Laptops Can Be Searched At the Border

Nothing to Declare notes that a California appeals court has unanimously upheld a ruling that border security officers at international airports can search personal computers without requiring any specific evidence of criminal activity. The appeal was made by US resident Michael Timothy Arnold, charged with child pornography offenses after an airport search of his notebook PC in 2005. Might want to think hard about what's on your laptop if you're going to be passing through a US international airport.

I Wonder

[OS24Ever]

It makes you wonder that if there hadn't been something like Child Porn on there if this would have been overruled.

If it'd been a violation of rights search where they searched and you sued just for that with no criminal conviction.

The sad part, is this sets a president if it is allowed to stand, and whittles away at everything else.

Cmon people

[Alarindris]

Search and siezure with NO EVIDENCE OF CRIMINAL ACTIVITY??
How is this even remotely legal?
Can this possibly set a precedent for searching other items?
Why are computers treated any differently than anything else?
What threat does data on a computer pose to an airplane?
I would think a backpack or suitcase would be able to do more damage.

I feel lightheaded...

Time to think

[Jason1729]

Might want to think hard about what's on your laptop if you're going to be passing through a US international airport.

Might want to think hard about making a trip to the states even if you don't have anything untoward on your laptop.

4th Amendment...

[Delwin]

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. " I can see them checking your person before getting on a plane to make sure you're not carrying weapons... but what on your laptop could possibly endanger an airplane?

On the plus side...

[Wordplay]

This should cause a nice bump for encrypted drive/volume software.

It's a real shame this revolved around a kiddie porn case that hinged on the admissibility of the evidence. Nobody wants to let the kiddie porn guy go, so the chances of getting a good precedent here were probably that much lower.

Re:I Wonder

[the_skywise]

It makes you wonder if Slashdot would've even posted something like this if it didn't involve computers...
FTFA:

"Arnold has failed to distinguish how the search of his laptop and its electronic contents is logically any different from the suspicionless border searches of travelers' luggage that the Supreme Court and we have allowed," wrote Justice Diarmuid O'Scannlain.

Is searching the files on a laptop when entering the country any different from searching paper files in a briefcase at the border?

Re:Where and how do they search

[peipas]

And that's the thing. Like the last /. discussion on this, if your hard drive is encrypted can they compel you to provide access as a condition for allowed travel?

What about employees of organizations/in professions that are legally required to protect information?

Re:I Wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't carry drugs or bombs on a hard disk.

Be Prepared

[Stavr0]

Idiot got caught with child porn. Zero sympathy here. However it's a slippery slope.

What about software, videos, MP3? What if they want proof of license? They could also decide to download your email inbox and address book. Why? Because They Can.
I know what's going on my laptop next time I cross the border. TrueCrypt. That's what.

Re:Time to Roll Out The Crypto

[Yogiz]

The next logical question is, if you password-protect and encrypt your hard drive to thwart precisely this kind of unwarranted and unjustifiable privacy invasion, can Customs force you to divulge your passwords?

Schwab

The answer to this is to use deniable encryption. For example throw all your sensitive data on a separate partition that is at the end of the hard drive and encrypt it. Not the data, the partition. Keep the decryption tools on a separate pen drive or just make them look like something innocent. Now it looks just as if part of the hard drive is simply unused. If they don't know the encryption is there, they can't do anything. If a window jumps up at boot that says "Enter the passphrase that will decrypt the harddrive where all the information that customs shouldn't see is" you can be sure you'll be searched and probed in minutes.

Re:I Wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

That understanding of the Fourth Amendment has been on the books for centuries. It might be "right" or "wrong," but there's no doubt that it's been the law for ages.

Wow, a centuries old precedent that was derived from a 22 year old Supreme Court case? That's pretty amazing.

Boom for courier companies?

[s0litaire]

Guess FedEx / DHL will run out of Laptop sized boxes soon. All those business travellers opting to send their laptop home, instead of carrying it on the plane..

Re:4th Amendment...

[Kohath]

You don't have a 4th Amendment right to cross the US border.

As a condition of allowing you to cross the border, you are subject to search. It is as simple as that.

