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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.
~nt~
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Every time I read about a new attack on the Bill of Rights, I write to my Congressional representation. I also vote to replace my representation since clearly they aren't representing We, the People.
I'm getting tired of writing these letters, yet I'll do it again and remind my "representation" of my position. Anybody else?
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
Really, this trend toward a total surveillance society is getting more and more worrying.
And the given rationals are so pathetic. How can people like that be in position of autority? It would be funny if it was not frightening.
Or those science or business conferences either, come to that.
I'd love to visit the US someday, but when I expect treatment like that, I just think, OK well there are plenty of other places in the world who will be happy to see me spending money in their local economy without forcing me to risk accepting that kind of treatment "on a hunch".
You think it would be different if Sarah Palin was president?
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.
2014: year of the hunch
or 2014: year of the massive street protests
Good people go to bed earlier.
Police is the state
So when you cross the border every black boh should be searched or every binary bit that crosses the us border should be searched? Well, you probably mean that he had digitized some drugs in that laptop, so its data should be searched? Oooh, should this comment be searched? Do I have something to hide?
... anything else would be "inadvisable"?
Because fuck you (and the constitution), that's why. Oh sorry, because terrist bogeymen, that's why.
My ass hurts.
Silence is a state of mime.
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.
What is so special about the US border that makes it an exception to the 4th Amendment?
NSA has proven that they can circumvent technologies which people had thought to be secure.
crooks can break into locked cars too, but i wouldn't advise people leave their cars unlocked
So, what hard drive encryptions seem particularly strong?
not sure, but anything FOSS is probably your best bet... anything closed-source can be corrupted
if you're super-paranoid at least you can review and compile it yourself
I mean do you have that practice - government to pay trolls defending its interests? Too many irrational comments in favor of NSA here.
If a computer search alters the state/contents of a machine, how would it be legal? e.g.: a naive software-based search of files, that alters metadata on files? Or: disassembling a device that wasn't designed to be disassembled, in order to clone the HD?
If border officials order a user to boot-up and enable the same access the traveler would have: What if there's software on the machine, that is *designed* to alter file contents when they are viewed? (The precise reason doesn't matter, but: what if the uncorrupted state of these files, or hardware, are important for one reason or another? say, to enable a security audit, by the traveler's employer?)
So (perhaps unlike other personal effects or "papers"), a computer search is not necessarily a passive process -- it's an ACTIVE one, that can (likely?) lead to damage, destruction, or complete loss.
Stick a copyright notice on your laptop.
"The contents of this laptop are copyrighted. Licensed for use by owner only."
Then sue them.
FileVault?
Just search for VileFault - there's your answer.
Every bloody emperor has his hand up history's skirt [Peter Hammill/VdGG]
Step 1 - Bitlocker etc. Encrypt your drive. They will not spend the resources decrypting it, and cannot force you to give up passwords to things without a court order. Step 2 - Pay for a server located in a country that you trust (as much as possible anyway) and sync or store files there. Accessing things you need when you need them instead of always carrying them around. If step 2 is an issue for you due to wanting access to content while without internet, see step 1. Now if you are actually doing something terrible and have incriminating files on your computer, if they really want them, encryption won't do it. But depending what it is I believe these people should be caught. However encrypting your drive and putting on a password will be enough to stave off random searches for no reason of normal crap Like family photos etc, it won't be enough for them to put in the resources to get access to it..
Yeah, fucking well-travelled, bi-fluent, academics. America should get rid of the lot of them.
Looking at some state's science education programmes, you already have...
Freedom.
May the honorable judge Edward R. Korman be subjected to warrantless searches and having his personal data copied by the government as often as possible. He should be okay with it... he legalized it.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Constitutional or not, I wouldn't risk it anyway. Please note, I'm an IT Manager - I have nothing to hide - but the machines I use contain information on how to access other machines at my workplace. Providing access to the data on those machines, sited in the UK, is considered a breach of the Data Protection Act in the UK as they hold personal information. It's even a bit more serious than that, as I work for schools.
As such, case law prevents me even revealing those passwords to anyone without just cause or a court order. The penalties apply to ME, not just my employer. There are even cases where even the POTENTIAL to access the data (i.e. giving someone the password, even if they can't use it without being on the right system, etc.) is considered no different to direct and provable access to the data.
My previous employer prevented staff taking data to France because they have a similar law, but it wasn't anywhere near as serious a threat to our ability to control the data under our protection.
