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ACLU Sues TSA Over Electronic Device Searches (techcrunch.com)
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.
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.
Anyone caught at the border
This is about standard domestic searches NOT the border exception.
The TSA's own rules say that you can keep your belongings in sight while they are being inspected. The ACLU said of one woman passenger searched in the security line: "The agents did not ask her to unlock the phones, but took them for at least 10 minutes out of her view, she said, adding that she quickly became distraught." She should have loudly and repeatedly demanded to regain sight of her property. I've done this and gotten them to comply.
The articles referenced by the ACLU are in regards to ehanced X-Ray scanning as well as the usual "swab for explosives residue", I see no articles anywhere online talking about TSA wanting to review files stored on a laptop hard drive.
AC just stop taking phones and laptops loaded up with sensitive business and personal information to areas where a search is expected and legal..
A search of the digital contents of an phone or laptop storage is neither expected, nor legal, when traveling purely domestically from one US airport to another.
I take day trips from a US airport to another US airport (e.g. ORD->LGA) for work, usually flying in early in the morning, attending meetings (at which I need both laptop and phone and the data within), then flying back the same day. I believe my employer would support me if I refused to unlock my encrypted device for it to be searched, and as the device belongs to my employer, they'd be the ones filing a suit if TSA or CBP confiscated the device in order to perform a search.
As my flights for work are always purely domestic travel, such a search is not expected, and probably not legal.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
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.
Dear ACLU, here is the information you requested. [REDACTED][redacted][REDACTED][redacted][REDACTED][redacted][REDACTED][redacted][REDACTED][redacted][REDACTED][redacted][REDACTED][redacted][REDACTED][redacted][REDACTED][redacted] and the horse you rode in on. Love, TSA.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
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"
...because of TSA nonsense. If they're going to feel me up, if the airlines are going to beat me up, and if they want to look at my phone and computer, they're going to have to chase me down at 80 mph on I-10 to do it. I like to drive anyway, and they can take their big brother state and shove it. All they're doing, from the bag searches to these electronic searches, are illegal under the 4th Amendment according to Judge Napolitano on Fox News. He was very specific. Illegal. But they just do it anyway.
Stick my bags in the trunk, phone on my belt and computer on the seat beside me, and they're going to have to work to see any of 'em.
Searches at borders by Customs when you are crossing said border are considered reasonable. They have a duty and a law enforcement roll to ensure that our borders are secure and that you are not bringing illegal or pirated content into this country.
The TSA has no such ruling, they have no such scope of operations. Their job is to screen for weapons, nothing more. They are not a law enforcement agency. They have no basis or cause to be searching electronic devices for anything. But they are getting away with it because people can't usually afford to miss a flight.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
Why? Maybe because such searches are not in the scope or mission of the TSA. The TSA is not a law enforcement agency, they've tried to become one. but have been repeatedly rebuffed. Get caught trying to pass through security with a weapon and they call the airport or local city police to arrest you because they can't.
They have no business searching any electronic devices. Their mission is simple, screen passengers and their checked luggage for weapons capable of bringing down or hijacking an aircraft. Nothing more.
This is not a border crossing. The Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld the right to Travel freely within and out of this country as one of the non-enumerated fundamental rights of this country. These searches are a massive invasion of our 4th amendment rights and a massive mission creep of an agency that has a very simple job (that they are rather inept at doing).
They are not Customs which is tasked to control illegal content (pirated IP, Kidde porn etc) from entering the country. They are not a Law enforcement agency (FBI) tasked with trying to stop the existence and movement of illegal content. They are the TSA, tasked with making sure no weapons or bombs get into our airport Secure zones.
Please explain what content security screeners need to be looking for. What file (that a TSA goon is likely to find) is going to threaten a flight?
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
Shit, well scratch that, I was wrong. You are likely to be arrested, but quite a few lawyers claim they can get you off:
https://www.ciyoudixonlaw.com/firearms-law/what-happens-if-i-accidentally-take-a-gun-through-an-airport-security-checkpoint/
https://nolacriminallaw.com/the-problem-of-firearms-at-tsa-checkpoints/
https://criminal-defense-attorney-tampa.blogspot.hr/2012/03/accidentally-bringing-gun-to-airport.html
The short of it is you should always clearly state that you did not know there was a firearm in your bag. That will get you off the criminal charge, but the slimy TSA fucks will still hit you with a $10k civil fine. There are a number of ways to get that down, but you may still end up paying something....sigh.
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.