All governments have always rightfully had the power to control traffic across their borders.

Re:4th Amendment...

[Solandri]

Think about going through international customs at any major airport. You go through US customs after you've already landed. The point is to control smuggling of goods into the US, not to protect airplanes.

I agree, but that reasoning only works for physical goods. If I'm trying to smuggle cocaine into the U.S., then yeah searching me at the border could stop me. But we're talking about data - ones and zeros. If I'm trying to smuggle it into the U.S., I don't need to carry it on my laptop, I could just email it to someone already in the U.S. Or leave it on a server outside the U.S., enter the U.S., open an SSH tunnel to the server, and ftp the files over.

Re:Time to Roll Out The Crypto

[kpoole55]

I imagine that if you encrypt your data and then refuse to give them the password it would be treated something along the lines of refusing to give a breathalyzer sample. In their eyes, the only reason you'd refuse is because you're trying to hide something illegal. The solution is to have nothing on your notebook, keep all your work or pr0n on your machine at home and access it via some remote desktop service or home server.

Re:Time to think

[Hatta]

Funny though, our stature in the world seems to be declining along with our freedom. Eventually we'll have none of either left, and the world will continue without us.

Re:Time to think

[pcgc1xn]

Might want to think about traveling THROUGH the US.

Even if you are just transiting from one international flight to another, you need to clear US immigration and customs.

That is right, US immigration just to get back on a plane which is immediately leaving the country. And of course as you are not a US citizen you have NO rights at all. But the friendly attitude of the border staff more than makes up for the slight inconvenience.

Re:4th Amendment...

[FSWKU]

That would be all fine and good if it were as simple as saying "No, thank you." and going back the other way. Unfortunately, once you've landed, you are pretty much at the whim of the airport. If you refuse, you can't just hop back on the plane and go home. Not only would the airline have NO clue what to do with your luggage (as if they do in the first place), but security could probably then hold you suspect for failure to comply with procedures. If they end up doing that, your laptop will get searched anyway. After all, you must have SOMETHING to hide? Why else would you not let them search the computer in the first place (not saying that point is valid, but you KNOW it would get used)?

Re:Time to Roll Out The Crypto

[gstoddart]

I imagine there's some thinly-parsed definition about whether or not you're officially on US soil when you're entering Customs and, therefore, whether the Fifth Amendment could be said to apply.

Heck, Gonzales once issued a statement once saying that people who haven't cleared customs technically are neither in nor out of the US, and therefore have no actual rights (can't dredge up a reference now). He's certainly said that habeus corpus [sfgate.com] isn't actually a right.

Basically, for a while at least, the legal opinion was that you could be arbitrarily and indefinitely detained without recourse. You're so far removed from the 5th Amendment at that point, it's not funny!!

Unless things change, you have shockingly few rights at the border -- at least until a court clarifies things.

Cheers

Now wait a minute...

[sirgoran]

So as a parent, if I take a picture of my 6-month old baby girl in a bathtub, have the picture on my computer, and go traveling, I could be detained and locked up for child pornography? I'm sorry but I have little faith that our minimum wage earning security sloths will be able to tell the difference between proud parent images and kiddie porn.

I seem to remember a similar situation at a department store photo department. The teenager running the picture printer saw pictures of a 7 or 8-year old bare-chested child with long hair (it turned out later to be a boy), thought it was kiddie porn and called the cops.

I barely feel like they know how to do the job they have. Now were going to have them searching peoples laptops?

This is just plain stupid.

-Goran

Re:I Wonder

[unlametheweak]

You can't carry drugs or bombs on a hard disk.

Yes, but you can carry ideas, perversions, business contacts, dirty pictures, and trade secrets. All of these are of interest to inquiring minds.

So it doesn't really matter if privacy is violated as long as the government gets to meet its agenda.

Re:Easy solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Take the hard drive out and mail it to whatever location you are going to. When they turn on your laptop and can't figure out why nothing comes up, just tell them there's no drive in it. Customs could search the hard drive you mailed as well. It's the exact same rules.

Re:I Wonder

[electrictroy]

In a country that is supposedly allows "freedom of thought", what does it matter what kind of entertainment I enjoy? Yes child porn is wrong, but what about other things like enjoying women playing with themselves?

