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US Federal Judge Rules Suspicionless Border Searches of Laptops Constitutional
AHuxley writes "The American Civil Liberties Union sought to challenge the U.S. legal 'border exemption' three years ago. Can your laptop be seized and searched without reasonable suspicion at the border? A 32 page decision provides new legal insight into legal thinking around suspicionless searches: your electronic devices are searchable and seizable for any reason at the U.S. border. The ACLU may appeal. Also note the Kool-Aid comment: 'The report said that a reasonable suspicion standard is inadvisable because it could lead to litigation and the forced divulgence of national security information, and would prevent border officers from acting on inchoate "hunches," a method that it says has sometimes proved fruitful.'"
It's even legal for them to copy the contents of your laptop for no reason at all, just in case they need to take a peek later. A bit of context from the ACLU: "The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Pascal Abidor, a dual French-American citizen who had his laptop searched and confiscated at the Canadian border ... Abidor was travelling from Montreal to New York on an Amtrak train in May 2010 when he had his laptop searched and confiscated by customs officers. Abidor, an Islamic Studies Ph.D. student at McGill University, was questioned, taken off the train in handcuffs, and held in a cell for several hours before being released without charge. When his laptop was returned 11 days later, there was evidence that many of his personal files had been searched, including photos and chats with his girlfriend."
...i'm not American.
At the end of the novel Catch-22 the famous rule starts to have other formulations including 'they have the right to do to us anything we can't stop them from doing.'
Does anyone think this won't be abused?
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
The terrorists have won! No I'm not talking about the Islamic kind. I'm talking about the American government which since 2001 opted to keep its citizens in a perpetual state of fear to increase its power over them.
... anything else would be "inadvisable"?
I'm getting tired of writing these letters, yet I'll do it again and remind my "representation" of my position.
Unless you include a huge "donation" check in your letter . . . your "representation" won't even receive your letter. The secretary will just toss it in the trash.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
How implausible is it to imagine that a system could be set up to suck all data off every device (especially solid state storage) as it passes through airport security?
Since it's legal, why wouldn't the government want to do it? Ya know. Just in case. To protect us.
Yes, it would be different. Watching her statements and positions and her consistency on her positions leads me to conclude that she would restore, at least, some of our rights that POTUS Obama has taken from us.
What is so special about the US border that makes it an exception to the 4th Amendment?
Encrypting your hard drive's contents may not be such a good idea... If they decide to search your laptop (or any other device) and it's encrypted, they'll certainly ask you to provide the password. If you don't provide the password, expect being detained for as long as the law allows them to hold you. Also, if you're a foreign national, you'll probably be denied entry.
Nah, it'll get aggregated by subject matter. In the month-end statistics it'll just be another check for "concerned about border security", prompting the lawmaker to introduce a bill to *require* searches of all laptops. Mission accomplished.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
Encrypting your hard drive's contents may not be such a good idea... If they decide to search your laptop (or any other device) and it's encrypted, they'll certainly ask you to provide the password. If you don't provide the password, expect being detained for as long as the law allows them to hold you. Also, if you're a foreign national, you'll probably be denied entry.
Don't encrypt the laptop.
Take a backup of the laptop hard drive, encrypt the backup. Upload that to an online storage service.
Wipe the free space or get a new hard drive. Install basic operating system. Take THAT through customs with you.
For 'extra points' create an online email account and populate it with some plausible emails, copy over some plausible photos, documents etc.
Once at your destination, download your encrypted backup and restore it onto your hard drive.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
Does it matter? Barack Obama is president, and this shit is still going on. We were royally duped by the democratic party. No wonder his approval polls are in the shitter now. Time to overthrow this republicrat juggernaut and elect real representatives, not these security paranoid corporate douchebags.
... I'm getting tired of writing these letters, yet I'll do it again and remind my "representation" of my position. Anybody else?
Your pleas are falling on deaf ears, because your representatives in Congress today don't work you anymore: to them it's all about the money they need to get re-elected, so now they only work for their donors. Even Obama, who received so many small donations, got 70% of his campaign cash from big donors, mainly from people on Wall Street (which is why he will never prosecute them).