So, sorry, I can't take any electronic equipment holding that information into the US whatsoever. Others may interpret the situation differently, but I'm afraid the only interpretation that matters to me are the courts', and they have spoken many times on such matters and fined people heavily for doing so. I'm sure I could "get away" with it a billion times if I tried, but that's not how I conduct my professional or personal life.
As such, I wouldn't even bother to take a computer across the border in America. And given recent revelations, I don't think it wise to just take some hidden / memorised access credentials to the US and then use them when I'm then to - e.g. set up a blank / hired laptop.
Honestly, this is something I factored in when I was considering emigration many years ago. America pretty much ended up a no-go for me because of the attitude towards foreigners, and their casual approach to data, and their failure to sign many of the same agreements that all EU countries signed up to with regards data usage.
I wouldn't even bother to go there on holiday again - did it once, but now I wouldn't be able to take my laptop or my smartphone with good conscious as both contain encryption and access credentials that although if law-enforcement NEEDED them, I would provide, I do NOT expect law-enforcement to store it longer than necessary, duplicate it, or fail to provide assurances on the security of that data while it's in their possession. That's all you need to do - not even stop collecting the data, just tell me what you can and won't do with it so that I can take that piece of paper to a court (if it ever comes up) and say "Look, here's the assurance I was given when requested to hand over data by law enforcement - not my fault the data got into the wild" - even then, the case law says I'll still get fined but I think I have more of a chance of having the case swing my way under "reasonable efforts" to protect that data.
When you take my phone and laptop away, that cripples my ability to store my documentation (even my flight tickets), research my destinations, book hotels, navigate to places, etc. and I see it as unnecessary. So, basically, even as a place for a quick holiday, it's out of bounds.
And although the places I work for aren't the poorest, they aren't the richest either - so faffing about with blanked laptops is just too much shit to put up with.
Sorry, US. When you treat me like a prisoner, or an alien, with zero human rights, I don't want to be near you - like the bully in the playground. Have fun playing on your own.
All for the sake of a proper receipt, with some assurances that you won't just splurge my (and my employer's) private data onto the net the second I walk out the door...
Next thing you know it'll be people coming in your house every day. If they're allowed to search your laptop without reason; *someone, somewhere* will use this to illegally everything. The Fourth Amendment had a good run; but this past-precedent will lead to it's invalidation. What's next? Free speech (which we barely have); the right to plead the fifth (which you can give up because a judge decides it). I feel like they've been violating the ninth just to get their way.
We need to just stop international travel. We need to stop leaving the country and people need to stop visiting. I can't think of a good reason for someone to visit the US anyway. "Greatest country in the world", if you consider treating everyone like a suspect great; if you consider getting people to rally behind the bill of rights and chanting "freedom" while at the same thing ripping these freedoms from under the people.
America isn't great; the only thing it's good at is being an example of how corporate greed and the greed of people can corrupt a great system; and how they can use this to oppress people.
America sucks. There, I said it.
...my company does not let us take work laptops to the USA.
Sad, isn't it? We live under far worse tyranny today than we did under King George III.
When you cross the border to a country, you have no reasonable expectation of privacy of items on your person.
Your first sentence is already absurd. Trying to cross a border does not mean you have no fourth amendment rights.
You might be able to look.
You might even be able to force me to decrypt/open locked boxes.
But you can't just take copies of that data without a legally-binding (on you) assurance that it will remain private.
There is nothing in these laws that says it's illegal for the border guard to copy your laptop, then put your photos of you and your girlfriend on the net for all to see. Nothing.
And other countries have laws too. Laws that mean we can't LET you see some things, even if they are not protected by diplomatic immunity. I cannot reveal to you the passwords of my employer that stores personal data on its clients. It is ILLEGAL for me to do so, no matter what country I happen to be in when I do it (unless its under duress, but that's a DEFENCE, not an automatic exception). So forcing me to give you not only a viewing, but allowing you to copy that data and use it as you will (as I have no assurance that you won't do just that), means I can't give you that opportunity to even POTENTIALLY see that data. UK, Data Protection Act, revised several times since it's inception in 1984 (ironically enough).
In the same way, if you wanted to take photocopies at the border of all papers people are carrying, it would mean I would be unable to take some parts of my work with me. Unless you provided assurances as to the use and scope of the copies you made. It doesn't matter if I'm a teacher, a social worker, a prison officer, or whatever - you're stopping people bringing commercial data into your country that - up until now, and in every other country - we have assurances that you won't do bad things with it.