Since when is "loose morals" an illegal act?

Re:Be Prepared

[kalirion]

Hell, beware of nude pictures without model's birth certificate as proof of legality.

Re:I Wonder

[MenTaLguY]

You can't carry drugs or bombs in paper files either. Except maybe LSD.

I like how in your world

[apparently]

it makes perfect sense that people traveling with their laptop only bring "unimportant" information with them. What should a road-warrior expect, access to their data while they travel? Hogwash! There is no reason for them to ahve information that important on their laptop. It should be secured on the servers and accessed when needed.

Re:Logically Different

[Anonymous Coward]

I think we've all forgotten something. The reason "suspicionless border searches of travelers' luggage" was initially allowed was to find bombs.

Ummm, no. You're thinking of searching airline passengers.

Border searches have been going on for centuries, mainly for tariffs, to keep out contraband and prevent undesirable individuals from entering.

A sovereign nation has the right to control their borders.

Re:Now wait a minute...

[bskin]

Answer: Yes. Sicko.

ObLink [pbfcomics.com]

Re:I Wonder

[ender-]

...

I'm guessing they equated this search with looking through a suitcase, finding a suspicious envelope, which when opened contained child porn photos or film. ...

I have to ask. What constitutes a 'suspicious' envelope in a suitcase? Lets say I have a suitcase containing my clothes, and I have a letter-sized manila envelope laid on top of the clothes. Shy of a big "My kiddie porn" written in sharpie across the face of the envelope, what would make that envelope more suspicious than any other envelope? How is this determined?

I suppose if the envelope is sneaking around, glancing furtively and acting paranoid, I maybe could see describing it as 'suspicious'. Otherwise they are just opening random envelopes. Nothing suspicious about them at all.

Re:I Wonder

[vortechs]

Interesting - nobody ever drops a laptop while on a business trip and brings it back with them to get it repaired in the States? That's certainly what I would have done...

Re:I Wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

What happens if your laptop breaks during the trip?

This can happen legitimately. I once carried a laptop that was nearly inoperable into the US from a foreign country. It would only work with the case half open and a strategic wad of paper wedged into the right place, and it would spontaneously freeze or kernel panic if I pushed on the wrong places. (The motherboard was cracked, resulting in intermittent electrical connections.)

This laptop was so precarious that it would not have surprised me in the least if it had completely given up the ghost during the bus ride to the airport, going through security, or getting manhandled onto the plane. The day after I arrived in the US I picked up a brand new one, transfered my files over, and sold the working pieces of the old one.

But since this "never, EVER" happens, I would clearly have been lying if I had taken out my weirdly bent laptop with paper sticking out the side and told the agent that it had spontaneously given up the ghost somewhere over the Atlantic. What would happen to me then? How fucked would I have been? How wary should I be about traveling with legitimately broken equipment in the future?

Re:Violating my 5th Amendment Rights... again?

[Hel Toupee]

Customs Agent: OK, you won't enter the password, I'm just going to confiscate your laptop and let those guys in the lab have a look. You can write a letter to request it back... blah blah blah Hey, Bubba, gimme that pirated Windows XP disk we confiscated from that kid that came through here an hour ago. Just found my kid a birthday present.

Unfortunately, Government also gives PEOPLE power. PEOPLE are, unfortunately, corrupted by power. Especially low-paid customs inspectors. The best-of-worst-case scenario you can expect from them searching a device with encrypted data on it that is capable of decrypting said data is to lose both the device and the data. Especially if the device is new and shiny.

Re:I Wonder

[QuantumRiff]

This scares the crap out of me, but whats going to happen when someone comes back from an international conference with their laptop loaded with customer data for a bank or something heavily regulated. Who gets in trouble for the disk being copied? the bank, the employee, or the fed? And do they let you in if it is an encrypted drive, and you don't give them the key, because it is against disclosure laws?

Re:I Wonder

[rmccann]

You can make a horror film without killing someone. In order to make a child porno film, you have to sexually abuse a child.