Therefore, what we must do is fix the underlying problem first: by getting big money out of politics.
This would be difficult in any other country with a corrupt political system, but luckily the United States Constitution happens to include Article Five, which describes an alternative process through which the Constitution can be altered: by holding a national convention at the request of the legislatures of at least two-thirds (34) of the country's 50 States. Any proposed amendments must then be ratified by at least three-quarters (38 States).
Is anybody doing this yet? Yes. WOLF-PAC was launched in October 2011 for the purpose of passing a 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that will end corporate personhood* and publicly finance all elections**. Since then, many volunteers have approached their State Legislators about this idea and their efforts have often been met with unexpected bi-partisan enthusiasm. So far, 50 State Legislators have authored or co-sponsored resolutions to call for a Constitutional Convention to get money out of politics! Notable successes have been in Texas, Idaho and Kentucky.
However, if the State Legislators are also corrupt, why are they helping us? Well, maybe they aren't as corrupt as you think. And even if they are, the important thing is that they seem to be just as fed up with the Federal government as we are -- so much so that they seem quite happy to help out with this effort. After all, it's a pretty simple proposal that speaks to both Democrats and Republicans.
If you think this idea makes sense, you can sign this petition, donate, or even take action by personally contacting your favorite State Legislator and asking for a meeting. It's easier than you might think and as a result we might be able to change this awful situation sooner than you think.
.
*) The aim is not to end legal personhood for corporations, but natural personhood. The latter became a problem following the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling, which grated some of the rights of natural persons to corporations and makes it easier for them to lend financial support to political campaigns.
**) At the State level, more than half of all political campaigns are already publicly financed in some way, so there's nothing strange about doing the same for political campaigns for federal office.
Sad, isn't it? We live under far worse tyranny today than we did under King George III.
...and if you encrypt your hard disk you must be a terrorist
I'm pretty big on civil liberties, and stories like this don't exactly make me comfortable, but at the end of the day the border guys have a tough job. Hundreds of thousands of people entering the country, they get a minute or two to decide if something is amiss. Should they have unlimited powers? No. However, I think there's a case to be made that if you want to enter a country you are not entitled to due-process in it's entirety. In terms of it being a fourth amendment issue ... I'm not sure it's unreasonable to be searched when entering a country ... it seems pretty standard across the world. Electronics make it feel far move invasive, sure, but the base concept of being able to search people entering the country seems pretty sound.
This kind of opinion is precisely why we continue to see the erosion of our rights in the US.
Suspending constitutional rights because "their job is hard" is bullshit. The border agents can suck it up and do their jobs the right way. If that means I have an order of magnitude higher chance of dying from a terrorist attack, so be it - it would still be multiple orders of magnitude lower chance than dying of many other things like cancer, heart disease, or car accidents.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
In a comment for another thread, I described US practices to be similar to North Korea and Iran ones.
...
It is a shame, because I know a lot of US citizen and they are wonderful people, but each day I hear things that make my suspicion to be real. Just see the facts.
1) In many US based online places, when you are not an US citizen having an US legal address, you can't purchase anything using a valid international credit card.
2) If you try to store any type of data in US servers, the US authorities can, legally, ask for the information you stored there. Take into consideration that even the US citizen are involved in this "natural" seizing of data, because what is "third party" generated data in the modern information world?
3) If you try to enter the United States with any type of computing device, the authorities have the right to seize it and you need to provide them with passwords, and they can copy your data and to do whatever they like with it.
As they already have legal rights to do whatever they like with your digital data, the next step is to confiscate your paper notebooks. Because they could have any type of security related information. If you carry "YOUR" written poems, then they will ask you to give them the clue to acquire the hidden data, because for them it is clear that you are the enemy and that nobody enter the United States with good intentions. Why then they don't close all the airports, harbours, etc.?
I live in Costa Rica. Our laws are very different than the US laws. In the wikileaks data about the relationship between US and Costa Rica, something was said about that Costa Rica had a "dysfunctional" government, because here everything needs to pass through a very lengthly legal process. But now I understand what dysfunctional really means.
