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.

Comments

Highway Robbery

[Anonymous Coward]

It is baffling how easily civilization reverts to medieval behaviors.

Re:Highway Robbery

[TallGuy]

Seeing how this happened in New Zealand, probably thousands of miles across the sea?

Re:Highway Robbery

[JustOK]

One's reach does not end at one's finger tips.

Re:Highway Robbery

[JustOK]

Is it Obamaruman or Obamauron?

Re:Highway Robbery

[i kan reed]

It's weird to me how Obama does all sorts of terrible things(most of which aren't new, but that's no excuse), but his primary antagonists seem to always be presenting the most discredited or irrelevant nonsense as defining evidence of his totalitarianism.

Re:Highway Robbery

[mrchaotica]

This, this, a thousand times this! Why the fuck do the the talk radio assholes blather on ad nauseum excoriating Obama for Obamacare when they could be calling him a totalitarian traitor to the Constitution instead?

(The answer, of course, is that the Republicans (and Democrats) are perfectly okay with totalitarianism.)

Re:Highway Robbery

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah I was recently thinking how the "free world" nowadays is starting to seem not so different from the bad old days and messed up countries where Kings/Dictators could mostly do whatever they wanted - imprison, kill and torture whoever they want, seize whatever property they want. In those countries most people were usually safe if they kept a low profile and "followed the rules".

Same goes for the "free world" it seems. Yeah everyone has the freedom to say bad things about Obama etc. But see what happens if you considered a threat- Assange, Snowden, Poitras ( http://www.salon.com/2012/04/08/u_s_filmmaker_repeatedly_detained_at_border/ ). Heck even Kim Dotcom.

So maybe the real difference is in the free world the real rulers don't care about petty name calling, esp if it's targeted at puppets with term limits. Whereas Dictators and Kings are apparently more sensitive to that stuff.

Re:Highway Robbery

[dyingtolive]

It's a combination of false flag trolling and people who have something to gain from shitting all over the rival team without also pointing out all the things that their own team is philosophically fine with doing, and does do on a regular basis.

Re:Highway Robbery

[Mashiki]

This, this, a thousand times this! Why the fuck do the the talk radio assholes blather on ad nauseum excoriating Obama for Obamacare when they could be calling him a totalitarian traitor to the Constitution instead?

Plenty of them do, you're just not listening to the right ones. Boortz, and Rush do, so do several other smaller hosts that are on a smaller number of stations(under 20). Oh and the tea party does, but obviously they're racists for doing so(because that's what the flappy headed fools in the media say).

Re:Highway Robbery

[JustOK]

You're thinking about Martha Stewart. It's not related, and I don't know why you are, but you ARE thinking about Martha Stewart.

Re:Highway Robbery

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

This is a serious situation about loss of freedom, as was apartheid which Nelson Mandela so bravely fought against, both just like our Obamacare thing at home. Here's my sign language guy to interpret me:

"Gerba gerba gerb borgle blorg Taylor Swift is hotttttttt blarg gerble..."

Re:Highway Robbery

[daniel.garcia.romero]

This, this, a thousand times this! Why the fuck do the the talk radio assholes blather on ad nauseum excoriating Obama for Obamacare when they could be calling him a totalitarian traitor to the Constitution instead?

(The answer, of course, is that the Republicans (and Democrats) are perfectly okay with totalitarianism.)

Because it works as a diversion? Yeah, a bit of a stretch, but I don't trust ANYBODY these days.

Re:Highway Robbery

[bobbied]

One's reach does not end at one's finger tips.

Nor does ones control extend as far as their ability to touch.

Re:Highway Robbery

[i kan reed]

Because I'm replying to the parent? Who was replying to the great grandparent. It's called context, duder.

Re:Highway Robbery

[mrchaotica]

Boortz is allegedly retired (although for a retired guy, he still gets a lot of airtime). Rush is on while I'm at work, so I couldn't listen to him if I wanted.

I've heard Eric Ericson complain about it (for about 5 minutes, and then he spent the rest of the show on Obamacare). I've heard Sean Hannity mention it merely as part of a list of Obama's lies (which also included Bengazi etc.). As far as I know, Herman Cain hasn't mentioned it at all.

At any rate, there is absolutely zero chance of any of them giving NSA spying the attention it deserves (which means "completely drowning out any Obamacare issues," among other things). The only possible explanation for their criminal levels of omission is that they're all totalitarian asshats too.

Re:Highway Robbery

[i kan reed]

Well, congratulations on being too cynical to be able to do anything about it, I guess. I try to trust people inversely to how much they have to gain from my complicity, except where I personally know them.

Re:Highway Robbery

[flanders123]

(The answer, of course, is that the Republicans (and Democrats) are perfectly okay with totalitarianism.)

Actually this is the "this".

The Snowden saga and politicians' and media response to it prove that there aren't 2 teams in politics. Dems and Republicans are part of the same corporation that pays them handsomely with the public's money.

It's like any professional sport organization (NFL, etc). Sure the teams are competitive to a point, but at the end of they game most of them don't give a rip and are chuckling and hugging each other, meeting for drinks and dinner afterwards.... Because they all get paid millions of the public's money, regardless who "wins" a single game. Only the public cares about that single game.

Same with American politics...The debates about healthcare, abortion. The elections. The political news shows. It is all just to see which team is best funded by the special interests. The special interests have big plans for the public's money and/or social behavior. In this system the politicians are always paid, at the public's expense.

It is no wonder why no politician or politically bent media organization will tip this system. It is their cash cow. We Americans need to wake up.

Re:Highway Robbery

[CanHasDIY]

Did you just mention "Rush" that senile, racist, sexist?

Even a broken clock is right twice a day, you know.

Your opinion is completely irrelevant go back to your confederate flag draped tent...

You know the difference between you and whoever you're attacking? All they did was mention the name of someone who, occasionally, gets one right; All you've done is attack them and imply that they're racists because they mentioned the name of someone you've obviously decided to form a personal vendetta against.

So, who's the irrelevant one here? Not the guy talking about Rush - at least he managed to stay on topic.

Re:Highway Robbery

[JustOK]

broken digital clocks are never right.

Re:Highway Robbery

[Nyder]

Seeing how this happened in New Zealand, probably thousands of miles across the sea?

Tell Megaupload that Obama can't touch them. Oh wait, it already happened...

Re:Highway Robbery

[mrchaotica]

If that were true, then they wouldn't be able to rail against Obamacare either.

(Unless Obama wants Obamacare to be hated, perhaps in a gambit to increase acceptance of a single-payer system... but that's a bit paranoid even for me.)

Re:Highway Robbery

[Beer_Smurf]

Nicely said

Re:Highway Robbery

[Obfuscant]

At any rate, there is absolutely zero chance of any of them giving NSA spying the attention it deserves (which means "completely drowning out any Obamacare issues," among other things).

I would have FTFY'd the quote, but I left it. You mean the attention YOU think it deserves.

Lets contrast the two issues. One issue has direct and immediate impact upon millions of people, increasing costs by upwards of a thousand dollars a year and reducing coverage while forcing many of them to change doctors and accept much higher chances of paying thousands of dollars more if they need care. The other issue has no direct impact on them, they never saw it happen, and it costs them nothing. The government got information that they didn't care about.

Here's what the man on the street would have to say about the two issues. "You mean the NSA listened in on my call to Aunt Millie last week and knew I made it from my car? You mean when I was telling her about the new health insurance the government forced me to buy because my existing plan that was everything I needed was not legal anymore, and now I'm paying twice as much per month for a plan that has ten times the deductible. And I won't be able to get THAT coverage until March because the website I need to use to sign up isn't working yet. Can they do anything about it?"

The only possible explanation for their criminal levels of omission is that they're all totalitarian asshats too.

I'm sorry, you think it is a criminal act for a radio talk show host not to talk about what you want him to talk about and express only your opinions, and you are calling THEM "totalitarian assholes"?

I think a much simpler explanation is that radio talk show hosts have audiences that don't care about what you think is most critical but do care about things that have direct and visible impact on their daily lives. That those "totalitarian assholes" know that those audiences will tune out if all they do is rant about the NSA because most people simply do not care about NSA.

Re:Highway Robbery

[mrchaotica]

Lets contrast the two issues.

Indeed, let's.

One is blatant unconstitutional totalitarianism, and proof of acts of outright treason by scores of public servants (including the Commander-in-Chief!).

The other is additional regulation that makes an already-fucked-up-by-regulation industry a little more fucked up, a tax increase, and an incompetent IT project deployment (whoop-de-fucking-do).

It is blatantly obvious which issue every patriotic American (or indeed, every less-than-treasonous-himself American -- there is no 'no true Scotsman' fallacy happening here) should be more concerned about!

I'm sorry, you think it is a criminal act for a radio talk show host not to talk about what you want him to talk about and express only your opinions, and you are calling THEM "totalitarian assholes"?

I think the extent of their dereliction of their journalistic duty is so huge as to be figuratively criminal.

Re:Highway Robbery

[Mashiki]

Did you just mention "Rush" that senile, racist, sexist?

Your opinion is completely irrelevant go back to your confederate flag draped tent...

How funny that it's the left who always, and I mean *always* bring up some form of racism, or sexism, or who knows what else in order to try and attack a person, or a point. Really now, I guess when that's all your views and talking points centre around--that's all you can say.

Useful protip: We don't have confederate flag draped tents in Canada.

Re:Highway Robbery

[CanHasDIY]

broken digital clocks are never right.

Pedant is being pedantic.

Or trying to be funny; can't really tell.

Re:Highway Robbery

[adiposity]

Even a broken clock is right twice a day, you know.

If a broken clock is on the right time, by the time you have observed it, it will be telling you something wrong again.

A broken clock might be missing the hour, minute, or second hand. Is it ever "right"?

A broken clock can only be known to be right by use of an unbroken clock. You would not use the broken clock as evidence of the time, ever, unless you were an idiot. Therefore, there is no reason to ever consult the broken clock.

A lunatic drug addict might say something true. Is there any reason to ever treat him as a source of anything?

Re:Highway Robbery

[bughunter]

Riiiight. Obama started this. Never happened until after Jan 21 2009.

Ooh! I've got another kneeslapper for ya: The POTUS has the power to stop the NSA if he/she wanted to. They're not a rogue organization with a nearly unlimited black budget and the momentum of a 20 ton road compactor or anything...