Nobody cares about you looking. That's your fucking job, if you work in airport security. But the rules of legal evidence need to apply to what you copy and take away. And they don't. In law, or in practice.
NSA has proven that they can circumvent technologies which people had thought to be secure.
crooks can break into locked cars too, but i wouldn't advise people leave their cars unlocked
It is unfortunate that we are forced to treat government officials tasked with our protection in the same manner as criminals who are out to harm us. It demonstrates just how far our government has fallen. The only questions now are how much farther it has to fall before the public at large finally resolves to do something about it and whether it can still be done through peaceful means when that happens.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
I don't take notebooks I care much about when travelling so I've no concern if they get banged about or stolen. It's so easy to wipe and reinstall before travel that one should do that if you don't want your goat porn viewed by the Stasi.
I'm not worried about Uncle Sugar reading anything I have because I don't do anything interesting to the State and if I did I'm not stupid enough to want to use a computer for it. AT ALL.
If for some reason I had to carry vital legal-but-proprietary commercial information it takes little effort (well, on Thinkpads anyway) to stash a MicroSD card temporarily glued under the label of a WLAN card or a section of heatsink. Don't bring a screwdriver with you as they are cheap at chain stores.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Unlike now, where there's litigation precisely because there isn't a reasonable suspicion standard. Okay, yea, I know, it'll head off future litigation. But, then, is that a good thing in itself? Because if it is, we should just shut down the Judiciary Branch and be done with it.
That's some great logic there. If we have some sort of standard of reasonable suspicion for anything related to national security, then indirectly national security information will be divulge. Isn't this the same logic that requires those on the inside to "neither confirm nor deny" everything? And if it's not talking about the indirect form, well, the last decade has shown just how little any part of the federal government has been "forced" to do anything national security wise, even if a court order demanded it. Honestly, no matter how you interpret it it sounds like the court is giving extra-legal blessing to all the "national security" activities the federal government has done/is doing/will do because there's already standards for national security information containment during court proceedings, which apparently they aren't willing to accept as actually good enough.
And firing at people on inchoate "hunches" has sometimes proved fruitful in killing drug lords and murderers. Should we legally allow border officers to do that too? Yep, the borders really are a Constitution free zone. There also apparently a human decency free zone. Really, this sort of ruling would make me want to not be a border officer at all. At least the executioner, as bloody as his hands might be, can have some faith that a lengthy process was taken to determine the guilt of the person they kill. With this? It's a free-for-all, with out apparently any reasonable restrictions. Because being reasonable might allow the bad guys to win.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
uneducated TSA agent with a queue of Arabs/Africans/Frenchmen to give anal cavity searches to
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aq-G4HATiC8
Meanwhile, make your road machine a tablet. You have less to lose if this happens.
...or does this include the fairly common mandatory checkpoints operated by the Border Patrol inside the border and fairly common in the Southwest?
I driven through several of the latter without more than a couple of minor questions but I always hate being forced to stop like this.
I have a friend in Bisbee, Arizona and you literally can't drive into greater Arizona from Bisbee without stopping at one in either Sierra Vista or Tombstone but I haven't heard any stories from him about searches or more intensive questioning.
Neat idea, but in a country where asserting your rights can be used as probable cause to get a warrant against you, I have to imagine that taking steps like this to protect your privacy would end well for you.
NOT end well... damn... need more coffee.
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
Looks like grounds for reasonable suspicion to me
not to mention a legal precedent for ass-fucking and strip searching anyone with a laptop
amerika, fuck yeah!
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.
... but it's Congress that needs fixing first.
Just go ahead and use the real word instead of the PC kindergarten teacher "authoritarian corporatocracy" bullshit. It's called "fascism".
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country.
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
If my laptop or other device is seized at the border (and not returned), do I get to claim this as a casualty loss during the tax year? What about any machine-locked software on the laptop that I would have to repurchase? If my e-device is returned and acts funny, can I deduct the cost of a forensic exam to look for dropped-in malware? Gotta be a way to monetize this idiocy in my favor.
1) Before I leave back home, image laptop, and either post image to online cloud drive or ship DVD's/USB drive back home 2) When I get confirmation everything is backed up or arrived back home, wipe Hard Drive, show customs empty laptop on arrival 3) Re-Image when I get back home. Sad I'd have to go through all that....
...in bed
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin
Wuddooeyeno? IITYWYBMAD? Like nuts? eclecticallyincorrect.com
Ooh, look another whine-fest on Slashdot on rights being stripped. Ooh look at the internet-tough-guys spewing platitudes everywhere, on Slashdot.
