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ACLU Sues TSA Over Electronic Device Searches (techcrunch.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the shrouded-in-secrecy dept.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California has filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Transportation Security Administration over its alleged practices of searching the electronic devices of passengers traveling on domestic flights. "The federal government's policies on searching the phones, laptops, and tablets of domestic air passengers remain shrouded in secrecy," ACLU Foundation of Northern California attorney Vasudha Talla said in a blog post. "TSA is searching the electronic devices of domestic passengers, but without offering any reason for the search," Talla added. "We don't know why the government is singling out some passengers, and we don't know what exactly TSA is searching on the devices. Our phones and laptops contain very personal information, and the federal government should not be digging through our digital data without a warrant." TechCrunch reports: The lawsuit, which is directed toward the TSA field offices in San Francisco and its headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, specifically asks the TSA to hand over records related to its policies, procedures and/or protocols pertaining to the search of electronic devices. This lawsuit comes after a number of reports came in pertaining to the searches of electronic devices of passengers traveling domestically. The ACLU also wants to know what equipment the TSA uses to search, examine and extract any data from passengers' devices, as well as what kind of training TSA officers receive around screening and searching the devices. The ACLU says it first filed FOIA requests back in December, but TSA "subsequently improperly withheld the requested records," the ACLU wrote in a blog post today.

7 of 115 comments (clear)

  1. Electronic devices by AHuxley · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Who would risk "electronic devices" in any setting thats got security and that US courts have talked about what can be searched over generations?
    Stop taking private and business related sensitive "electronic devices" to areas where a search can be expected and a search is legal.
    US courts have been asked every generation to offer protections, the right to a lawyer, to courts, to not have a bag searched, to not be questioned, to not have electronic devices questioned.
    Every generation expects "airports" to be court corrected over searches.
    Every generation the US courts return with the concept that bags and devices can be looked at and questioned as part of travel.
    Photographs can be looked at. Bags can be looked into.

    When a search is expected:
    Travel with a computer that has only a few new business and productivity apps on new storage. Nothing to show, nothing to recover, nothing to find.
    The computer like device works when asked to show it can be powered on. The productivity apps run, a new document can be created. No other digital files exist on that computer.
    A text file with the contact numbers and details for within the company that match up to a web site.
    VPN and use other secure methods later to get files and data in another part of the USA, another nation.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    1. Re:Electronic devices by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated" is pretty god-damned mother-fucking clear-as-crystal. So pardon the shit out of my mother-fucking french for expecting the god-damned government to get a mother-fucking warrant first.

    2. Re:Electronic devices by BlueStrat · · Score: 5, Insightful

      ANAL, but my understanding is that courts have found that searches at borders or airports are reasonable.

      This is not about people traveling on international flights. This is about US citizens traveling on domestic flights within the continental US and never leaving US airspace.

      Neither the TSA nor Customs/Border authorities have the authority to perform any search of domestic travelers, demand ID/papers, or demand that you answer their questions.

      It is quite likely that these searches are ordered quite deliberately only as verbal orders so as not to leave a paper trail for when FOIA requests start rolling in like now. Likely, they just get a phone call from some department, agency, or agent/officer/official requesting they search some person of interest, follow through, and report back by phone without creating any documents revealing the practice of performing unconstitutional searches without a warrant. Stonewalling or otherwise stymieing legitimate FOIA requests and other legitimate requests for documents, even subpoenas from Congress, seems to be quite in vogue for the US government.

      That's what happens when governments get too big and powerful; they start breaking their own laws with impunity while using those same laws as a weapon against opposition and those who would hold them accountable for their crimes.

      The TSA very likely has not provided any responsive documents in response to the ACLU's FOIA request because the policies in question are not of the written variety so they cannot provide that which they deliberately chose not to create.

      None of which should surprise anyone. The federal government has trampled on every one of the 10 rights in the BoR, I'd contend even the 3rd Amendment which forbids the quartering of soldiers. The reason the Third was created was the King would send soldiers to "quarter" in the homes of colonists they suspected of rebellion so the soldiers could search everything and watch everything they did.

      I contend the US government is quartering *digital soldiers* in our devices in the form of the tools and vulnerabilities created or kept quiet in order to perform the same task as the King's soldiers did in spying on the colonists.

      Our freedoms are disappearing quickly. Better wake up and make some noise, as it may already be too late to stop it.

      Strat

      --
      Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
  2. Why do people demand that they be caught? by AlanObject · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I have to travel with my laptop but if I had anything to hide it sure as hell wouldn't be there. Anyone caught at the border with something illegal is an idiot an is destined to be caught.

    Why the hell woudn't they encrypt it, stash it on a server, and downloaded when they get home? Alternatively send it to a home server before you even get on the plane? Then, of course, deep-delete everything.

  3. TSA has ONE job by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    TSA has ONE job. Keep people from bringing dangerous items on planes. The data on electronic devices doesn't qualify as such. This actually makes flying less safe because it distracts TSA from keeping truly dangerous items off of planes.

  4. Re:You don't have to give up sight of your propert by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Better solution: Bring a phone or laptop with hidden recording enabled and keylogger through a TSA checkpoint. See exactly what the fucking pigs are doing -- if it's recorded and keylogged, it's no longer secret. Post it on Youtube and Cryptome.

  5. Re:You don't have to give up sight of your propert by PinkyGigglebrain · · Score: 4, Insightful

    People!

    Could we please stop calling police and other LEOs "Pigs"?

    To the best of my knowledge no member of the species Sus (includes boar, warthog, etc.) has ever done anything to deserve that kind of insult.

    Call the TSA and LEO's what they are: "Brownshirts"