Dysfunctional means that they can't pass on top of their citizen minds without asking for permission. So, the authorities have the right to do whatever they like to do, without any type of control and then they are functional authorities. But when you keep their hands out of the personal privacy, you are the bad guy.
What a shame
I voted against McCain/Palin, not for Obama. It sucks that we can't get a president who's trustworthy, but it's pointless to cry over spilt milk. The presidential election is too high profile and expensive, and there are too many people with too many differing viewpoints, so we are always going to get someone who's less objectionable, not someone we really want. The place to focus your efforts is in primary races for representatives and senators, and of course in the general election for these folks. The tea party has used this very effectively in the past, and the progressives are starting to do it too.
Another important place to focus your efforts is on local races, both statewide and city (or town). Statewide races matter because both parties have shown a willingness to gerrymander; if we want fair elections, we should be electing statewide representatives who are in favor of preventing gerrymandering and willing to work to make that happen. And local races are what feed statewide races.
The idea that what matters is the presidential election is so backward that it's horrifying to watch it every four years. If you want to bow out of an election, bow out of the presidential election and vote in the mid-term elections, rather than vice versa. But better to vote in every election.
"Therefore, what we must do is fix the underlying problem first: by getting big money out of politics."
Another way to do that would be to squish government back into constitutionally delimited jurisdictions. It would not interfere in economic life as much, would not spend so bloody much, so would not be a target for bribery from business/unions/individuals so much. Adjust "so much" to taste.
But that way lies a less powerful government, something leftists like the "wolf pac" abhor.
Don't encrypt the laptop.
Take a backup of the laptop hard drive, encrypt the backup. Upload that to an online storage service.
Wipe the free space or get a new hard drive.
Do you really actually do all that? Or is this just some weird thought experiment of yours?
First we need leadership. We all saw how incredibly effective the directionless "Occupy" movement was. About the only thing it accomplished was demonstrating that the government is still willing to use police brutality against peaceful demonstrators, and the media managed to mostly conveniently overlook that aspect.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Well here's at least one reason this is happening. Essentially when confronted with a question of the form "should we permit X to do Y upon Z in order to keep us safe ?" the individual answering that question effectively considers whether or not they'll ever be Z. No federal judge is ever going to be stopped at an airport . No federal judge is ever going to have his laptop searched at the border. In fact none of the rulings federal judges make will ever apply to them personally or anyone with the power to pick up a phone and call that judge to complain that X is about to do Y to them.
Essentially the way judges hear the proposition is: "would you like us to increase security for you, sir?" They know if for some ungodly oversight they were ever actually asked to turn over their laptop to a customs agent, one phone call and it all goes away before the agent can boot their Windows 8 (this is who's buying that dog btw ) installation and that agent would soon be manning the un-airconditioned , 3x5 border booth in 105 degree heat watching over some dirt road in Tumbleweed Town, Texas.
So get real. You're asking people To Whom Nothing Adverse Is Permitted To Happen if they would like ditch the Constitution within 100 miles of any border so that he and his can feel in some nighty-night, all-tucked-in way "safer".
I am sure the nation's judicial benches are deep with such people. I am sure that people capable of considering the effects of their decisions on a nation and on its people are few and far between. Last week's judge was citing as supporting evidence the 9-11 commission report even though the 9-11 commission report said, substantively, exactly the opposite of what he claimed in his judgement it said.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131230/11062925713/judge-who-ruled-favor-nsa-relied-911-report-that-doesnt-even-mention-what-he-claims-it-does.shtml
This is what is populating our benches. How bad is it? We're about to find out. .
If you find that your residence, automobile, or other personal effects have been entered/searched without your consent or direct knowledge, and everything "looks intact", consider that they didn't come to take something away, but to put something in.
Once your personal effects, especially high-capacity electronics like smartphones and laptops, are out of your direct control, in some other room for hours at a time while you're in a holding cell, you can no longer trust them.
If they can get access to the physical hardware, they can install malware, rootkits, key loggers, replace the network card with one that is known-trojaned, manipulate your certificates, trusts, replace firmware on your devices and anything else they want.
No, once you get your gear back, immediately wipe it. Do not log into it, not even once, and just sell it on eBay or Craigslist.
You can't trust it, so dump it as soon as you can.