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Homeland Security Border Agents Can Seize Your Phone (cnn.com)
Slashdot reader v3rgEz writes: A Wall Street Journal reporter has shared her experienced of having her phones forcefully taken at the border -- and how the Department of Homeland Security insists that your right to privacy does not exist when re-entering the United States. Indeed, she's not alone: Documents previously released under FOIA show that the DHS has a long-standing policy of warrantless (and even motiveless) seizures at the border, essentially removing any traveler's right to privacy.
"The female officer returned 30 minutes later and said I was free to go," according to the Journal's reporter, adding. "I have no idea why they wanted my phones..."
"The female officer returned 30 minutes later and said I was free to go," according to the Journal's reporter, adding. "I have no idea why they wanted my phones..."
One of the Snowden leaks revealed that when you hand over your phone at 5-eyes embassies and borders, they use the opportunity to install software bugs on the phone. I imagine its the same at the USA border.
DHS seems to be ignoring the Jae Shik Kim case, where they seized his laptop at the border and cloned it to go fishing. He sued and the court blocked it.
But I don't think gathering *visible* evidence was the game here, since she's a journalist. More likely it would be the NSA bugging route.
One thing the summary doesn't mention is that the reporter who was detained is probably non-white: her name is Maria Abi-Habib and she covers the middle east for the Wall Street Journal. In the Facebook post, she says she goes by Maria Theresa. She's apparently non-muslim, but probably looks close enough to a middle easterner that racial profiling kicked in.
I love those armed checkpoints many miles from the border in Arizona.
Ironically, the last time I had to go through one I was the passenger in a car with Arizona plates. I'm 50, the driver was 65, both of us are Caucasian men. We had to answer a bunch of questions and were there for 2-3 minutes. The driver lives in Bisbee and has to pass through either the checkpoint in Tombstone or Sierra Vista to go anywhere north (Benson, Tuscon, etc), and so is through the checkpoints all the time.
The car in front of us had *Mexican* plates and 2 passengers. I don't think they were stopped for more than 10 seconds.
That's just fucking great. Two American Citizens NOT crossing a border in a vehicle with in-state plates spend more time answering Border Patrol questions than three likely foreign nationals in a vehicle with foreign license plates. Tell me what this system is about again?
Some asshole needs to explain to me how this is "over rated". Frankly, I LOVE being completely unplugged and disconnected from it all.... almost like a vacation.
C|N>K
What's even sillier is the one in NY.... I87 / US 9 have one in the middle of Adirondack park, 90 miles from the border... basically there's no way you're getting around that without adding a massive amount of time to the trip. It's also only there randomly, presumably to tempt anyone interesting into taking the direct route. But seriously what are they worried Canadians are going to do, bring us decent healthcare? Make us speak French? Kill us with delicious poutine? Most of the people on the road are just Plattsburgh residents trying to get the hell out of there and to somewhere interesting...
We have the same in San Diego - a border check on 5 fwy 40 miles from the border. It's the only direct way to get to Orange County from SD & I drive through it every day. I am baffled as to why we cannot keep the border checks at the border. Over the years I have missed several meetings because the delay goes to maybe 30 minutes or so. For every illegal they catch and throw back, there must be 100's of hours productivity lost to local businesses because of workers stuck on the 5 freeway.
In a flat world where you have to compete with all countries, I just don't get why any politicians see this as beneficial use of resources (keep in mind US trillion dollar federal deficit.)
sigs are for losers (except to point out that sigs are for losers)
Actually, the most likely thing they wanted to do was swab it for drugs. My sister was a Canadian border guard, and if they had any suspicion that you might be carrying drugs or similar, they'd take an item of yours (ID, phone, etc...) into the back room and swab it to check for the presence of an elevated amount of narcotics. If they found it, that would cause them to do a more thorough search.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
At the UK border they can demand you power on your electronics. In theory it's to prove that they are real. It's not clear how far they can demand you go... Full boot up or just to the encryption key prompt.
I've taken to simply wiping the whole machine, installing a dummy OS and then restoring from an image when I get to my destination. The image is stored encrypted on a server and I don't have access to the password. Ditto with my phone.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
It gets worse. The government has recently been circulating the idea that every airport in the country is an international border because technically, a little Cessna 172 or Piper Cherokee that departs from Canada or Mexico could potentially land there. You'll find this includes everything right down to untowered strips in podunk towns. Thus the Constitution-Free Zone would extend outward in a 100 mile radius from every airport "capable of serving international traffic." That covers almost the entire US, barring a few exceptions in sparsely populated states like Nebraska where you might find a spot that has no airstrips within 100 miles.
When defined this way, for all intents and purposes, the whole US population lives within the Constitution-Free Zone.
You obviously don't travel for business.
I went to the UK, the company I was working for had a company phone with every number I needed pre-programmed, ready to hand to me after I got off the plane and out of the airport once inside the UK. Before going back to the USA, hand them the phone back before entering the airport.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I do not, nor have I ever, used my personal cell phone for work purposes. Key work people may have the number for emergency purposes, but it's made clear that me providing that number is a serious point of trust, and that it should never be used except for the most dire circumstances. My work cell not answering doesn't count. Clients are to *never* get that number.
About a year ago, I took a job where they don't provide a phone. I chose instead to purchase a separate line that is used entirely for business. Only a few personal contacts have the number (parents and wife, basically). If I ever leave the company, the line gets disabled (phone was purchased off contract) so I don't have to field calls from clients. Even if I choose to use the phone with a new employer, it will get a different number. The cost of the phone and extra line comes off taxes each year.
When traveling internationally, the phone gets backed up, wiped, and reinitialized with a separate ID that has no links to the old except for necessary work contacts. Something similar happens to the notebook. After returning home, what little new data is present is backed up, then the pre-trip backups are restored.
All devices are fully encrypted, so reinitialization gets a fully clean start.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
The First Congress obviously considered border searches reasonable because they authorized searching every room and every item of a ship for contraband. They (or a significant overlap) also wrote the Fourth Amendment, prohibiting "unreasonable" search and seizure. Thus under an originalist view and a traditional view, there is a very low expectation of privacy at the border, and Fourth Amendment rights are very small there.
They are not quite nonexistent. For example, I believe there was a case a little while ago saying that if they wanted to do a destructive search of your vehicle, they needed reasonable suspicion. RS is a very, very low standard, but it is a standard.
There is a more legitimate dispute about searching the contents of electronic devices. (Because it is more intrusive, since they can contain massive amounts of information about your life.) But regarding the border search exception generally, GP is correct that there has always been a strong border search exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement. And since the rise of modern warfare, there's really been no legitimate argument against that. (Nations have an existential interest in controlling the movement of chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons.)
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