Slashdot Mirror
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.
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?
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.