Re:Highway Robbery

[currently_awake]

If a digital clock uses a static display device (like the ones they used to have in banks where a stack of plastic tiles with a number on each flips down to display each number) then it is physically possible for a "digital" clock to be correct twice a day, just like the clocks with hands. Also just because Obama is following the same play-book as Bush doesn't mean "everything" he says is a lie.

Re:Highway Robbery

[CanHasDIY]

OK, either you are the most pedantic English speaking asshole on the planet, or you have no idea what an analogy is.

You would not use the broken clock as evidence of the time, ever, unless you were an idiot.

No shit Captain Obvious. FYI, you're equally idiotic if you take any subjective source at their word without using empirical data to verify the claim.

Regardless of whether or not you agree with the source's personal philosophy.

A lunatic drug addict might say something true. Is there any reason to ever treat him as a source of anything?

I think the same could be said about 'random internet asshole.' So, what makes you so goddamn trustworthy, anyway?

Re:Highway Robbery

[tqk]

Why the fuck do the the talk radio assholes ...

wtf is anyone who can think listening to (your description!) talk radio assholes?

Re:Highway Robbery

[shutdown -p now]

POTUS does, indeed, have the power to stop the NSA. As the chief of the executive and the commander-in-chief, he could literally do it with one stroke of the pen, seeing how NSA is legally under the Department of Defense.

Re:Highway Robbery

[pieterh]

"primary" "antagonists" are discrediting his real detractors by taking any criticism and sending it to the edge of insanity.

Re:Highway Robbery

[pgpalmer]

A broken clock might be missing the hour, minute, or second hand. Is it ever "right"?

Not to mention that I've yet to encounter a clock that compensates for the amount of time it takes for light to travel from the clock face to my eyes, as well as the time it takes for my brain to process that information.

Re:Highway Robbery

[adiposity]

OK, either you are the most pedantic English speaking asshole on the planet, or you have no idea what an analogy is.

You would not use the broken clock as evidence of the time, ever, unless you were an idiot.

No shit Captain Obvious. FYI, you're equally idiotic if you take any subjective source at their word without using empirical data to verify the claim.

A lunatic drug addict might say something true. Is there any reason to ever treat him as a source of anything?

I know what an analogy is. This was a bad use of the clock analogy.

The analogy you used is typically quoted to characterize someone getting lucky. In other words, when someone accomplishes something amazing, you might say "Even a broken clock is right twice a day," to indicate that not too much should be read into their success.

Instead, you used it to elevate the importance of someone's comments. "Hey, even a broken clock is right twice a day, so we shouldn't discredit everything that broken clock says." Not only is this not the normally accepted use of this phrase, the analogy breaks down.

So, I would have to say, you are the one who doesn't understand the analogy you made.

To be honest, I wasn't expecting my comments to be taken too seriously. It was just a snide remark that your analogy breaks down in obvious ways. If you want to compare Rush, or anyone else, to a broken clock, and then suggest we should ever take his comments seriously, you are the one discrediting him, not me.

I think the same could be said about 'random internet asshole.' So, what makes you so goddamn trustworthy, anyway?

I don't have to be trustworthy to point out the flaws of an analogy. I never said anything that is requiring of your trust to understand or accept. I just pointed out where your analogy fails and basically makes no sense.

Re:Highway Robbery

[Mashiki]

I would imagine that's because right-wing points are always - and I mean *always* - have a grain of racism, or sexism, or something along those lines in it.

Why is it that liberals and leftists almost always find "racism, sexism or something along those lines" even when it doesn't exist. Boggles the mind. If I said dogs eat their own vomit, I'm sure somewhere some liberal is flipping out because of it.

Re:Highway Robbery

[Obfuscant]

It is blatantly obvious which issue every patriotic American (or indeed, every less-than-treasonous-himself American -- there is no 'no true Scotsman' fallacy happening here) should be more concerned about!

Well, it is blatantly obvious which issue YOU think they should be more concerned about. I think it is just as blatantly obvious which issue they actually ARE more concerned about. That's the issue that has a direct visible impact on their daily lives. The NSA "outrage" isn't costing them money out of pocket every month and isn't forcing them to select less comprehensive insurance plans to protect themselves and their families.

As for "unconstitutional", many people still think Obamacare is an obvious, direct example of that. Yet you claim that nobody should be talking about that issue.

I think the extent of their dereliction of their journalistic duty is so huge as to be figuratively criminal.

So you fail to see the hypocrisy of calling someone who doesn't talk about exactly what you want him to talk and only what you want him to talk about about a totalitarian.

I think you are a perfect example of why those talk show hosts you denounce don't express your viewpoints and your viewpoints alone on-air. If any of them made the asinine claim that someone who wasn't outraged by the NSA activities was committing treason their audience would vanish. I, for one, don't listen to Michael Savage because of his strident tone and arrogant attitude, and you, sir, are well beyond Michael Savage in both.

Re:Highway Robbery

[shentino]

Mainstream isn't allowed to talk about it because it would piss off obama's backers

Re:Highway Robbery

[mjwx]

Did you just mention "Rush" that senile, racist, sexist?

Even a broken clock is right twice a day, you know.

Tell that to my Casio, I'll let you know when it's 88:88.

As for people like Rush Limbaugh (however you spell it) we non-Americans that have working news sources which are actually reliable, factual on the odd occasions where they are wrong, will issue corrections laugh heartily at Americans who think anything he says is remotely factual.

If Fox news had to issue corrections for every time it published an inaccuracy, they'd have to set up an entirely new channel just for issuing corrections.

Re:Highway Robbery

[Mashiki]

If Fox news had to issue corrections for every time it published an inaccuracy, they'd have to set up an entirely new channel just for issuing corrections.

Odd how it's "always about fox news" as well. And yet, you nary hear liberals complaining about all the "inaccuracies" that left leaning sites would have to do if held to the same standards.

Re:Highway Robbery

[ooshna]

No that is just a dog and pony show just like abortion and gay marriage. They take a topic that most people are either very strongly for or against but has no real barren on whats really going on in the country. Then they "fight" tooth and nail over it making a big scene, making sure that the topic is on every 24 hour news station while quietly doing things like passing the National Defense Act or just avoiding news on things like how bad we are getting fucked by the NSA. Think of it like a magic trick. It's all about misdirection.

*They = politicians and the media.

Re:Highway Robbery

[CanHasDIY]

Did you just mention "Rush" that senile, racist, sexist?

Even a broken clock is right twice a day, you know.

Tell that to my Casio, I'll let you know when it's 88:88.

As for people like Rush Limbaugh (however you spell it) we non-Americans that have working news sources which are actually reliable, factual on the odd occasions where they are wrong, will issue corrections laugh heartily at Americans who think anything he says is remotely factual.

If Fox news had to issue corrections for every time it published an inaccuracy, they'd have to set up an entirely new channel just for issuing corrections.

The juxtaposition of your post to your sig is hilariously ironic, you know.

TL;DR - The fat junkie does get one right every once in a while; if you can't accept that fact, that's your hangup.

Re:Highway Robbery

[CanHasDIY]

I know what an analogy is. This was a bad use of the clock analogy.

The analogy you used is typically quoted to characterize someone getting lucky. In other words, when someone accomplishes something amazing, you might say "Even a broken clock is right twice a day," to indicate that not too much should be read into their success.

... WHAT????

Bull-fucking-shit, you made that 'definition' up. That analogy has always, always referred to someone or something that consistently gets things wrong, but occasionally gets one right. Seriously, what's 'lucky' about a broken clock? Are you just making shit up to have some counter-point to my argument, or can you cite a source for your proclaimed definition (that no one but you has ever used)?

I think the same could be said about 'random internet asshole.' So, what makes you so goddamn trustworthy, anyway?

I don't have to be trustworthy to point out the flaws of an analogy.

No, but it helps if you understand it. Which you obviously don't.

No, really, what you've just said... is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone here is now dumber for having read it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul...

Re:Highway Robbery

[ultranova]

I think a much simpler explanation is that radio talk show hosts have audiences that don't care about what you think is most critical but do care about things that have direct and visible impact on their daily lives.

Or even simpler, radio hosts work for the same corporate masters who run the political show, thus they divert public attention into the irrelevancies that act as "flavouring" for each branch of the two-party system. Keep people thinking it's the current candidate that's tightening the bonds, and all will be okay if they can just switch their masters - and when they do, it takes time to undo the damage the other guys causes, and in fact things will get worse before they get better, and somehow they never do get better, and then it's time to start hoping the other guys will safe you if you just get them in power.

It is, in its own way, a brilliantly efficient way to excersize "soft" tyranny. A more competent set of masters could keep it going potentially forever; unfortunately or fortunately Corporate America lacks the ability to plan long-term, so peak oil and climate change double-teaming will likely collapse the whole house of cards. Oh well.

Re:Highway Robbery

[ultranova]

Also just because Obama is following the same play-book as Bush doesn't mean "everything" he says is a lie.

But it does mean nothing he says can be trusted, thus it should be simply ignored.

Re:Highway Robbery

[ultranova]

How funny that it's the left

Politics 101: outside of propaganda, there is no left and there is no right. There are only tyrants, wannabe tyrants and useful idiots who think those wannabe tyrants stand for anything besides becoming the new tyrants.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Re:Highway Robbery

[mrchaotica]

I assume by treason, you refer to things like providing aid / comfort to enemies of the United States. Things like providing arms to the Muslim Brotherhood....

Not even that. I mean that the NSA, with its Unconstitutional Orwellian agenda, is itself now an enemy of the United States, and that Obama has given the NSA aid and comfort by failing to disband and prosecute its leaders.

Re:Highway Robbery

[adiposity]

I did not make that definition up. Below are a few random examples from the internet of my definition being confirmed. I challenge you to find one definition that matches your bizarre use of the phrase.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Even%20a%20broken%20clock%20is%20right%20twice%20a%20day

1. Success obtained through dumb luck.

2. A rare moment of high achievement from an individual/team/company that is usually unsuccessful.
"I can't believe that Johnny took home that chick last night!"

"Yeah, well even a broken clock is right twice a day."

The origin is apparently from the Chinese proverb saying "Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while":

http://www.usingenglish.com/reference/idioms/even+a+blind+squirrel+finds+a+nut+once+in+a+while.html

This expression means that even if people are ineffective or misguided, sometimes they can still be correct just by being lucky.
Read more at http://www.usingenglish.com/reference/idioms/even+a+blind+squirrel+finds+a+nut+once+in+a+while.html#XxyDt8zIwgsX5oCy.99

http://www.clichesite.com/content.asp?which=tip+2144

1. Even people who don't know what they are doing can be successful sometimes.
2. Lucky

Sorry, but face it. You ignorantly misused the colloquialism and are now having a hard time admitting it.

