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..."
Keep your phone encrypted and always power it off when crossing the border. They can seize your phone but can't compel you to decrypt it.
Agents can operate within a 100 mile zone of the border. (Most of the country)
https://www.aclu.org/constitution-100-mile-border-zone
"I have no idea why they wanted my phones..."
They didn't want the phones, they wanted to exercise power over you. They're low paid, in shitty jobs and hated for it. Acts like this are about all they can look forwards to.
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?
A journalist (of the WSJ no less) has no idea what is going on in their country? That's what was the most surprising to me. I mean, I knew about the 100-mile border rule and I am neither a journalist, nor a US citizen. I thought the US journalists are in on it with the government by not drawing attention to the slowly eroding US constitutional rights, but in this case it is not some conspiracy, the journalist is an idiot. Where idiot here is also used in the original meaning from the ancient greek (no unicode to list it here) which was referred to people who were not interested in the affairs of the State.
If a journalist whose job is to know stuff exactly like this, is surprised to find something like that out, what hope do the people in the US realize that they have let them take away their rights one by one?
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
No, they'd just bug her SIM card, and it would grab all her contacts the next time she switches on the phone.
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/02/gopherset_nsa_e.html
(TS//SI//REL) GOPHERSET is a software implant for GSM (Global System for Mobile communication) subscriber identity module (SIM) cards. This implant pulls Phonebook, SMS, and call log information from a target handset and exfiltrates it to a user-defined phone number via short message service (SMS).
(TS//SI//REL) Modern SIM cards (Phase 2+) have an application program interface known as the SIM Toolkit (STK). The STK has a suite of proactive commands that allow the SIM card to issue commands and make requests to the handset. GOPHERSET uses STK commands to retrieve the requested information and to exfiltrate data via SMS. After the GOPHERSET file is compiled, the program is loaded onto the SIM card using either a Universal Serial Bus (USB) smartcard reader or via over-the-air provisioning. In both cases, keys to the card may be required to install the application depending on the service provider's security configuration.
************
The SIM card keys keys they stole 2 billion of them from Gemalto, the SIM card manufacturer, by hacking their network and tracking their employees. If it's a USA phone, they would just ask AT&T or Sprint to give them the SIM card key, US telcos have immunity for helping the NSA, regardless of the laws.
Exactly this. In this era of a complete disregard for the 4th amendment ...
I agree there is disregard for the 4th amendment but this is NOT the case to argue that. US Customs has *always* been allowed to search your person and property at a border crossing since the founding days of our republic. What may be arguable in this case is that a TSA agent did the search not a Customs agent. Of course "deputizing" TSA as customs agents would close that loophole.
Is there any government on earth that does not have the right to search the person and property of an international traveler when they cross the border? Note "international traveler", within the EU you are no longer an international traveler, but when originally entering the EU from outside you were.
And by at the border I am referring to at the border, not 100 miles inside. That is a different situation IMO.