What are you going to do about it?
Seriously, who's got a plan? Who's willing to vote, possibly against their own self interest, in order to effect change? Who's going to do anything, ANYTHING, more that whine on Slashdot about it?
The U.S. Constitution has become a piece of toilet paper, you've long established that. It's clear that the general population of the U.S. doesn't care. So, what are YOU going to do about it?
hasn't seen my "business" during vacations since these shenanigans began?
Even my daughter goes to Canada instead of the US.
One would guess the "terrorist won".
morcego
The judge in question:
Edward R. Korman (born 1942) is a United States district judge serving on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, in Brooklyn, NY. He was nominated by President Ronald Reagan on October 2, 1985, confirmed by the United States Senate on November 1, 1985, commissioned on November 4, 1985, and entered service on December 16, 1985, to fill a new seat. Korman served as Chief Judge of the Eastern District of New York from 2000–2007 and took senior status in 2007. In addition to continuing his caseload in Brooklyn, Korman has also sat by designation on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in California from 2008[1] through present.
--
My opinion time: This guy is a relic who sees the world though a very distorted lens. He was put into his post by freaking Raygun and likely is someone who, like a Dick Cheney, sees the world having evil (literally) and that such rulings are ways to keep it at bay. Civil liberties are things that are silly to think about when you are fighting "evil" and should never get in the way of what is "right and good".
I've seen a lot of talk about current politics here and about stuff as stupid and silly as how if our executive branch was different we'd have a different society and other bullshit. It is a whole lot more complicated than that. We have a LOT of wheels within wheels here and the fact that we have judges that date back to before some of you were even born shows that. It is not just about congress and the executive branch but we have a huge 3rd branch of government too people! Wrap your heads around all of it becuase trust me if you don't and just watch that you are missing a lot of the show.
Some of you I see did get it right. We HAVE to get money out of politics. Until we do that nothing will be fixed with any meaning.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
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 best way to have a trustworthy president is to have an accountable president, not to rely on the personal ethics of the individual. And this falls to the legislative and judicial branches. This particular example is a failure of the judicial branch, but Congress isn't helping either.
I am not a crackpot.
The problem here is that, since the dawn of time, customs has had the right to 'go through your stuff' when you cross their border. They've had the right to go through your suitcase looking for banned or smuggled items. They've had the right to look for cash or magazines featuring child pornography. They had the right to photocopy and take pictures of evidence. If your suitcase or briefcase was locked, they had the right to tell you to unlock it. Fast-forward fifty years and that 'looking through your stuff' includes looking through your phone or laptop. Where do you draw the line? Do you say CBP and CBSA and their ilk can look through briefcases but not laptops? That they can ask you to turn out your pockets, but not turn on your phone? It's a weird gray area.
Hidden partition. Problem mitigated. ( not solved )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Even if your device is encrypted, you will have to throw it away after they hand it back to you. If you boot it, you are going to be running their code and they own the machine regardless of the encryption.
I know at least one corporation that will not let its employees travel oversees with laptops.
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.
Why not just wipe your computer clean before traveling then hide a mico sd card in your wallet. Go to your location then transfer and wipe clean when traveling back. Hell maybe there's a market for credit card like cards that are actually memory/sd cards or you can snap a micro sd card into it.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
If after several years holding seat and having a lucrative political career, you tell your congressmen that you're going to replace them because they no longer represent you, they'll keep doing the same and ignore you.
If, just after a new congressman got elected, you tell him how the last one was voted off of his seat because he stopped representing his people, that'll stick to him for his whole term of service. Congratulate him and tell him you look forward to his servitude.
I once had a signature.
This guy had his laptop confiscated for 11 days. I don't think it was just the TSA taking a peek at it. They certainly didn't just glance at it, and hand it back.
This is clearly two sides of an ideological situation. One shit side says the government should have authority to do what it wants to people (the government and it's agents), but another side which is just as viable, but is being ignored by the legal system, is the public and earth citizen who doesn't generally get anything out of having the government trample all over their personal rights and civil liberties.
Nothing gives the government the right to have any authority over the people. Maybe we should push this as our agenda, and overthrow these disrespectful assholes who know no bounds with force? We can change the law and the rules to do whatever we please, like they did, except we will not pursue abuse of the public like they do and we will work to restrict government to it's maximum and put all the responsibility on the government agents who have collected and abused these powers in the past. I vote for government agents to not have the right to assault and beat citizens, spy on them, and go through all their personal property whenever they please.