If you just stop and think about it...it makes sense. Even if a broken clock is right twice a day, it still doesn't mean you should consult the broken clock, right? Thus, the meaning is, if something TOTALLY USELESS occasionally is right, a single single success should not be read into too much.

Good luck to you in your future education.

Re:Highway Robbery

[CanHasDIY]

Sorry, but face it. You ignorantly misused the colloquialism and are now having a hard time admitting it.

Actually, from looking at the definitions you posted (BTW, urbandictionary.com, really? Was the regular dictionary.com too hard to find or something?), we're both right.

I'm not going to get into the whole "dur, you shouldn't trust a broken clock" nonsense, because A) it's nonsense, and B) even bringing such tripe to attention indicates that whoever said it doesn't understand the purpose of literary allusion.

Now, if only one of the people in this conversation would be mature enough to end this admittedly idiotic verbal war of attrition...

Re:Highway Robbery

[adiposity]

Usually sayings are not included in dictionary.com. I just searched the web for the phrase, and these are the sites that came up.

Urbandictionary is useful as it provides commonly understood meanings of sayings or slang. Obviously, it is not authoritative, but it has its worth.

Good luck to you, sir.

Re:Highway Robbery

[coolsnowmen]

I dunno about that.
  Even in person, with friends of friends, anyone quoting Rush L. to me immediatly causes me to just disengage. It isn't that I have a vendetta against him, it is that Rush has consistently proven himself to be a mean person, focused only on entertainment and making money over education, thought, or general political discourse. I have never heard an interesting thought come out of his mouth, and most of things he does say are lies and twisted truths to rally his masses into thinking, "ONLY rush understand me, the media doesn't care, but RUSH does"

There are multiple pages-> http://www.alternet.org/20-most-racist-things-rush-limbaugh-has-ever-said
michael J fox http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_fQ3VLSvfI
called Sandra Fluke a slut...

Re:Highway Robbery

[CanHasDIY]

I dunno about that.

  Even in person, with friends of friends, anyone quoting Rush L. to me immediatly causes me to just disengage.

I have the same reaction when I hear people quote any talking head, be it Limbaugh, Hannity, Maddow, et. al.

The trick is overcoming our knee-jerk reactions and verifying what's fact and what's fiction.

Re:Highway Robbery

[jwhitener]

blatant unconstitutional totalitarianism

Courts have ruled it constitutional. By definition, it is constitutional. I'm with ya on being angry about NSA overreach, but you really need to pick a new word other than unconstitutional.

Re:Highway Robbery

[rtb61]

Nope, that's a lie. They only call him a totalitarian traitor for instituting health care reform (screaming about stupid Obamacare all of the time, when it was the congress and senate that legislated it, so it has nothing to do with Obama apart from him not vetoing it, so seriously WTF?) and demanding people have health insurance or get free government health insurance and pay a fine for doing so, oh my, the communism. So did Liberal Progressives protest the Patriot as the Bush anal probe act, no because it would be stupid, they protested to senators and congressmen as those jackasses repeated it again and again and again. Kill the patriot act and a lot of problems are solved in one fell swoop. Work to strip power from the President and return it to the congress and senate and more problems will be solved. Crapping on about Obamacare, the war of Christmas, fascist muslim communists, eco terrorists, climate change fraud, and any other stupid crap they manage to come up with, just makes them look as bad as the nonsense they come up with. Hmmm, it seems like the NSA has it extortion hooks into quite a few of them.

Re:Highway Robbery

[mrchaotica]

• The current Supreme Court ruling about FISA is based on a lie.
• The NSA is allegedly allowed to wiretap conversations between a US citizen and a foreigner, but it is also wiretapping conversations entirely within the US (via third parties, such as GCHQ). I haven't heard a ruling on that yet.
• And of course, the Supreme Court has reversed itself before -- sometimes it itself is wrong.

Double secret probation

[sandbagger]

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.

Re:Double secret probation

[magic maverick]

However, a Customs official has since told him they were searching everything for objectionable material under the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993.

Blackman said of course he didn't have anything like that. But if he had any porn at all, it's perfectly possible he did have "objectionable material". That's why I keep all my porn in a Truecrypt container. Even if I'm obliged to hand over my password to my device, they can't find anything objectionable (they can, I've got shit loads of political material that advocates the execution of all their ilk, but that's probably not what they are looking for) .

Also, bet there would a law about how long they can hold the stuff for. A week or two I'm sure.

Re:Double secret probation

[Sique]

I would actually never store porn on my computer anyway. What's the point in that? There is so much porn on the Internet available, there is simply no reason to keep it on my computer.

Re:Double secret probation

[magic maverick]

Maybe you want to be able to look at your porn when you don't have Internet access? Perhaps it's down because some idiot with a backhoe or a large anchor cut your line? Besides, if you look at porn on the web, you'll be downloading, and storing, copies on to your computer. Web browsers cache stuff all the time.

Re:Double secret probation

[N1AK]

Also, bet there would a law about how long they can hold the stuff for. A week or two I'm sure.

5 seconds research and you'd know enough about it to not posting misleading nonsense. Unless NZ has unusually tight controls on seized electronics then they can pretty much keep them as long as they want, which if they did want to inconvenience the guy would certainly be after he has left NZ and headed back to Europe.

I used to wonder why anyone would carry files etc to other countries when they could be stored on so many different services online. I have, in fact, as a matter of habit always reset my android phone before travel on the basis that I can re-install apps, accounts etc after leaving the airport. It now makes more sense. They are already capturing so much about information shared online that sneaker nets are probably one of the bigger threats to them. Who cares if I don't keep files on my laptop but instead on Dropbox if the government can just look in my dropbox at will.

Re:Double secret probation

[boristdog]

In those cases we all just rely on our porn memories.

Re:Double secret probation

[SuricouRaven]

Translation: 'We were told to get this person out, so we thought we'd search his computer. With any luck we'll find something on there violating one law or another. There are so may of them, after all.'

Re:Double secret probation

[Sique]

There is this strange thing called UMTS. If my landline breaks for some reason, there is still UMTS.

Re:Double secret probation

[magic maverick]

If the Internet is out for your country (that's the anchor comment), your mobile phone won't help. Of course, it won't work it a lot of other places either. But, I guess it doesn't matter. You do what you think you should, and I'll do what I think I should. Personally, I'm often without Internet. That's both at home, and when traveling (e.g. in airports, hotels which are too cheap to provide free Internet, and a myriad of other places).

Re:Double secret probation

[Beer_Smurf]

Yes, you have lots of porn on your computer.
Do a test with file recovery software and recover deleted .jpg files and you will be amazed at the amount of stuff you do have on your computer.

Re:Double secret probation

[rjstanford]

Personally, I'm often without Internet. That's both at home, and when traveling (e.g. in airports...

Considering that the thread was about caching porn for times with no internet access, I (and probably many although not all other travelers) would ask you nicely to just wait until you left the airport to start "consuming" again. Just a request, mind you.

Re:Double secret probation

[Darinbob]

However, the reason it was taken is not know, despite the owners claiming the only reason he could think of was due to Snowden revelations. That sounds bogus to me, because if it were true then we'd see this happening to everyone returning from that conference to New Zealand (or more countries). The NSA & Snowden affair is becoming the new go-to bugaboo for everything unexplained with government behavior. Don't know what that round thing in the sky is then the only explanation is extraterrestrials; don't know why your laptop/phone was confiscated then it's because government embarrassment from Snowden.

Re:Double secret probation

[magic maverick]

Meh. Depending on the time of day (e.g. at night) and the airport, there are plenty of places where one can find a. no other people, b. no cameras. Then, if you want to watch some movies in private, you can without disturbing anyone.

It's something to do on the overnight layovers where you are stuck at the airport.

Re:Double secret probation

[icebike]

Translation: 'We were told to get this person out, so we thought we'd search his computer. With any luck we'll find something on there violating one law or another. There are so may of them, after all.'

You missed the part about his Girlfriend being Imogen Grispe, a well known journalist in NZ. See her site http://imogencrispe.com/ where she says:

have reported on a wide range of topics including health, politics, science, technology, arts and travel. I specialised in ethics in my philosophy degree, and won a scholarship to study journalism at post-graduate level. ... I am a global citizen.

Lots of scary buzzwords in there if you are a government intelligence officer (of any country).

Transporting Snowden material via friends of reporters is something the spook community seems really worried about.

Re:Double secret probation

[L4t3r4lu5]

Move your caches to a ramdrive.

Max the ram in your PC; It costs maybe £100 for the lot, you can move TEMP, TMP, IE, FF, and Chrome Caches to it (and your swap, if you're feeling "Yo Dawg...", but there's no need for swap if you're running 16GB memory). If you don't save the image when you shut down there are no temporary file writes to your disk.

Good for SSD longevity, too.

I Viviidly Remember...

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re:I Viviidly Remember...

[Anonymous Coward]

Our lords have found a new enemy, and it's us.

Re:I Viviidly Remember...

[JustOK]

Yes. Yes it is. It is crow. It's capitalist crow. Now pay for that taste or I shall summon the authorities!

Re:I Viviidly Remember...

[Solandri]

the Soviet Union, the Iron Curtain satellites nations and their citizens for the entire "Papers, please!" nonsense

I completely agree the U.S. was actually better off when it was up against the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and our government actually had to make an attempt to be more open and free to form a contrast with Communism.

However, "papers, please!" refers to restrictions on travel within the country by its own citizens. The incident here is about entry into the country at the border by a foreigner.

Figures

[redmid17]

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.

Re:Figures

[SuricouRaven]

Here in the UK, refusal to give a password to the police upon request is itsself a crime.

Re:Figures

[mrchaotica]

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.

At this point, I consider all Android or iOS (but especially Android) devices untrusted. The only way to trust an Android device would be to use one where the main processor is not subordinate to the modem processor and where you have loaded something like Replicant on it yourself.

(Even traditional x86 PCs might be iffy these days, given the possibility of backdoors in TPMs, CPU microcode or ancillary chips.)

Re:Figures

[Anonymous Coward]

Not many countries are worth traveling to these days but the UK and the US are probably on my bottom 10 list for reasons like this.

Re:Figures

[wonkey_monkey]

...my girlfriend...

