As Expected, Court Says Customs Can Search Your Laptop
from the you-have-no-privacy-at-the-border dept
As was widely expected, an appeals court has ruled that customs agents have every right to search the content of your laptop, reversing the only court case that had ruled otherwise (a few others had previously said such searches were just dandy). The court found (just like the other rulings) that there's an "exception" to the 4th Amendment against unreasonable search and seizure at the border. The government, of course, claims that it needs to be able to search laptops to keep people safe -- but it doesn't explain why it needs the ability to search any laptop even if there's no suspicion or reason to do a further search. The lower court had noted, correctly, that there's so much data and information on a laptop, that it's effectively an extension of your brain. This makes sense. Since so much is digital today, you don't pack up your computer like you pack your suitcase. Everything is already on it. So while you can understand why it's okay to search your suitcases at the border, giving full access to a laptop seems to go beyond reason... unfortunately, the courts disagree. In the meantime, if you're traveling into the country, consider anything on your laptop fair game... unless, of course, it's encrypted. In that case, at least one court says you don't need to give up your encryption key.
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Filed Under: border patrol, customs, laptops, search and seizure
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What About ...
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Some bullshit
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what kind of moron says that this is ok?
what if many people have laptop's, they gonna search them all? just the ones whose owners have turbans on? what's gonna be the deal?
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I can pretty much guarantee a bunch of customs agents won't find it.
There's removable media, you could change hard drives, use a flash drive, keep it on a remote site, download it from a remote host, or write it on a taco bell napkin.
It's just one more step taken to "control" us.
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Exactly right!
As usual, our stupid government's response is to harrass the innocent and make life more miserable. Why do lawmakers ALWAYS choose the worst possible course?
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Hardware - Yes, Digital Content - No
But they should not be permitted to inspect the information contents of the memory and storage media. This is information, and is protected. Any such information could enter this country over any communication network, P2P, private lines, encrypted VPNs, mailed disks, satellite, etc. Not only is it against our rights, but it is unproductive use of a border guard's time.
Can I simply lock my laptop with fingerprint encryption and refuse to log them in?
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Re: Hardware - Yes, Digital Content - No
Anyway, there's an easy last-ditch security measure any good hacker employs: a secondary login with root privileges that executes "find /home/ | shred" when logging in.
For the non-BASH-savvy, this finds all of 's data and pipes it into the shred program, which writes over the file with random data before unlinking it from the filesystem (deleting only does the latter).
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Re: Re: Hardware - Yes, Digital Content - No
Anyway, there's an easy last-ditch security measure any good hacker employs: a secondary login with root privileges that executes "find /home/<main user> | shred" when logging in.
For the non-BASH-savvy, this finds all of <main user>'s data and pipes it into the shred program, which writes over the file with random data before unlinking it from the filesystem (deleting only does the latter).
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Wow
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TrueCrypt
File and disk based encryption for Linux, Mac and Windows. It also has a hidden volume which provides plausible deniability (http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/?s=plausible-deniability).
Use it if you absolutely have to carry a laptop overseas.
Chris.
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Re:
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So, the point is ....
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Re: so many ways to circumvent
We should be saying FUCK OFF to all these idiot judges in the courts.
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Obviously that's not all they're looking for, but it wouldn't surprise me that's where it started and went down the slippery slope from there.
Not that I agree with the decision -- I don't -- nor do I necessarily agree with the encryption as munitions thing either.
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EEE ftw!
so if i wanted to slip into or out of the country i can just leave my laptop in fisher price mode until i get to where i am going and make other arrangements for my backtrack card.
as for data, just encrypt it and push it someplace safe on the internet, cross the border, and pull it back down. you could do it at the airport on the wireless network if you were feeling particularly snarky... you tunnel your traffic thru SSH on potentially hostile networks, right?
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Something to hide
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Border Search Instance.
I had no idea that was your wife in the 160gb's
worth of porn on my hard drive"
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This is hilarious.
Are they going to take it out and look at that too? And does that mean that they're going to invest money in keeping every kind of micromemory chip because I sure as hell won't carry the adaptor with me.
If I need to take a laptop somewhere, I can just remove the battery and send it ahead, or make sure the battery has just a few minutes of juice and send the charger ahead.
If I can think of these things, criminals can think of better ones.
This is an asinine waste of money and time.
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All I see is How too's
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Not so funny and not the last word
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What is at stake here isn't customs arbitrarily reading everyone's computer files. They could care less about your pirated movies and music. Customs needed a clear court ruling so that any suspected criminal/terrorist/general dumbass can't claim their computer files are self-incriminating and thus protected by the fifth amendment.
Sheesh, get a grip.