Re:I Wonder

[bwcbwc]

Any of the items you list could be on paper. I still don't see the distinction here between a hard drive file and a paper file, other than (potentially) the quantity of data involved. Can you name one type of data that can be stored on a hard-drive that (given enough mass of paper) cannot be printed on paper in a human readable format? For example even executable code can be disassembled and printed out.

Re:What happens if your laptop is encrypted?

[Futurepower(R)]

The U.S. is becoming a police state, apparently.

Stealing the laptop won't help if they don't have the password.

Truecrypt has the ability to make hidden encrypted partitions.

Re:I Wonder

[Hemogoblin]

Exactly. Little things like that are let through all the time.

It's when people lie about stupid things like "Uhhh... I'm going to see my friend", when they're actually on a sales-call, is what makes us annoyed. We're very good at noticing lies, so we'll immediately ask probing questions. The person will get nervous because they don't want to admit they lied, so they'll lie some more. After 20 minutes I'll finally have the true story, and it'll turn out what they were going to do was legal anyway. It's a waste of time for everyone.

Re:I Wonder

[unlametheweak]

You can make a horror film without killing someone. In order to make a child porno film, you have to sexually abuse a child.

Wrong! And I smell hypocrisy here; you are implying that the movie with violence can be simulated and the one with sex cannot. Also, I can only presume you are equating sex with "abuse" (I use quotes here because it is a vague word that is used only for political reasons. The very use of the word itself is a Troll).

So right now in Ontario, Canada the award winning film the Tin Drum was recently classified as "child pornography" (a film I happened to have watched (legally) on Canadian television when I was a child). This is an example of morality being adopted into law. If I was to impose my own morals on people then parents who expose their children to religion would be put in jail for their perversions. It's lucky for those parents that I neither have the power or hypocrisy to do this.

Digital transport

[rmadmin]

There is actually a pretty easy way around this. (Albeit, there are some variables that effect practicality). If I were to travel across borders and knew I had material I did not want seen (private photos? personal docs), I would simply sftp them some place safe and delete them from my hard drive. Once on the other side, I sftp my files back down. The border guards can search until the cows come home for all I care. Screw all that encrypted file system crap. :) PLUS, if my laptop gets broken or stolen, I don't lose all my important docs.

Re:I Wonder

[Grishnakh]

By making child porn illegal, you reduce the demand for it and thus reduce the supply as well.

That concept worked really well during Prohibition, didn't it?

Re:I Wonder

[TheSpoom]

And, y'know, they'll keep the laptop.

Re:I Wonder

[Lumpy]

Yup which is why I end run you guys.

My real laptop is FedEX shipped past you. Next day air from the nearest station in canada to my hotel or destination.

you guys can search my EEE pc all day long, you'll get a clean SD card too the one with my links and stuff is hidden.

TSA is easy to end run.

Re:I Wonder

[IgnoramusMaximus]

As others have already pointed out, that is not true.

Furthermore, all "child pornography" (whatever the definition) is "illegal". In some places that definition includes fantasies such as hand drawn cartoons and stories.

Also, while on the subject of "child pornography", what is it exactly? When does a subject cease to be a "child" and become an "adult"? Most countries use a self-contradictory, hypocritical and obviously (to any thinking person) bogus scheme: one day you are a feeble-minded minor who is to be protected from evils of tobacco, alcohol and sex and just about a millisecond later (at the stroke of a clock on your birthday) you are a full-fledged, strong-willed, responsible "adult" who can participate in a televised orgy while boozed out of his/her mind. Logical, no?

Not to mention that in many countries you are old enough to serve in the army, go slaughter other people, witness unspeakable horrors of war and be subjected to them ... and yet you are not old enough to bang someone 5 years older then you. Say nothing of alcohol.

"Hypocrisy" is a word too weak for this nonsense, which most people accept without blinking or giving a second thought about it.

"Think of the children!" was always a rallying cry of every description of scoundrel and authoritarian since times immemorial.

In my view the problem of child abuse is far more complicated then this simplistic bureaucratic idiocy is trying to make it out to be and it revolves around a definition of consent and an ability to consent. But that is a whole other discussion. Pictures and other forms of information have very little to do with any of this, other then to serve as a focus of wrath of various power-hungry political charlatans and authoritarians (many of whom are secretly collecting the very pictures).