Hah! You NSA boys have a got to learn about blending in on teh internets.

Re:Figures

[cdrudge]

Yet.

Re:Figures

[magic maverick]

At least in some countries, it isn't that you have to give the password, it's that you have to give the password if it's for an investigation. So the police can't just say "hand it over", they have to say "hand it over, because we are investigation this that and the other". Not that I want to defend that sort of shit of course.

I just had a look at part III of RIPA, http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/23/contents and can't understand it. But it does look like it's not necessary to have any actual good reason.

Re:Figures

[mrchaotica]

See http://www.androidauthority.com/smartphones-have-a-second-os-317800/

Cellphones have two processors, a main processor (running an open-source OS in the case of Android) and a baseband processor built into the modem chip (running a closed-source OS in all cases). The baseband processor can be used to hack the phone. For a phone to be truly secure, you need a firewall between the main memory and the baseband processor, and AFAIK no phone is designed that way (except this one).

Re:Figures

[Anonymous Coward]

The real solution is to travel with an unencrypted drive, with a stock install of something boring (Windows is particularly good for this), along with some innocuous garbage to dirty it up. When you get to your destination, you download something like PuTTY, SFTP/SSH back home, grab your stuff, even VPN software if you want. Heck, to avoid even having to grab anything "suspicious" on download, you can set up VSFTPD with an anonymous FTP locked down to one chroot'd directory to retrieve PuTTY from. Bonus points if you shovel them online to some third-party hosting site instead of your own server. There's a million and one ways to do this, but it all boils down to cutting the links between your real life and the equipment you carry. Same applies to visiting hostile locations: carry only "normal" stuff. Nothing else. Purchase what you need on the other side and throw it away before you come back. It shouldn't have to be like this, but welcome to the modern world.

Re:Figures

[Hizonner]

In a phone, the GSM modem has its own CPU (and its own memory).

Most phones are based on SoCs (Systems on a Chip); everything's interconnected on the same silicon. Usually the GSM modem processor has access to the memory and I/O busses of the main processor (but not the other way around), can reset the main processor, and often boots before the main processor and must explicitly turn on the main processor before it runs. I believe that in some designs the modem processor actually sets up the boot loader for the main processor as well. The modem processor can definitely rewrite the flash where the main processor's operating system is stored.

The result of this is that the modem has total control of the phone. It can do anything it wants to any data on the phone, including the internals of the main OS, and there's basically nothing the main processor can do about it other than maybe be too obscure and complicated to manipulate easily.

The firmware in the modem is invariably closed source and secret. The modem will only boot firmware that's crypto-signed by the manufacturer, and anyway the hardware is totally undocumented.

The modems have "over the air" command sets that let the carrier manipulate the phone remotely without going through the main OS. Those command sets can be very rich... and can include the ability to reflash the main OS, or even to peek and poke its memory while it's running.

So on most (all?) phones, it basically doesn't matter what your OS is. The carrier (possibly together with the SoC manufacturer) can do whatever it wants if it's willing to figure out the complexity of doing so. And of course governments lean on carriers and SoC manufacturers to get access to that capability, and commercial "partners" also have influence.

Re:Figures

[Anonymous Coward]

Pfft. Since when did you have to commit a crime in the US for the authorities to confiscate / destroy your stuff, detain you, assault you, disappear you, torture you, put you in solitary, ship you off to Syria or execute you via drone from 5000 miles away?

Re:Figures

[Abalamahalamatandra]

It would probably be a good idea to take installation media along with you, and make sure to hash it before you go, then keep the hash on your person. If my machine got grabbed for "inspection", I wouldn't trust the OS on it as far as I could throw it.

Re:Figures

[BringsApples]

How do they prove that you know the entire password, or any part of it?

Re:Figures

[twocows]

That isn't a crime in the US, and the story in OP took place in AU. There are plenty of reasons why the US should be on your bottom 10 list, but not for that reason, nor for anything in the OP.

Re:Figures

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet.

What do you mean "yet"?

Re:Figures

[alex67500]

The words 'foil', 'hat' and 'tin' spring to mind in another order.

But then again, maybe I'm missing something...

Re:Figures

[Hes Nikke]

Simple solution: buy a device that doesn't have a baseband / access to the cellular network. There's the iPod touch, and $130 cheaper iPads. There are also a myriad of android devices from china that you probably shouldn't trust anyway.

Re:Figures

[bobbied]

What you describe is only OUTSIDE the borders where many legal protections we enjoy in the US don't exist... Um.. Well.. Usually.. Inside US territory, there are a few more hindrances in government's reach.

Re:Figures

[SuricouRaven]

So it's a request with paperwork.

Re:Figures

[flyingfsck]

It may be a crime, but what is the punishment? If there is no/little penalty, then don't comply.

Re:Figures

[jalopezp]

In the end, she didn't hand in her password, her husband did. I'm not clear on if the judge had actually ruled that she had to by then.

Re:Figures

[cdrudge]

So which crime was she charged with again?

Re:Figures

[SuricouRaven]

I don't think some of those devices could afford a backdoor.

Re:Figures

[mrchaotica]

What you're missing is that people said the same thing regarding security concerns about all sorts of other things (SSL, TOR, deliberately-weakened key-generation algorithms, etc), but the Snowden leaks proved those concerns justified. Not all of the information Snowden found has been made public yet, so there's still opportunity for this concern to be proven justified too.

At this point, the only safe thing to do is to assume that if an attack is theoretically possible, then the NSA is exploiting it.

Re:Figures

[SuricouRaven]

Maximum two years jail time, RIP Act (2000).

Prosecutions are rare, simply because not many people use encryption, but there have been a few.

Re:Figures

[mrchaotica]

Sorry, there was no good reason for me to imply that one was worse than the other. I suppose the reason I did it was to counter the perception that Android could have been better due to being Open Source.

Re:Figures

[mrchaotica]

There are also a myriad of android devices from china that you probably shouldn't trust anyway.

Or could it be that being from China makes them more trustworthy? After all, it would be harder for the NSA to get its hands on them...

I wonder if switching from a smartphone to a mobile hotspot plus non-cell-enabled tablet is sufficient to counter this mode of attack, or if people would have to be worried about the Wi-Fi transceiver too...

Re:Figures

[CanHasDIY]

Expressing her 5th Amendment right, apparently.

Re:Figures

[CanHasDIY]

It may be a crime, but what is the punishment? If there is no/little penalty, then don't comply.

And if they decide to hold you in contempt, indefinitely, until you surrender the password?

Re:Figures

[knarf]

At this point, I consider all Android or iOS (but especially Android) devices untrusted.

Why trust a closed system more than a partly open system? On Android you can at least verify and adapt the open part of the system. On iOS you are completely at the mercy of Apple, a company which might gain favours (like presidential veto's, lenient judges, stacked juries...) or lose them. While Google might be under the same pressure, at least you don't have to trust as you can verify...

Re:Figures

[mrchaotica]

Why trust a closed system more than a partly open system?

There's no valid reason to. However...

On Android you can at least verify and adapt the open part of the system.

...the fact that this perception exists when it doesn't do you any good in this case is why I tried to place special emphasis on Android not being trusted.

Re:Figures

[cdrudge]

I still put it as unsettled/undecided.

She ended up never disclosing the password. She was never even held in contempt for not disclosing the password. They ended up receiving a list of possible passwords from someone else, one of which worked. This resolved this particular instance so further appeals were not needed for this case.

Her appeal to the federal appeals court was denied as she had not yet been convicted or acquitted. The appeals court didn't have jurisdiction at the point of the attempted appeal.

Had she refused, no alternative means of getting the password existed, and she was held in contempt and/or convicted due to not disclosing the password, then I agree with you.

Re:Figures

[lgw]

And how would you validate the hash? Once you're properly paranoid, there's no good answer.

Re:Figures

[Cederic]

Oh, it's worse than that. You don't even have to know the password to be found guilty of failing to provide it.

In fact, it's even worse than that. There doesn't have to be anything password protected for you to be found guilty of failing to provide a password that you can't possibly know, because it doesn't exist, because nothing is password protected.

It's a fucking stupid law and the government were told this before it was passed.

Re:Figures

[Burz]

Since even a firewalled design still has the habit of acting as a tracking device, I'd say the distinction was almost moot. Better to have an Android tablet (lacking baseband) plus a 'dumbphone' w/removable battery, instead of one device w/integrated battery that you can't turn off if crooks decide they want it to stay on.

Re:Figures

[Burz]

The words 'foil', 'hat' and 'tin' spring to mind in another order.

But then again, maybe I'm missing something...

The last 14 years, it seems.

Re:Figures

[cdrudge]

They were already divorced. Spousal privilege can't be invoked when the communication was part of a crime. It also can't be invoked when it's part of a spouse-defendant when they use it as part of their defense (not sure if this applies to this particular case).

If she didn't want her traitorous fuck ex to give up her password, perhaps she shouldn't have committed a crime that she ultimately pleaded guilty to. There's no honor among thieves, apparently including ex-spouse thieves too.

Re:Figures

[Immerman]

Right. Within our borders they have to make an unsubstantiated claim that you're a terrorist before they can secretly kidnap you in the night. Do that too often and people might start complaining.

Re:Figures

[CanHasDIY]

They were already divorced. Spousal privilege can't be invoked when the communication was part of a crime. It also can't be invoked when it's part of a spouse-defendant when they use it as part of their defense (not sure if this applies to this particular case).

I think a clever ambulance chaser could probably initiate a lawsuit on her behalf, against the ex, claiming that he couldn't have known that whatever was being protected with that password was criminal evidence, and thus had no right to expose said password to someone else's property.

If a neighbor gives you a key to their house to let their pets out when they leave town, do you have a right to turn that key over to the cops if they claim your neighbor committed a crime, but present no warrant or evidence?

If she didn't want her traitorous fuck ex to give up her password, perhaps she shouldn't have committed a crime that she ultimately pleaded guilty to. There's no honor among thieves, apparently including ex-spouse thieves too.

Or, you know, make sure you change the password to one your now ex-husband doesn't know.

Re:Figures

[fuzznutz]

And in AU, disparaging the boot is a bootable offense.

Re:Figures

[cdrudge]

I think a clever ambulance chaser could probably initiate a lawsuit on her behalf, against the ex, claiming that he couldn't have known that whatever was being protected with that password was criminal evidence, and thus had no right to expose said password to someone else's property.

He was a co-defendant to the same trial. That he also pleaded guilty to. The state also had a legally recorded conversation between the two of them discussing the contents of the drive and it needing to be kept secret.