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Re:
Again, we're not talking about bombs inside of laptop casings here. We're talking about the equivalent of books and various forms of documentation. There should be a reason they have to search through your data. It's almost to the point of being a witch hunt, like they're just trying to find some excuse to take our rights away.
The problem really starts to become evident with reports of these devices being confiscated and never returned, again without due cause. Either our rules regarding the proper conduct of our customs agents are not strict enough, or we have corrupt agents who are not following said rules.
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Re:
It's rather simple (or so I thought). If you're carrying documents, files, books or blueprints on you, you chose to take them *specifically* with you on the trip.
That's not the case with files on your computer, which have likely accumulated over time.
If you were travelling internationally, there are lots of documents you wouldn't take with you, but stuff on your computer it's the opposite. You have to proactive chose to NOT take them.
That's why it's quite different.
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Re: Re:
Your argument that having accumulated a large amount of data over time on electronic media should exempt you from the search and seizure rules is faulty. The correct argument is either all data, regardless of size and media, is subject to search or none of it is. Quantity and media choice should not be a factor in determining the government's right to inspect.
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Everyone sees what the problem is. What do you expect people to do about it? Write to the politicians? Yeah, that's going to carry a lot of weight when they'rew being accused of supporting terrorism and not being patriotic for opposing something that the white tells them is absolutely vital for keeping America safe. Organizations like the ACLU are already protesting this and look how much luck they're having.
To add to the growing list of suggestions, how about unplugging the cable to the hard drive? When they turn it on, they'll get the BIOS screen and nothing else. You can then accuse the customs agent of having broken it.
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There are How-To's because...
And unfortunately, until everyone my grandparent's age dies, that is all we will be able to do. Most of these people have antiquated ideas that don't easily apply to new technology (or to old technology in alot of cases) and they are a huge voter base. So we just have to wait until we can change the world.
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Can't compare this to searching books
But, your laptop is much more personal. Suppose your laptop is your main computer (you don't have a desktop) and you also use it for work. What might be on it? Your personal finances (Quicken and QuickBooks), confidential files relating to your business (designs, sketches, contracts with other people, etc).
What happens when some government agency "looses" your laptop with ALL of the personal information stored in Quicken? Bank information, bank access codes, password, credit card information, SSN, addresses, etc.
And QuickBooks could contain all of this information for the employees on your payroll.
Granted, the possible identity theft isn't that great, but why even take the chance?
Why can't we go back to the system we had back in 2000 where the TSA agents asked you to turn on your computer to prove it wasn't a bomb? What is the *need* to look through people's files? Like so many posters said, does the government really think they'll catch the next terrorist because he has a file called "way_to_blow_up_buildings.doc"? It's 2008: the would-be terrorist doesn't need a Word file when there are a gazillion *websites* out there.
Or is that the next plan? Browse the web on people's laptops when they cross the border?
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Got time to spare?
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Laptops
> in 2000 where the TSA agents asked you to turn
> on your computer to prove it wasn't a bomb?
The silly thing about that is that it *doesn't* prove the laptop isn't a bomb. It's not all that hard to construct a laptop that will show a basic startup screen when powered up while also containing a pound or two of explosives.
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1. Hijack aircraft
2. Cause aircraft to explode in midair
3. Otherwise cause any other disaster to the aircraft while in flight.
Therefore, customs doesn't just have no business searching laptops for "incriminating evidence". It will be wasting its time (as well as everyone else's) when it does.
(The physical laptop itself may be a different matter, but we have security in place for *that* already.)
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not just the border
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enforcement on the computer
--Glenn
8]
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New Internation Law called ACTA
Items of interest:
Music
Movies (any movie now - not just child porn)
Encrypted hard drive
Encrypted File(s)
New devices to be searched:
Cell Phones
Portable Music devices
Portable Memory Drive
It goes on to indicate you must have proof of purchase or be carrying the original. Failure to be able to show proof of purchase within a reasonable amount of time (to prevent a delay to others entering the country) will get your laptop confiscated and you go on your way or if blatant violation of the law is detected then you get arrested. You will be required to provide the encryption key on encrypted files or you are violating this new "international" law.
American border agents, Marshalls, Interpol, and airport security will be required to increase their searches also. They will get a huge source of funding from the Recording and the Movie industry if this goes through.
We will lose the ability to prove innocence before we are found guilty of this law. And once confiscated you can not challenge the law in court as it in an International law and you can not get back your property.
This is happening now at the G8 Summit. And the US Congress which is currently controlled by the Democrats have already put their support behind it.
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why?
_______________________________
Try these sites if you want to waste some more time and money
http://RecordOnlineGuide.blogspot.com
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