Re:I Wonder

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Child porn is real evidence of underage children being victimized.

As I already pointed out, not necessarily. "Child porn", by the current legal "definition", includes things such as 3D animations, hand drawn cartoons, Photoshopped photos etc. All of which is illegal.

Furthermore, by the time it reaches some random laptop after circling the bowels the Internet for years, the odds of it being useful in tracking down the source are slim at best. And since when do we lock up people who are merely in posession of an "evidence" of a crime, almost certainly commited by another person?

Also, define "underage" in some logical terms not involving a "child" becoming and "adult" in a less-then-millisecond interval at the midnight of one of his/her birthdays.

Rambo is a fictional movie, in case you weren't aware, maybe it was your own fantasies that got a little bit out of control if you thought for a second they were the same.

Insulting me will not change the fact that these "laws" (and those who make and defend them) are utterly hypocritical and illogical.

Re:Only on slashdot

[Smauler]

No, movies where people murder people are not illegal to own AFAIK. If so, I and many websites including youtube will be in trouble : One [metacafe.com] or two [youtube.com] examples (if you haven't worked this out, these videos are videos of murders. Don't watch if you don't want to). Possessing video of a crime is definately not necessarily a crime in itself, apart from when it concerns sex.

The situation is this now : It is legal to own actual video of murders. It is illegal for a 17 year old to create a CGI of themselves (or obviously film themselves) and send it to their partner.

People are not defending child pornography here, people are questioning the law. Also, there is such a thing a due process - if you start ignoring it for "really nasty" crimes, eventually you'll start ignoring it for more and more crimes, and your liberties are dwindling at an alarming rate. Just because people question the process doesn't mean they are defending the actions uncovered by the process.

Re:I Wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

It makes sense, but it's odd that it's completely different from what you said before. First you said that it was a terrible excuse and never actually happens, now you're saying that it does happen and you would accept it as a reasonable excuse if it actually fit the circumstances at hand. Unfortunately this sort of contradiction doesn't put me any closer to the truth, since now I have no idea what's what.

Saying it's broken when it's obviously not is one thing. But saying it's broken when it won't boot or it won't power on is not obviously wrong.

There's a big overlap in what you'll see between people who legitimately have broken equipment and people who are trying to hide something. In my experience, people in your position generally think that they can tell the difference between legitimate and illegitimate people but the simple reality is that you can tell the difference between people who act normal and people who don't, which correlates only loosely with guilt. So if I have a laptop that's broken in a non-obvious way and I'm nervous as hell because I hate dealing with powerful officials in such a disadvantageous state and I'm going to miss my flight, am I going to have bad things happen to me? Conversely, if I just smash the boot sector of the hard drive and disable booting from external devices then tell you that it has a software problem and I haven't fixed it yet, won't I get away with that?

Re:I Wonder

[Jesus_666]

The solution is simple: Only take things you absolutely have to when you go or from to the United States. Data doesn't have to travel with you; you can either transmit it in and out of the country via VPN or have a logistics service transport the hard drive to your destination in a parcel. Laptops shouldn't cross the border. Electronic devices shouldn't, as well. Maybe an iPod or an NDS, but still it'd be better to travel without them.

Just assume that every additional item you bring with you will be seen as an additional potential bomb/hidden weapon/evil secret data storage device. America is a fearful place; no need to further scare them by bringing gadgets with you.

Re:I Wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the very LAST thing you want to happen if you were hoping to get through Customs quickly .

...

Just don't do it, because it will make my life and your life easier.

That's what the majority of Americans give up their rights for: quicker and easier.

Re:I Wonder... some thoughts

[davidsyes]

Pause for a moment to think about missing people portrayed on the milk cartons. Ponder the possibility that kids and young adults are victims of actual rape and murder scenes in some of the back-woods porn and slasher films that look TOO DAMNED REAL to be makeup and special effects. I don't KNOW if it's true, but years ago i heard that smut/snuff/smaff whatever the heck they're called involved REAL MURDER or RAPE VICTIMS. This could be why the FBI or Customs get involved -- and SHOULD.