If a neighbor gives you a key to their house to let their pets out when they leave town, do you have a right to turn that key over to the cops if they claim your neighbor committed a crime, but present no warrant or evidence?

Bad example as you are not married to your neighbor. These two individuals were married, running a real estate scam together. As they were both part of the fraud, neither of them could claim spousal privileged communication with respect to items pertaining to the fraud, such as the password she indicated police would be asking for that protected the contents of one of the confiscated computers.

Re:Figures

[HiThere]

Yes. If not this year, then next year. (I'm not ruling out last year, either. Anything since GPS started being required is suspect.)

Re:Figures

[bobbied]

We can debate if it actually happens or not and not get anywhere... I'm addressing the *legal* questions.

Inside the borders it is *illegal* to do what you suggest, where outside our borders a US citizen would not be afforded the same protections and some of what you suggest *might* be legal activity. Inside our borders the assumption is people are US citizens/Non combatants and have constitutional rights to due process. Outside our borders the assumptions may be different depending on the situation, so they may assume you are a combatant/non-Citizen and are thus subject to the rules of war.

Re:Figures

[CanHasDIY]

He was a co-defendant to the same trial. That he also pleaded guilty to. The state also had a legally recorded conversation between the two of them discussing the contents of the drive and it needing to be kept secret.

Ah, did not know that. Nevermind, then; pretend I never said anything.

Re:Figures

[Darinbob]

All processors can have access to all the busses. The modem processor is not some sort of super processor granted extraordinary access that the UI oriented processor does not. This is all up to phone design of course, but I work on a non-phone system where the modem has very little access to anything.

Re:Figures

[shutdown -p now]

From legal perspective, the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 gives the President an authority to detain in military custody any person (citizen or not, resident or not) without trial "who was part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners" or who commits a "belligerent act" in the aid of such forces, until the end of the Authorization for Use of Military Force that was granted for the "War of Terror".

Re:Figures

[pgpalmer]

Out of curiosity, is it a crime to refuse to give a password, or a crime to refuse to give the correct password?

Re:Figures

[jonwil]

The in-development Neo900 phone is being built specifically to ensure the modem has no access to the main processor.
The modem will NOT be able to read anything from/write anything to the RAM or ROM attached to the TI OMAP main CPU. It will NOT be able to access peripherals connected to the main CPU (including the screen, speakers, microphone and cameras).

On the GTA04 (the device that the Neo900 is based on) all communication between the main CPU and the modem module happens via an internal USB port (with the omap and internal USB chip acting as the USB host and the modem acting as the USB guest). There is also a modem audio interface connected to the McBSP port of the OMAP chip that handles call audio (but its an audio interface and cant be used for anything else).

So not all phones give the baseband control over the main CPU.

Re:Figures

[shentino]

And what's to stop them from lying?

Re:Figures

[mdielmann]

Not all of the information Snowden found has been made public yet, so there's still opportunity for this concern to be proven justified too.

At this point, the only safe thing to do is to assume that if an attack is theoretically possible, then the NSA is exploiting it.

Also, even if the Snowden documents don't prove this is being done, it can be done, and the security-conscious choice is to assume it will be done. Otherwise, why engage the rest of the security on your smartphone in the first place?

Re:Figures

[bill_mcgonigle]

How do they prove that you know the entire password, or any part of it?

When you give them your TrueCrypt password, they claim that you also have a hidden volume and beat you with an iron pipe until they're convinced that you don't (or other events prevent the process from continuing).

Maybe that's just at Temara.

Re:Figures

[bobbied]

Within the confines of the United States, this power is limited by the bill of rights. On foreign soil, your mileage may vary.

So if you know of anybody who has been abducted by the state within the territory of the United States using this law and has been denied their constitutional rights, you need to speak up about it. Criminal prosecutions do not count neither do detentions made on foreign soil.

Re:Figures

[shutdown -p now]

The Bill of Rights has been overriden by legislative-executive-judicial fiat a long time ago. Appealing to it is a quaint notion, but it's far from foolproof it today's legal system in US. You can cry "unconstitutional" all the way to the detention camp, but as far as the system is concerned, all legalities have been upheld.

Re:Figures

[bobbied]

Then hire a lawyer. Despite what you might think, the constitution is still alive and in force, even if congress writes a law that says otherwise.

Re:Figures

[shutdown -p now]

The problem isn't that Congress writes laws. The problem is that SCOTUS approves them as constitutional even when they clearly aren't. At that point, you have no recourse within the legal framework.

Ok, so...

[BringsApples]

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.

Re:Ok, so...

[Anonymous Coward]

It won't work. The authorities will just lock you up and call you a criminal. The irony will go right over most people's heads.

Re:Ok, so...

[BringsApples]

Exactly, thank-you. So what proves that they're legitimate cops? If they're acting outside of law, and ordering you to do things without telling you why, taking you stuff, not giving you a reason - all the while you're cooperating as though they're real cops - to me that tells me that they're not real cops, and should be reported to the authorities. I mean, how do you validate the authority, if not by it's actions?

Re:Ok, so...

[BringsApples]

Granted, after you do this, you're in for the full treatment, but that's a judgement call you need to make.

This is the mentality that these type of cops love, and wish everyone would develop. If you feel that by simply verifying that you're not about to get raped by someone who is acting outside the law, you are then "out of line" and deserve some form of "the full treatment" (whatever the hell that is) then you are the reason that things have lapsed into the state as they have. Allowing someone to push you around in ways that are illegal, simply because they represent the legal authority, is placating and nourishing the wrong mentality. What good do you expect to come from that? I'll tell you what. Eventually every woman and child will be anally probed by such "authorities" because they'll see you as weak and possibly doing wrong. Stand the fuck up for yourself when you're in the right. It's what the actual universal authorities demand! It's how things naturally balance themselves out.

Re:Ok, so...

[Solandri]

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.

We already did that in the 1980s with drug forfeiture laws. It wasn't abused widely on land, but was a fact of life at sea. The standard introductory shtick given aboard all the charter fishing boats I rode on included "no illegal drugs aboard, because the Coast Guard could seize the entire boat if they found them, even if they were belonged to a customer and were brought aboard without the boat owner's knowledge."

Re:Ok, so...

[HiThere]

Not only is mankind not fit for such an authority, but most individual people aren't, either. I'm the only one that I can think of...and you'd probably disagree with that.

Re:Ok, so...

[TripleE78]

THIS! Also, most people will just go along with yet more laws "for their security" that make it harder to get Halloween costumes (think how toy guns cause freak outs -- now imagine cop uniforms) and much scarier BS because of one isolated incident.

Remember the shoe bomber's idea wasn't even feasible, but you still take your shoes off in the airport.

Re:Ok, so...

[D'Arque Bishop]

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.

It's become a not-uncommon occurrence for criminals to dress up and pose as police when doing home invasions. That still hasn't stopped police from performing no-knock warrant raids, nor has it stopped them from prosecuting citizens who defend themselves (even if the police hit the wrong house or the warrant was based on bad information).

Re:The lesson in this

[wonkey_monkey]

The lesson in this is NEVER carry sensitive information on you when entering an international airport.

That's not the lesson at all. This guy probably didn't have any sensitive information but that didn't stop his devices getting nicked.

The only people with lessons to learn are not the travellers but the security services unreasonably targetting them. Unfortunately, they're not interested in lessons.

Re:iDevices

[ciderbrew]

Add knowingly destroying evidence to the charge.

Re:First

[rlp]

Looks like Saruman is now running The Shire.

Re:The lesson in this

[semi-extrinsic]

Indeed. USB stick with "insert favorite linux version" installed, and just enough things to allow you to SSH home and access whatever you need (VNC for the GUI stuff). Make sure the USB stick is read-only, no personal stuff whatsoever stored on it, and password-protect the SSH key.

The leaks are to blame!?

[Mister Liberty]

Don't play that game.

Re:The leaks are to blame!?

[Darinbob]

My guess is that his name showed up on a list, whereas the names of other people at that conference were not on the list (or we'd have heard similar stories in the same week from them). Blaming it on the leaks is a knee-jerk reaction from bias. If it was indeed due to the leaks then let the editorials bring up that point whereas the main story should stick to facts. If you cry wolf too often when it was actually coyotes or bears, people start ignoring the wolf.

Re:The leaks are to blame!?

[silent-listener]

The Snowden leaks are just about this practices. In curtain countries it is common practise for longer time, in name of ???

Re:iDevices

[semi-extrinsic]

Remember: remote wipe without a foolproof and frequently used backup strategy is a very very bad idea.

The Whole Issue

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:The Whole Issue

[Anonymous Coward]

What drug of choice makes you think a global declaration based on USC 4A would be enforced world-wide when it already isn't/i) even enforced in the US now?

Re:The Whole Issue

[Anonymous Coward]

Standard forensic procedure is to keep everything in the condition it was in as far as possible. This includes removing drives and imaging them and working on images, and if your home is raided, and they anticipate you might be set up to destroy data on shutdown/loss of power, even going so far as to bring a generator along.

Re:The Whole Issue

[Anonymous Coward]

The whole issue is contained in the US Constitution where it says,

Note to all retards who skimmed the summary and didn't read the article:

This happened in New Zealand, not in the United States. The U.S. Constitution has absolutely fucking nothing to do with this because it didn't happen in the United States.

Re:The Whole Issue

[pupsocket]

"The right of the people to be secure ..." has no meaning to courts in the United States. We passed that metric some time ago.

Re:The Whole Issue

[Minwee]

The U.S. Constitution has absolutely fucking nothing to do with this because it didn't happen in the United States.

Are you suggesting it would if he had been in the USA?

Re:The Whole Issue

[hawguy]

Standard forensic procedure is to keep everything in the condition it was in as far as possible. This includes removing drives and imaging them and working on images, and if your home is raided, and they anticipate you might be set up to destroy data on shutdown/loss of power, even going so far as to bring a generator along.

Fortunately, my home computer self-destructs based on its GPS location. Loss of signal or moving it more than 5 meters away from the house sets off the thermite.

Re:The Whole Issue

[capebretonsux]

I'd claim that the computer was 'standing it's ground', when a stranger approached it bearing a screwdriver in a threatening manner!

Re:The Whole Issue

[jalopezp]

What's the use if they image your discs in your house? Or if they (you know, as a precaution) open the case? Best wire the whole house with thermite, and then have it set off when your infrared sensors detect more than one heat source walking around.