There is nothing in these laws that says it's illegal for the border guard to copy your laptop, then put your photos of you and your girlfriend on the net for all to see. Nothing.
You mean other than Title 17 of the United States Code? I'd like to see a federal agency make a fair use argument for that.
This will become much weirder and much more invasive once digital implants become viable.
And I wonder what Google Glass would do to this situation?
I voted against McCain/Palin, not for Obama.
Same here. You don't have a meteoric rise in Chicago politics without having proved to the PTB that you're for sale, and that you will stay bought.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
I voted against McCain/Palin AND Obamma.
Stop being a tool and voting for the two wings of the American Corporate party. Everything that has happened is your fault.
You have no fucking idea how true crypts hidden operating system and "plausible deniability" work, do you? The free space, when booting the decoy system, ist the whole free space, including the space of the real operating system. So you have a secret limit of data you could store in the decoy system.
This space is defined at the beginning of the encryption process. It is only possible to delete all data be exceeding the data limit on the decoy or overwriting the free space by zeros. But there is no evidence that you have a second OS with hidden files.
It's called 'plausible deniability' for a reason.
If you're crossing the border into/out of the US:
A) Bring only a cheap, craptastic laptop that you're not going to be totally heartbroken if you lose.
B) Use whole-disk encryption.
C) Don't carry any sort of sensitive information on the machine whatsoever. That includes storing passwords.
D) Push any data you must have through out-of-band methods.
E) If you MUST store things on the machine, use things like Truecrypt containers to add additional layers of obfuscation to the fact that you have data at all.
As a citizen of the United States, I still feel these sorts of warrantless searche and seizure tactics are complete bullshit and completely in violation of the law.
But, apparently, there's going to need to be a civil war in this country before rights such as these can be restored, as the current faux-bipiartisan hegemony in this country has simply stopped giving a fuck about what's right or wrong anymore and is only interested in increasing their hold on power.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
4th amendment protects you against unreasonable searches and seizures. When this issue came up, very early on (i.e. when Constitution was still interpreted by the same people who wrote it), it was agreed that, as the notion of custom inspection is the one that had been in existence for a long time, and therefore common knowledge, and furthermore (in theory) serving the public interest, that any border search by customs officers is reasonable.
You do have 4th Amendment rights. It protects you against unreasonable search and seizure, not any kind of it.
No. It also protects me from random or unjustifiable searches. They need probable cause in order for it to be a reasonable search.
If the government can just decide that certain searches are "reasonable" to get around the fourth amendment, then the fourth amendment would be utterly worthless. This would also make the TSA 100% okay, under your reasoning.
And if they were doing it since about the beginning, that changes absolutely nothing. The fourth amendment actually defines "unreasonable." If they ignored this and decided it was more convenient to just violate people's rights (which would be bad whether or not it's constitutional), then they've been violating the constitution since the beginning. No surprise there.
This attitude is exactly the problem. Free speech zones. The NSA. The TSA. Constitution-free zones. Stop-and-frisk. Many of the problems we're having right now are happening because people are willing to hand over everyone's freedoms to the government and then try to rationalize their nonsensical choice.
The 4th does not define "unreasonable". If you read it closely, nowhere it says that warrantless search is unreasonable - only that warrants shall not be issued other than on probable cause. Like the 2nd, the two clauses of the 4th are disjoint, and one does not limit the other.
Personally, I disagree with the idea that a warrantless border search is always reasonable. I do agree that it presents more of a special case, but certainly not enough to give a blanket permit to search everyone for any reason or no reason at all. My point is solely that this is not, unfortunately, what the 4th says right now. So if we want this right to be protected, it'll have to be done explicitly in the constitution, by a new amendment.
Frankly, a new amendment codifying what is "unreasonable" with respect to the 4th is long overdue. It has been a hazy area pretty much ever since it was written down, as as we all know, government tends to adopt the most permissive (to them) interpretation of any right and limitation that they can get away with.
If the government could just decide that every search they wanted to conduct was 'reasonable,' the fourth amendment would be useless, and it would never have to get warrants to begin with.
But even if it couldn't be interpreted that way, I'm not sure how anyone could consider this as anything but unreasonable.
If the government could just decide that every search they wanted to conduct was 'reasonable,' the fourth amendment would be useless, and it would never have to get warrants to begin with.
Well, that's where separation of powers come into play. Legislative can make laws that define "reasonable", and executive can implement them, but where there is doubt about whether it is truly reasonable, judiciary gets to look closely at the arguments and decide one way or the other.