BUT, when they run a search, whether cursory or deep, it would be nice if they do it RANDOMLY, not just based on what country you visited or last visited. If deep/invasive, they they might:

-- hook up a STANDALONE (well, even chips might defeat this possible "niceness" offer) disk copier to the laptop in the case of someone traveling with 150 gigs of data on two disks in a laptop (I could fit that scenario, as my l/t has two discs...)
-- image the disc/s in question (as a prevention against disc sabotage routines)
-- run steg checks
-- if no porn, no suspicious-persons contact, etc., then let the inspection target wipe the target copier and be on their way

Ifff someone is dumb enough to carry into or out of the country any porn or unlawful cryptographic material or illegally-obtained trade secrets and so on, they will likely get jail or prison time. That's their problem.

The problem ***i*** have is that we don't have a clear answer on whether or not the Customs or Border Patrol or other agents will simply snatch the laptop and never return it or just "lose" it. At some point, they are going to be overwhelmed by the size of the discs. If it's a disc full of text, they can breeze thru it, and unfortunately, they'll have total dossiers on us based on archiving our love letters, purchases, manuscript ideas, e-books and more. That is WAY too damned invasive.

The Federal courts (decision) should be overthrown for they should be required to:

-- randomly select laptops

-- sign documents stating that in lieu of being able to walk out WITH your laptop - even if criminal-implying evidence is found, you'll sign a release or permission-to-copy form so that while you have potential charges pending, if you're released you can still do OTHER work-related things in your life... until you face arraignment or court date

-- alternatively offer to let the agents delete the criminally-qualifying images and issue an immediate probationary action letter of some sort

We surf, and we sometimes accidentally land in porn sites or blogs that might have illicit data or images we personally don't remove from the cache.

I'd prefer to see the government:

-- work with ISPs/proxies/filters (especially at libraries, where I tend to surf from) to filter porn on a per-subscriber/patron opt-in basis

-- log diligent users who stay away from porn, and exempt them from invasive searches, but not necessarily exempt them from cursory image pattern searches.

-- ignore adult porn, but damned sure nail anyone dealing in kiddie porn or animal abuse

After all, it is the height of hypocrisy for the administration or any office or agency to claim it is trying to exercise its right to control what comes into the country. We have ENOUGH violence here, WITHIN the country.

I have absolutely NO CONCERNS about Al Qaida attacking me specifically and the US in general ----- SO LONGS AS NEITHER *i* nor the US needles or bombs them. Otherwise, you hit someone, expect to be HIT back, you starve or malign someone, expect that. I've not personally attacked them, and so, my right to not have any agency SPEAK FOR ME should not be trampled on. ****i**** should not have to fear that the passport i carry will be my condemnation on the basis that because i pay taxes to said government.

I have no doubt in my ex-military mind that in the US, the odds of persons of color being killed in large numbers by supremacists are vastly greater than any direct or indirect actions by overseas terrorist

Could be worse.

[Gray]

If I ever want to move sekret data over the US border, that absolute last thing I'd think to use was a laptop.

There is this invention called The Internet which lets you move gigs and gigs of data into and out of the USA with excellent public key encryption. You can even store the data encrypted in the US and access it from from your secret pirate island with complete safely no problem.

If only moving drugs around was so easy.

Other then slowing down the border that much more, I can't imagine catching anybody with a clue.

Re:I Wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking as someone who has worked for Customs (but not in the United States), I can tell you that those are absolutely awful excuses. I guarantee you that any Customs officer will easily notice that you are lying and immediately become suspicious. This is the very LAST thing you want to happen if you were hoping to get through Customs quickly.

Remember, Customs officers are mostly trying to find things that are out of the ordinary. Carrying a broken laptop on a business trip, or carrying a random "friend's" laptop never, EVER happens. The absolute best advice I can give regarding Customs is (1) Don't be stupid, and (2) Don't lie, ever. If you are ever caught in a lie, regardless how small and insignificant, you are fucked. Just don't do it, because it will make my life and your life easier.

FUCK YOU WORM!