Re:The Whole Issue

[SuricouRaven]

This is also the reason many raids involve police visiting at three in the morning with a battering ram to smash the door down, then forcing everyone in the house to the ground at gunpoint. The idea is to get the suspects down and immobile as quickly as possible to make sure they don't have any time to destroy evidence.

Re:The Whole Issue

[hawguy]

Then you're up for felony charges on laws against boobytraps which fail to distinguish between lawful and unlawful intruders.

I have a big button on the front that says "Press this if you're a lawful intruder". It still sets off the thermite, but at least they have no one to blame but themselves, what else did they think the button would do!?

Besides, I've carefully packed the thermite around the hard drives, so no one will get hurt. Much.

Re:The Whole Issue

[CanHasDIY]

Stand your ground laws don't apply to non-humans.

Not right now, maybe, but hey - somebody's gotta set the precedent, right?

Re:The Whole Issue

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the icing on the cake.

Re:The Whole Issue

[lgw]

Hey, I saw that movie. Turns out the paranoid guy was right. Funny old world.

Re:The Whole Issue

[Maritz]

See when he said his computer destructs based on GPS location? That was a joke. He wasn't being serious. It's unfortunate that needs to be explained, because it is obvious as fuck.

Re:The Whole Issue

[Maritz]

Being unable to distinguish between jocularity and serious is also fairly stupid, though of course you're excused if you have a social deficit of some kind. You're calling this guy stupid, but he's ripping the piss outta you.

Re:The Whole Issue

[lgw]

No, the idea is to have any excuse for a brutal police state where the government has no boundaries at all on the violence it can commit against its citizens. We're really back to medieval times now, where the king's troops could get away with behaving like this.

Re:The Whole Issue

[hawguy]

Then you're up for felony charges on laws against boobytraps which fail to distinguish between lawful and unlawful intruders.

I have a big button on the front that says "Press this if you're a lawful intruder". It still sets off the thermite, but at least they have no one to blame but themselves, what else did they think the button would do!?

Yep. That totally solves everything. You are really fucking stupid. What sort of actual useful contribution do you have to make?

While I was being obviously facetious, if my data is incriminating enough to make melting down my computer worth protecting the data from prying eyes, then why doesn't thermite solve the problem? Many people are willing to die for their cause, so risking a felony charge to keep secret data out of the hands of the "enemy" is not unreasonable - and maybe a lesser charge than the evidence would have proven.

The thermite charge needn't injure anyone, your goal isn't to make a spectacular explosion, you just want to melt the parts that contain data - be judicious with the thermite and the triggering device, and maybe build a brick shell around the computer case with a chimney to vent the combustion gases outside. Put a sign on it that says "Warning, combustion device inside, do not move" -- if the police dismantle the safeguards and get injured, well, they should have read the sign first and taken reasonable precautions against injury. For the truly paranoid, make sure you destroy the RAM and every other device in the computer that could possibly store data -- including video cards, network cards, etc -- who knows what backdoors are there.

Of course, I don't *really* have a self-destruct system on my computer (I'd quickly get tired of replacing my computer and the cats that keep chewing through the GPS antenna wire and triggering the self destruct). There's no point in protecting my data against seizure by the government -- if the government wants the data on the computer, they already have it, seizing the computer is just a pretense so they don't have to reveal which back door(s) they used to get the data in the first place.

Re:The Whole Issue

[Immerman]

I would think boobytraps must be targeted at/damaging to humans. A thermite charge set to incinerate your hard drive might burn your hand if you rested it on the case nearby, but it's not going to be significantly dangerous unless the computer happens to be sitting in a pile of flammable material.

Re:The Whole Issue

[Cederic]

Where do you live? I have this urge to disable GPS reception for a moment or two..

Re:The Whole Issue

[hawguy]

So the options are die or they get your data? Sounds like a lousy bargain to me. What nobody in this thread has proposed is a non-illegal method without risk to life and limb for preventing a government from getting your data. Sounds a lot like no 4th Amendment anymore. Public figures, persecuted minorities, corporations with trade secrets...nobody would ever need that. You're ready to roll over and be a peon.

I didn't see where I suggested dying as an option - a thermite charge needn't kill anyone. Especially if you can trigger it before anyone disassembles your safeguards. But hey, if that's too risky for you, then how about keeping your secret data on a flash drive suspended over a vat of acid - to destroy the data, you crush the flash chip between two spring loaded hammers to crack the case, then let the remains drop into the acid. seal up the whole thing in a hermetically sealed chamber so no one gets acid on their fingers without ignoring the "Warning - acid inside, do not open this chamber" label.

Or, you could take the easy route and just encrypt your data. Assuming that you trust that published encryption algorithms don't have a hidden back door and that the open source software that you use to compile and run it also is not back doored.

Re:The Whole Issue

[Immerman]

So what is this law / legal precedent that would make booby-trapping laws relevant to responsible equipment destruction? Google offers nothing relevant. The last I heard a booby trap is a device designed to startle, inure, or kill a *person*, though I'd imagine any device capable of doing the same would count, even if the intended target was deer, etc. That's not at all relevant to devices designed to destroy your own property while taking precautions against harming bystanders.

Granted there would be a certain suspicion, maybe even legal presumption, that you are destroying evidence (and let's be honest, if you have thermite charges on your hard drive you're almost certainly doing exactly that), but that's a separate issue from the devices themselves being illegal.

Re:The Whole Issue

[hawguy]

Where do you live? I have this urge to disable GPS reception for a moment or two..

That's the risk any self-destruct mechanism faces, there are benign circumstances that can trigger the self-destruct, but if you keep your data where it could possibly be seized and the data is so important that you'd rather destroy it than let it fall into enemy hands, then it's an acceptable tradeoff.

Re:The Whole Issue

[hawguy]

Like a wood-framed house?

I have a natural gas fired oven in my wood framed house and it hasn't burnt the house down yet. Maybe there's some magical way to contain combustion to prevent it from spreading outside of an enclosure. A thermite reaction isn't like a nuclear plant meltdown, it doesn't keep burning through the earth's crust all the way to China, it burns until it's out of fuel. (ok, for the pedantic, a nuclear core meltdown also stops when it runs out of fuel).

Re:The Whole Issue

[hawguy]

A thermite reaction contains its own oxygen and will burn underwater. Furthermore, it throws sparks. It'll happily melt through an engine block and its normal use is welding railroad ties. It also gives off intense UV radiation. When was the last time you played with thermite?

Yet when it runs out of fuel it stops - it's not an unstoppable runaway reaction. So just use enough to destroy your target without burning down your house.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8gapa8ibK0

Re:The Whole Issue

[Anonymous Coward]

it doesn't keep burning through the earth's crust all the way to China

This is clearly a design flaw. I suggest chlorine trifluoride.

Re:The Whole Issue

[psithurism]

That was a joke.

When you post a suggestion like that on a site filled with people capable and weird enough to follow it, then serious discussion of consequences is merited.

We don't care if normal people notice it's just a joke and move on, because we are not among them.

Now I'm wondering how consistent GPS signal in my lab is...

Re:The Whole Issue

[HiThere]

I notice you decided to post that anonymously. I don't disagree with your points, but if you don't dare to critise openly on Slashdot, you're unlikely to be effectively pushing for Open Government.

Re:The Whole Issue

[hawguy]

That was a joke.

When you post a suggestion like that on a site filled with people capable and weird enough to follow it, then serious discussion of consequences is merited.

We don't care if normal people notice it's just a joke and move on, because we are not among them.

Now I'm wondering how consistent GPS signal in my lab is...

If someone is smart enough to build a GPS controlled igniter that can set off a small thermite charge in their computer, then they are smart enough to realize that it's dangerous and have no excuse if they end up burning down their house.

Re:The Whole Issue

[jonwil]

+1 to this idea, combine GPS, alarm and other sensors to permanently erase all the encryption keys (and in a way such that you can have an expert witness demonstrate in court that the keys are gone and will never be recovered).
If the bad guys open the case (to pull the hard disks for imaging) without disabling the chassis alarm, keys get wiped. If they move the PC without disabling the GPS alarm, keys get wiped. If they enter the house without disabling the house alarm, keys get wiped.
Turn on the PC and enter the wrong boot password too many times, keys get wiped. (and this would also prevent accessing the BIOS setup to change the boot settings so it can boot from removable media or USB drives)
Enter the wrong password on the OS lock-screen too many times, keys get wiped. (meaning that if the PC is on when the bad guys show up, all you have to do is press the key combination to lock the system and they cant get in)

Re:The Whole Issue

[pgpalmer]

Must make moving problematic.

Re:The Whole Issue

[icebike]

The whole issue is contained in the US Constitution where it says,

Note to all retards who skimmed the summary and didn't read the article:

This happened in New Zealand, not in the United States. The U.S. Constitution has absolutely fucking nothing to do with this because it didn't happen in the United States.

Note to ACs who haven't been paying attention to the news for a few years:

Remember Kim Dotcom was arrested, his property seized, his servers sent to FBI/CIA labs, all on a pretense (and an illegal US warrant) driven by the FBI.

Seriously, if you think borders make any significant difference you are crazy. The constitution surely doesn't protect foreigners in a foreign country, it doesn't even even protect Americans at home. But US law will affect you no matter where you think you are safe.

Re:The Whole Issue

[pgpalmer]

Not that obvious to me. I imagined that it would be quite simple to have a microcontroller that takes a reading from a GPS module, runs a small calculation on the radius around a specific coordinate, and reacts accordingly.

Re:The Whole Issue

[Zomalaja]

"We also need that every computer has a kill password" - No forensic lab in the world could ever get around that, right ?

Re:The Whole Issue

[AmiMoJo]

I just wired the thermite up to my doorbell. The cops/MIBs always ring before smashing door, right?

Re:The Whole Issue

[wumbler]

The constitution surely doesn't protect foreigners in a foreign country, it doesn't even even protect Americans at home. But US law will affect you no matter where you think you are safe.

What makes you think that it is law (US or otherwise), which is the driving force here? What makes you think it has to do anything with law or that those who apply such pressure or are willfully infringing on peoples' privacy care about something called 'the law'?

If the last few months have shown us anything, it is that the surveillance apparatus is entirely above the law or at least unconcerned about it. You can pass whatever law you want to 'reform the NSA' or whatever agency in whatever country you wish to insert here. It doesn't matter, since they will do whatever the heck they want anyway.

