NZ Customs Wants Power To Require Passwords

First time accepted submitter Orange Roughy writes New Zealand customs are seeking powers to obtain passwords and encryption keys for travelers. Supposedly they will only act to obtain credentials if it was acting on 'some intelligence or observation of abnormal behaviour.' People who refuse to hand over credentials could face up to three months jail time. From the story: "Customs boss Carolyn Tremain has told MPs the department would only request travellers hand over passwords to their electronic devices if it had a reason to be suspicious about what was on them. The department unleashed a furore last week when it said in a discussion paper that it should be given unrestricted power to force people to divulge passwords to their smartphones and computers at the border. That would be without Customs officials having to show they had any grounds for suspicion."

Comments

See you in three months

[facetube]

for i in `seq 1 2160`; do echo "Hello, jail! It's hour $n."; done \
| gpg -a --symmetric --passphrase "$(dd if=/dev/urandom bs=1024 count=1)" > ~/important.txt

Re:Decoy

[sjames]

Do have plenty of powerpoints explaining the 1040 long form. That might actually put them into a coma if they look at it.

Re: Strong public relations

[Anonymous Coward]

Before my next visit to NZ I'll change my phone's password to "fuckyouretardednzcustomsofficers-youimbecilepuppetstotheusa"

Feel free to use it yourself :-)