The separation of powers bit has failed time and time again. Security-happy freedom haters exist in all three branches and collude to take away the people's rights. This very problem is an example of that.
They always have decided.
Oh, I'm completely aware that the government routinely violates the constitution, so don't call me ignorant.
We should ALWAYS be looking at anything coming in through the border.
As we're supposedly "the land of the free and the home of the brave," we should strive for freedom above all else. Stripping people of their rights just because they're at the border is not something "the land of the free and the home of the brave" would do.
Let's just stop inspecting cargo coming in on ships, amirite?
Unless you have a reason to suspect someone's doing something wrong, that is right. We should not be searching people like this.
And hey, why not give the government the power to ransack everyone's homes whenever they feel like it? I'm sure they'd catch some filthy criminals then, right? And that's what's important: Safety...
since you have made up some completely arbitrary and imaginary rule
You mean like the government did when it decided what is and is not 'reasonable'? No matter what route you take, it's going to be arbitrary, though not really imaginary.
I hope you enjoy your free bread, charity case.
I hope you enjoy your TSA, your NSA, your free speech zones, and your constitution-free zones, you cowardly piece of trash. I'm certainly not enjoying them. Why not move to North Korea already?
What is your suggestion for the alternative?
When someone discovers that there is only 10 GB available of that 500 GB hard drive and they cut your hand off while asking you why? What is your next step in this brilliant plan?
If I remember correctly, there will be 500 GB available in the decoy partition. There will be only 3-4 GB of data, and 490 GB of free space. The free space, if examined with tools to access free blocks, will appear to contain random noise data, as if the disk at some earlier point did contain lots of zipped files, word docx files (they are really zip files), encrypted files, and other high-entropy files, and all these files were later deleted. When accessing the disk using the other password, then the "free" blocks are decrypted, and it will turn out that they contain files, directories, free-block-lists, and other file system structures. When files are written to the decoy file system blocks are allocated from the head of the free blocks list, which happens to contain blocks that are not used by the hidden file system. If you write sufficiently big files to the decoy system, I dont know, perhaps the hidden system begins to lose data, or perhaps the system feigns harware faults and shuts down.
There is no substitute for common sense. Especially, no body of rules will do.
Not giving them so much damn leeway to decide what is and is not "reasonable." Of course, I think separation of powers is a good idea, but we need more than that. As you said, constitutional amendments may be necessary.
I used to like McCain a lot. I even voted for him once. But Obama is clearly a better president than McCain would have been. And he's actually been pretty consistent and done what I expected. I don't _like_ what he's done, but it hasn't surprised me. But that is all entirely beside the point. Did you bother to read past the first sentence of what I wrote? It's important—if you care about having honest politicians, don't just make it into a debate to have to make yourself feel smart. Participate in the political races that actually have some hope of changing things. Be a citizen, not a spectator.
No you didn't. By voting for a third party presidential candidate, you voted for (McCain || Obama). That is, you chose not to vote. Nobody cares what message you send at the voting booth. Nobody notices the tiny percentage of votes third party candidates get. If you want to be "principled," go for it, but don't brag about it to anybody who can do math. Politics is a numbers game, not a matter of principle. If you want principled politicians, make the numbers work for you. Don't waste your time tilting at windmills.
So, I drive into Canada or Mexico, do you think Homeland Security would be kind enough to decrypt my files that Cryptolocker got to?
Well, the problem is that even with all the amendments, there will still come a time when the law needs to be interpreted - if it was all so crystal clear as to be self-evident in all cases, we wouldn't need judges in the first place. So the question on how exactly we resolve uncertainties remains.
I suppose it could be an interesting experiment if we had an arrangement similar to a grand jury for this. And if the vote in any such would not be unanimous, take it as an indication that constitution is unclear as written, and therefore an amendment that would clearly decide one way or another is necessary. Though that would also require a more agile process for amendments, e.g. a Swiss-style referendum, as opposed to the current one that can drag on for decades.
I'm embarrassed to admit though that today is not that day.
Well, the problem is that even with all the amendments, there will still come a time when the law needs to be interpreted - if it was all so crystal clear as to be self-evident in all cases, we wouldn't need judges in the first place.
It doesn't need to be 100% crystal clear in all cases (impossible) in order for it to be better than the mess we have now.
that you aren't American! Bad breath, very bad attitude, probably doesn't like guns, freedoms, Rights, nor, understands them...