Re:The Whole Issue

[stoatwblr]

The pedantic will tell you that a meltdown stops when the fuel is no longer at criticality to provide heat.

In any case, that's what the large concrete tub under the reactor vessel is for. It's hard to melt through concrete.

Re:The Whole Issue

[mgcarley]

Except the New Zealand Bill of Rights - one of the pieces of legislature which would make up our equivalent of a constitution - has a clause much like the 4th Amendment - http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1990/0109/latest/DLM225523.html

This one is also worth a read http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2012/0024/latest/whole.html#DLM2136638

know your rights

[ciderbrew]

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.

Re:know your rights

[sirkumi]

Sadly I don't think you have any rights - at least not in Australia - where I come from, and which has very similar customs laws to those of New Zealand.

It would appear that they can take any and all of your electronic devices and storage equipment - including laptops, smartphones, usb keys - and they don't have to explain why or state what "reasonable suspicion" they have that you might have something illegal. On the whim of the customs officer, they can keep it for 14 days, or longer if they feel they have cause to.

At most all you can do is lodge a complaint...

Re:know your rights

[BringsApples]

And there goes New Zealand off my list of optional places to live. Shit.

Re:know your rights

[BringsApples]

You won't go to NZ because of trivial annoyances like that?

I for one feel that being stripped of all electric equipment without being told why or when I'll get it back is far from trivial.

There is no other country on earth that'll let you pass this sort of thing.

Apparently this guy went through at least 2 other countries without being bullied. One of them was America!

Sigh

[wonkey_monkey]

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...

Re:Sigh

[Hatta]

In this world you cannot be both ridiculously reasonable and neutral on most things.

Alright, New Zealand is on the list, too

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Alright, New Zealand is on the list, too

[N1AK]

Seriously? Start a list of ones where you won't be and stop pretending like one or two places are somehow massively worse. Why is Snowden still in Russia? Because he couldn't get to South America without some country he would need to pass via screwing him over. Do you think Chinese rules give you more protection then US/UK/NZ rules?

We're fucked and it's basically our own fault. People will give up almost anything and put up with almost anything, that doesn't cause too much visible inconvenience to their daily life, if they think it'll make them safer or help catch 'bad guys'. You can argue that governments encourage that view or take advantage of it but ultimately it's the fact that the western peoples are such a bunch of ignorant cowards that is sleep walking us to tyranny,

Re:Alright, New Zealand is on the list, too

[Megol]

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.

I think you meant the UK (United Kingdom).

Re:Alright, New Zealand is on the list, too

[N1AK]

We are in control, we're just negligent. In the UK we still have full access to everything our MPs have voted for, their statements and to elections where we choose them. We have everything we need to change the face of our democracy except sufficient desire to actually put the work in and do it.

Go ahead, take my stuff

[DFDumont]

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.

Re:Go ahead, take my stuff

[magic maverick]

Google Docs. Lol. You may as well just print your shit off and hand it to the authorities directly. In fact, print it off, and fax it to the national police forces of all the major anglophone countries (including NZ). Because if they want it, they'll get it from Google anyway.

Re:Go ahead, take my stuff

[TheGratefulNet]

the article said the guy was a lawyer or pre-law or graduate, at least.

if they mess with him, you think your 'lawyer friend' is really going to have any say in the matter?

this kind of thing convinces me more than ever that if I need anything with data on it (beyond music players) I'll have it shipped to my destination and back.

Re:Go ahead, take my stuff

[ale2011]

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 ;-)

Wiping the laptop is the only option anyway. Once they have your password, they most likely install plenty of trojans, spyware, and keysniffers —at least, that's what NSA was reported to do, even without having their hands on the equipment.

Re:The lesson in this

[Joce640k]

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.

That's only of you've got data to hide.

Apparently they can steal your gadgets even without that.

"Give us your passwords"

[Anonymous Coward]

"Go fuck yourself!"

Re:"Give us your passwords"

[Andrewkov]

No, that's my actual password, capital G and with spaces!

Re:Not surprised

[shikaisi]

(and our pm was born in the US)...

You mean your unidentified guest?

Re:Wow!

[Sarten-X]

The only possible conclusion is that it is the jack booted actions of an oppressive government retaliating for attending some Snowden related event?

Patternicity.

Detained in AKL but not SFO?

[Kagato]

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.

Re:Detained in AKL but not SFO?

[BringsApples]

I was thinking the same thing. It may have been due to certain freedoms that remain in the US that are not there in Auckland. Or that Auckland is now another US lap-pet. Hell, look at what they did to Kim Dotcom.

Re:Detained in AKL but not SFO?

[Anonymous Coward]

The biggest surprise here is this happened in AKL instead of SFO.

Have we already forgotten the Kim Dotcom raid? New Zealand authorities seem quite willing to act on behalf of the UK and US.

s/snowden/political dissent

[nimbius]

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.

Re:s/snowden/political dissent

[dywolf]

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.

Going to stop you right there, and say bullsh**, you're full of cr**, you dont know what you are talking about.
Terrorism is is not merely the "forceful demand" of something, akin to civic disobedience, or activism, a step or two removed.

Terrorism is the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political, religious, or idealogical aims.
Knocking down the WTC was not just the forceful demand of reasonable goals.
The moment they killed one single person they lost any and all claim to legitmacy, regardless of their stated goals.
No matter how noble or pure their stated goals (and they arent so noble as you claim), they killed innocent people.
They fundamentally committed illegal acts, outside the realm of civilized behaviour, of civilized discourse.

These were not the acts of people fighting for freedom, for reformation.
These were acts of war, namely murder of innocent American citizens, by religious zealots.
To conflate the acts of 9/11 with "reasonable demands" is pur and utter bullshit.

Re:s/snowden/political dissent

[nimbius]

Terrorism is the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political, religious, or idealogical aims.

Forceful demand i suppose is as best i can codify the use of force or violence in the achievement of ones demands. I thnk you're assigning the cowardly and quite state sanctioned boilerplate of 9/11 to avoid unpopular criticism of a world power, which is also my point.. Patriotism is for the lonely.
political, religious, and ideological aims in many cases of terrorism were entirely reasonable (the founding of the united states was based on a religious demand), but ignored for so long as to incense their champions to determination without willful regard for loss. to back someone into a corner, to imbue them with 'nothing to lose' and the resolve to achieve is the point im making. that "terrorism" was their only recourse is to show how blind and purposelessly autocratic our government is.
No one is arguing with you that senseless violence and death is wrong, but to say that an exploited and marginalized caste of foreign nationals can be for their crimes met by a declaration of war, is as bombastic as insisting a kitchen roach infestation must be met by razing the house and salting the earth.

My point is that we meet this type of incursion with the maximum force because it undermines our plutocracy if we do not, and to approach an alternative foreign policy from a symbiotic perspective simply isnt a perogative of the ruling class at this time.

Re:s/snowden/political dissent

[CanHasDIY]

To conflate the acts of 9/11 with "reasonable demands" is pur and utter bullshit.

Pretty sure OP isn't doing that; rather, he's pointing out how the government conflates reasonable demands with the acts of 9/11; in other words, not only is terrorism considered terrorism, but apparently so is protesting, or looking funny, or anything else the feds decide to arbitrarily label as suspicious.

He's 100% right about that, too.

Re:The lesson in this

[TheLink]

But how can anyone be sure that "sensitive" information won't be planted on his devices? Can I trust someone who steals my stuff to not frame me?

Encrypting everything might make it harder to plant something on the laptop in a convincing manner, but it might increase the odds of your stuff being stolen by them.

confiscation? wtf?

[l3v1]

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.

Re:confiscation? wtf?

[TheGratefulNet]

making copies can take time. drives are pretty large today and it can take a while to zip up your media. it also requires some skill and these monkeys simply don't have it; that's the job of some other back-room set of monkeys.

the main goal is to scare and punish. and let everyone know that they can do this to anyone at any time and without any reason.

tl;dr; its all for continuing the chilling effect, to keep people in fear OF the government.

Re:confiscation? wtf?

[magic maverick]

In this case, the "reason" was because they suspected the fella of importing "objectionable" material. So making a copy and then giving the device back wouldn't serve the purpose of taking the device. That is, stopping "objectionable" material from entering the country.

Cheers.

Re:confiscation? wtf?

[l3v1]

"making copies can take time. drives are pretty large today and it can take a while to zip up your media"

I don't much care, I'd still prefer to wait instead of the hassle that would be caused by taking all the devices away for god knows how long.

Re:confiscation? wtf?

[l3v1]

"In this case, the "reason" was because they suspected the fella of importing "objectionable" material. So making a copy and then giving the device back wouldn't serve the purpose ..."

Why wouldn't it serve the purpose? If they'd make a copy that could perfectly well used in any criminal case they'd raise against the guy afterwards, if ever.

My point is, at a lot of airports - US airports included - they can do with anyone what they did with this guy, and while I can (not easily, but still) accept their point, I'd much prefer giving them my data from the devices than the devices themselves. Especially regarding phones, which would be much easier and faster to backup, and it's probably the one device even the most privacy-fanatic people don't wipe before every travel...

Re:confiscation? wtf?

[bobbied]

So, the real way to deal with carrying your porn collection (legal, but embarassing) is to not carry it.

I would caution you that what is legal in one country may not be in another. Porn is one of these things, depending on what you intend to carry with you. In fact, it is illegal to have or import many kinds of porn in many countries around the world. So please don't assume that because it is legal to have in the USA you are good to carry it with you on international trips.

Re:confiscation? wtf?

[CanHasDIY]

"making copies can take time. drives are pretty large today and it can take a while to zip up your media"

I don't much care, I'd still prefer to wait instead of the hassle that would be caused by taking all the devices away for god knows how long.

Yea, but I think we all know that's not how it would go down:

You: "So, can I have my stuff back? My flight leaves in, like, 20 minutes."

TSA: "Oh yea, Jim's processing it now, shouldn't be more than 5 or 10 minutes."

90 minutes later

You: "OK, well, I already missed my flight, where's my stuff?"

TSA: "Oh, hey, yea, apparently we've decided to hold it indefinitely for further investigation. Now please clear space for the other victims, er, I mean, travelers, before I'm 'forced' to taze your ass."

Re:confiscation? wtf?

[FuzzNugget]

Have you even considered that they just don't give a shit about any inconveniences or hardships it causes you?

These are not people who think logically, critically, reasonably nor compassionately. They are "chain of command" drones; any such qualities are quickly hammered out in training. Add in a hearty dose of dominance complex and you have an uncaring, tyrannical asshole on your hands. It's not their job to care, so they don't.

