doing what they're doing with no risk of reprisals. At least if people make claims, they have to balance the economic loss of paying for what they confiscate with the value of the 'data' they hope to or do find.
Doesn't there need to be a crime first? Doesn't there need to be evidence indicating that there is a crime to investigate? Without some sort of charge, and naming a statute doesn't cut it, naming a suspected violation of a specific statute seems to be missing. It reminds me of arresting someone for "resisting arrest" wtf? You can call it "retaining evidence", but it seems more like "blindly groping for evidence".
This is America! Of course that's not crow!
It might look, act and taste exactly like crow, but dammit, this is America! It can't be crow! Not here! Not in America!
Sharkey has the best job bennies.
This is an honest question (I don't know much about US law) - are there any other mechanisms other than impeachment? If not, then there are only two actions left for citizens in the US, and indeed across the world... #1 is political, and #2? well, noone wants that. Political action can be boring and unpleasant, but if ever there's a time it's now... because YEARS worth of sweat are required. There are already people doing this work but they are too few. Another honest question - who are these people, and how can the average Slashdot denizen help?
And can't be made a crime. Willful self-incrimination, so 5th Amendment. However, anybody you have told the password to could be charged if they refused to comply with a warrant for, por ejemplo, cell phone data.
Hey! What happened to the "100% government transparency" guy? The one from Hawaii... I think...
you know how alarm systems let you enter the wrong password and it sends a silent alarm while pretending to turn off the alarm. Tablets and smartphones should have a similar feature where if you enter a certain password it boots into some kind of new factory setting where the phone works but there are no contacts, files, etc. for anyone to see on there and if you don't enter the right password within an hour or so of entering that password it nukes the phone and everything on it.
It was the NZ customs that confiscated the items, not the US.
Do they NEED a reason to do anything? They do some things just because they CAN! For them that is enough reason to do ANYTHING. Sigh............oh and you kids get off my lawn!!
I'm old, not dead. Well that's my 2 cents worth, your mileage may vary. I say what I think, not what you want to hear.
Could be!
His English father and Austrian mother could have travelled to the states to give birth to him...
This has nothing to do with Middle Ages.
he has a personal fortune of around $50mil (NZ$ of course) he has a lot to lose by not bending and taking it like a champ. therein lies the problem for NZers, we have to vote this lacky out.
So we should judge people on how much money they have? Good one.
I wouldn't judge a friend like that but as for running NZ, I would like someone with NZ's best interests at heart rather than someone who works to maintain their own wealth at our expense. it's a real catch 22 - we want someone with good business sense but not someone who makes decisions based on what they personally have to lose. it wouldn't surprise me to find out that JohnKey has a lot to gain by a free trade deal with the US (as would a lot of regular NZ'ers) but should we really kiss ass and sign away our rights as a nation to get it? I personally would prefer to tell the US to take a flying leap as we did with the nuclear ban - even though that is based on a lot of FUD anyway. at least we stood our ground. the only way to win is to not play the game.
the only way to win is to not play the game
If by win, you mean damage our export industry and tank the economy as a result....
We're not playing Global Thermonuclear War here.
how would the economy tank and export industry be damaged? I doubt we'll be receiving any sanctions for refusing to bow to the US's every desire, all I can see is no change from what we have now. how about the local manufacturers who are going to get screwed by a free trade deal? we've already seen Toyota in Thames go down the tubes due to the dropping of import tariffs IIRC, no matter which way you look at it someone is going to lose... I would rather it be the fatcats than everyday Joe NZer trying to feed his family on minimum wage.
Because the other countries that sign free trade agreements become cheaper to buy from.
We'd be left either lowering our prices or being left out.
hmmm, I don't really know if that would be the case, are there actually that many countries in the running for free trade? anyway, back to the actual topic here, I just came back through customs in Auckland today with a mini server and 40 USB flash drives in my backpack and didn't get a second look, did get a second scan through the bag xray though but no follow up, didn't even see a customs agent on the way over to Sydney, walked straight though.
There is a streamlined customs process when travelling between NZ and AUS. Last time I went to Sydney, I just walked through those machines that take a picture of you and scan your passport. Didn't even have to talk to anyone.