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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.
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.
Did you just mention "Rush" that senile, racist, sexist?
Your opinion is completely irrelevant go back to your confederate flag draped tent...