All in all, I don't see how one could come out OK from such an encounter.

Um, yeah, that's kinda the point. They take away your stuff, so you're scrambling to get back up and running and, in your feverish haste, more likely to lick their boots on command.

It's like civil forfeiture laws: they take away all your stuff so you no longer have any means of affording a competent defense (plus, the cops get a bunch of cool new stuff for free). Oh, sure, you still technically have the right, but it's meaningless without the ability to actually exercise it.

Which is kinda the point.

Re:I'm sure there is more to this story

[Anonymous Coward]

You post is interesting but lacks whitespace. I will not be subscribing to your newsletter.

Re:The lesson in this

[Anonymous Coward]

The lesson everyone is supposed to get is "Be afraid". It's not yet "Be very afraid", but just wait and we'll get there. So this guy was in a meeting where the Guardian editor Rusbridger was present. Perhaps that fact was what the intelligence services used to tag this guy as suspicious? If so this is sending a signal that you shouldn't be too (physically or intellectually) close to people like Rusbridger. This is a classic case of a "chilling effect" in action. If this isn't what the security services want, then they are stupidly incompetent. If it's what they want they are dangerously oppressive.

There doesn't seem to be any pleasant solution to this equation.

Re:I'm sure there is more to this story

[jittles]

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.

The international terminal of the airport is not considered to be part of the US. Until you try to leave the terminal area, you do not need to pass through customs. If all he did was change flights, he likely did not go through US customs at all. It is possible that they became interested in him at US Customs though and asked the NZ customs officials to detain him.

Re:The lesson in this

[Iceykitsune]

Indeed. USB stick with "insert favorite linux version" installed, and just enough things to allow you to SSH home and access whatever you need (VNC for the GUI stuff). Make sure the USB stick is read-only, no personal stuff whatsoever stored on it, and memorise the SSH key.

FTFY

Insurance

[Anonymous Coward]

You should take out replacement insurance for any gadgets when you travel and never have the only copy of anything on those devices.

Re:iDevices

[NatasRevol]

They can't know it's evidence.

Re:I'm sure there is more to this story

[BringsApples]

I hope you're right. However the article isn't pointing out what was done and why. It's pointing out that they never told him why, didn't allow him any of his entitled legal rights, and took his stuff for no apparent reason. It's the kind of thing that is happening a lot around the world (remember when they forced the president of Bolivia to land his presidential plane?

Chromebook For This Situation

[The Phantom Mensch]

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?

Re:Chromebook For This Situation

[SIGBUS]

Well, then you're trusting Google not to hand your data over to any random government official in whatever countries you travel to or through. Not to mention, is your connection between the Chromebook and Google encrypted? Is it worthwhile encryption or something as easy to crack as WEP?

Even though it's now over 14 years ago, I deliberately chose not to travel with a laptop to the UK. IMO, the best bet if you need a computer is to get a cheap netbook or refurbished laptop, and install your OS of choice onto a freshly-wiped drive. When you get it home, consider it compromised, especially if Mr. Customs Man has taken it into a back room and/or plugged anything into it.

Re:I'm sure there is more to this story

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not correct. The international terminal is most certainly considered part of the US. You land, your checked bags gets re-screend, and you pass through customs.

Re:iDevices

[Anonymous Coward]

More crap advice. You do realize that standard forensic procedure is to image anything that might potentially be destroyed before something like this is tried? Maybe they can't image the chip storing your key to decrypt, but do you want to make bets on backdoors in mobile devices these days?

I had a computer confiscated

[pigsycyberbully]

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.

Re:I had a computer confiscated

[hyades1]

Who but a witless fucktard could fail to realize the perfect time to indulge one's urge to rebel is precisely when one is carrying a trashed laptop and has nothing to hide?

Re:I had a computer confiscated

[N1AK]

Well done rebel. You sure showed them by giving them what they wanted and then using an opportunity to inconvenience them for taking your stuff and refusing to return it. That's about as 'rebel' and sucking a bikers cock and calling yourself a 'bad ass'.

Re:iDevices

[Andrewkov]

I quickly turned off that feature when I found my 4 year old playing with my phone. She was 2 attempts away from wiping it!

He was going home.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:He was going home.

[Immerman]

No, that's called "retaining evidence". I'm sure he'll get it back in 5-10 years after the forensic analysis team has gotten around to looking at it - he's a low priority case after all. Unless it gets lost in interim of course, you know how chaotic some of these underfunded evidence lockers can be.

Re:iDevices

[ciderbrew]

Then why take it? I don't think logic work against them.

Need a failsafe password mecanism

[EmagGeek]

Flash devices need a failsafe password mechanism that, if a particular password is entered, it immediately does a device erase on all flash memory.

Re:The lesson in this

[dywolf]

The lesson is dont go through customs with electronics.
If you must, use disposable electronics you dont care about losing.

Oh, the Irony of it all!

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:iDevices

[NatasRevol]

Logic doesn't really work for them either :-)

Re:The lesson in this

[N1AK]

I might be overly optimistic but outside of the UK, where when detained at an airport it can be a crime not to answer a question (what the fuck?), I don't think you'd be breaking the law for refusing to give the IP and password to a server located in another country?

Re:no, really, it must've been hackers put it ther

[Sique]

You don't. I reinstalled my Raspberry Pi just yesterday. And the Ultra2 is a keepsake and connected to neither power nor Internet.

Re:Facial recognition lock

[Minwee]

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?

They might be able to use some new science-fictiony technology to fool the facial recognition software. All they would need is a box capable of capturing your soul, or perhaps a document which you were conveniently carrying for them with a copy of your face on it.

Re:Wow!

[SuricouRaven]

Slight correction: The indecent media claim was made after the fact. He wasn't told why at the time. Also, there was no mention of child porn. Just regular, plain porn.

Re:I'm sure there is more to this story

[flyingfsck]

Whitespace is racist...

Re:Deserved it

[N1AK]

Sounds like a wanker.

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!!!

Re:I'm sure there is more to this story

[LoRdTAW]

I have a friend who is a former US customs agent who worked at a major international airport. We used to meet up every weekend and he would tell me all sorts of funny stories about working in customs.

They normally target people travelling back from countries which are known for various illegal activities. An obvious example is to search people returning from Jamaica trying to smuggle marijuana. Usually it's a small amount for personal use, an ounce or so. Another thing they do is turn away late term pregnant women on visitor visas who are most likely looking to have anchor babies. But sometimes they do pick random people based on observation of behaviour or simply because they sense something to be off. One such story was one of the female agents saw a guy on the line who gave her a bad vibe. She picked him out for a "random" check where they take you into a room for an interview and a search of your possessions. He was returning from Thailand and everything was in order but there was a CD book filled with bootleg movies and porn. She flipped through each page and the book was divided, the first half were bootlegs and the second half was porn. That is not illegal but one DVD stuck out. It had pictures of kids on it but was in the porn section. She took the dvd out and asked him why it was in that section and he claimed he had no idea. She told him "this better not be what I think it is" and took it to a room to be viewed. She came back not a few minutes later and confirmed it was indeed child porn. They arrested the man for possession of child pornography. All on a based on a bad feeling.

Re:The lesson in this

[CanHasDIY]

"I cannot give out that information as it would pose a risk to national security."

Hey, it works for them, right?

Re:Facial recognition lock

[bobbied]

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?

Really face locking? Let me see, they can take a picture of you legally (think booking or passport photo) and unlock your phone at will. Yea, picture locks are *really* secure. Voice locks are a bit more secure, but with the device in hand, they are going to be able to get to your data if they really wanted too. Remember, if they really want to see your cell phone data, all they have to do is connect up to your phone the right way and dump the data. It may not be easy, but it's technically possible.

Just unlock the thing if you don't have anything to hide, or expect to be further inspected if you don't. Your choice. Encrypt or don't carry anything you want to hide.

Re:I'm sure there is more to this story

[Hatta]

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.

So he exercised his rights to free speech and he gets harassed and stolen from by the government, and you're OK with this? Shame on you.

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.

Confiscating electronics is ALWAYS an example of a police state gone mad. Electronics contain information. Confiscating information is a violation of our rights to free speech.

I'm sure he knows the real reason they took his stuff

Blame the victim. Shame on you.

Re:I'm sure there is more to this story

[Megol]

You forget to mention all the times the "bad feeling" was wrong. If you'd go around shooting people in the face for a long enough time you will probably kill a child molester.

My password

[presidenteloco]

is "G0 FVCK VRSEF!"

No, really.

What this tells me is:

[Nyder]

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.

Re:Facial recognition lock

[Nyder]

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?

I don't know, hold the phone up to your face?

You didn't think that over too well.

Re:Not surprised

[viperidaenz]

Born John Phillip Key
9 August 1961 (age 52)
Auckland, New Zealand

I always thought Aucklanders were different, but American?

Hilarious. Not.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Not surprised

[SteveTheNewbie]

Have you seen his Birth Certificate? How do you know they are not just covering up his Americaness hmm?

Reasonable cause? If so, disclose suspicions

[e_armadillo]

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?

Re:First

[curunir]

Nah...it's not me, maybe you're thinking of Sauron.

You should have claimed

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Evidence?

[e_armadillo]

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".

Re:I'm sure there is more to this story

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are you giving bad information? And why is this cringeworthy information moderated up?

Re:I'm sure there is more to this story

[shutdown -p now]

Not only that, but if you try to use blackspace (U+2588), Slashdot strips it out, too. Racism everywhere!

Re:First

[Darinbob]

Sharkey has the best job bennies.

How does one remove "Saruman" and his henchmen?

[Pav]

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?

resetting if wrong password

[wellsdm]

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.

Serious??

[Nov8tr]

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!!

Re:Not surprised

[viperidaenz]

Could be!
His English father and Austrian mother could have travelled to the states to give birth to him...

Piracy

[paxcoder]

This has nothing to do with Middle Ages.

Re:Not surprised

[JamieIanMacgregor]

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.

Re:Not surprised

[viperidaenz]

So we should judge people on how much money they have? Good one.

Re:Not surprised

[JamieIanMacgregor]

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.

Re:Not surprised

[viperidaenz]

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.

Re:Not surprised

[JamieIanMacgregor]

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.

Re:Not surprised

[viperidaenz]

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.

Re:Not surprised

[JamieIanMacgregor]

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.

Re:Not surprised

[viperidaenz]

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.