EFF To Fight Border Agent Laptop Searches 324
snydeq writes "The EFF and the Association of Corporate Travel Executives have filed an amicus brief with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals requesting that the full court rehear and reverse a three-judge ruling (PDF) that empowers border agents routinely to search files on laptops and mobile devices. The case in question involves US citizen Michael Arnold, who, returning from the Philippines in July 2005, had his laptop confiscated at LAX by custom officials after they opened files in folders marked 'Kodak Pictures' and 'Kodak Memories' and found photos of two naked women. Later, when Arnold was detained, officials uncovered photo files on Arnold's laptop that they believed to be child pornography. In addition to raising Fourth Amendment issues, the amicus brief (PDF) reiterates the previous District Court ruling on Arnold's case regarding the difference between computers and gas tanks, suitcases, and other closed containers, 'because laptops routinely contain vast amounts of the most personal information about people's lives — not to mention privileged legal communications, reporters' notes from confidential sources, trade secrets, and other privileged information.'"
Strong encryption for personal data (Score:5, Interesting)
Good luck with that one! LOL! (Score:1, Interesting)
Do they really have a right? (Score:4, Interesting)
Personally, what I'm more worried about is that the pillock on customs manages to erase data from my computer / SD card.
So what would I do... (Score:3, Interesting)
As this is on topic here, some advice would be nice
Let me know how that goes (Score:5, Interesting)
Really all the government has to do is use the branding of we are looking for child pornography terriosts that have weapons of mass destruction and guess what, poof there goes any right to privacy. Right now, they pretty much have a free ticket to do just about what ever they please.
Every time I hear stories similar to this I think back to an episode of the Simpsons, where Helen Lovejoy keeps saying, "Won't somebody think of the childern?" It was satire that they would do just about anything, if it was for the childern.
Historians will look back on two things this decade, how hurricane katrina changed how oil companies charge people for gas (they can also do just about anything they want) and how 9/11 affected personal freedoms and privacy.
I told you so (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Bad Case (Score:2, Interesting)
It's a sick sad world we live in and even if this guy was caught with whatever illegal stuff, if it was uncovered illegally he cannot be tried for it. (whatever he had probably wasn't illegal, just the media spinning it whatever way they want to sensationalize the story)
Lock stock and barrel searchs of someones laptop or other electronic device based on that it "could contain" illegal materials, is about a hollow a reason to prosecute someone that "makes available" copy righted content.
They (the privacy violators) should need a reasonable suspicion to search, or a search warrant, or all evidences acquired will be subject to the "exclusionary rule".
The more I read, the more this world is turning into 1984.
Re:Good luck with that one! LOL! (Score:3, Interesting)
They're turning me into a real conspiracy theorist, let me tell you.
Oceania at war with East Asia, no Eurasia, anyone?
Re:I told you so (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:So what would I do... (Score:3, Interesting)
If you're willing to go through all of that, and know that your company won't leave you high and dry, then call 'em. Otherwise, no.
Career dampner (Score:2, Interesting)
Besides, there have been stories of officials that just want to confiscate the laptops and magically their kids get new laptops for Christmas.
I usually carry around something like $7000 from home to work in equipment. I wouldn't take it near a US border unless the "chair-man" provided me safe passage for that.
4th ammendment (Score:2, Interesting)
it pretty much covers this so, i guess that liberalisms creative reading and interpretations of the constitution has pretty much trashed the whole thing now.
First the came for the gypsies
but I was not a gypsy....
Could anyone have... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:It was never a problem before. (Score:2, Interesting)
That's a horrible idea, and I don't see how anyone in this audience found it insightful. Putting personal pictures on a business laptop, or including financial information on a business notebook because the institution is only open at the same hours you are at work - these seem like reasonable uses of modern technology.
If anything, items such as you described are more secure now, because you typically need to log in, then find a document, and open it up - not accidentally read it when it pops out of one of your hundred pockets, or come across it when looking for something that can explode.
Re:Seizure the real problem (Score:2, Interesting)
Stunning when you consider that the Supreme Court has just ruled foreigners outside the border have practically full citizenship rights.
Re:Seizure the real problem (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Privacy and Cultural Issues (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Seizure the real problem (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Do they check cellphones as well? (Score:2, Interesting)
My Russian friends say U.S. more like Soviets (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Seizure the real problem (Score:4, Interesting)
Please don't try and conflate the issues of Illegal Search and Seizure with border security.
I find this entire situation vile. While it's disgusting that this guy had kiddie porn on his laptop, it is NOT the business of customs to be searching through this guy's personal info on a fishing trip for possibly illegal stuff. That's Totalitarian behavior.
Incidentally, I put many of these types of incidents at the feet of a unionized and unaccountable customs bureaucracy. Why the heck do we respond to the issue of Islamofascist terrorism with a bureaucratic nightmare organization that blanket targets everyone with no due process? It's moronic, ineffective and self-defeating.
However, properly securing our borders against infiltration by both Illegal Aliens and Foreign Agents is an integral part of National Defense. Not to mention that it spares the border environment the horrific amounts of garbage Illegals have been leaving in our delicate sub-desert ecosystems.
I'm all for making easier to legally emigrate to America. Less red tape and paperwork is always good. I think America should rightly welcome all who wish to come here and participate in Freedom and Free Enterprise by working hard (or smart) and earning their way to a comfortable and happy life for them and theirs. However, I am NOT interested in paying for those who would come here ILLEGALLY, flaunt our laws, commit all sorts of crimes, and try and use our social welfare systems as a hammock while they send cash back home. Sorry, America isn't your sugar daddy.
So you see, even a died-in-the-wool Conservative like me can see that these are two separate issues, and it is possible to support them both without being either a pedophile or a racist.
This is why America is failing (Score:1, Interesting)
The United States is turning into a provincial backwater. Serious international deals now take place in London, not New York. An estimated 100,000 people in northern border states have lost their jobs.
The United States will be hated even more in 10 years than it is now. And there will be very little sympathy for the US at that time, as an entire generation of non-Americans will have stayed away for fear of being searched or worse, disappeared into Gitmo.
This is already affecting the stature of the US. Within the next five years, a barrel of oil will be priced in euros. Within 20 years, Europe will have to send missionaries to America to re-colonize it after it has gone through some kind of terrible Mad Max collapse.
I used to feel a sympathy for the American people, thinking that there was a distinction between its system and its people. But South Park explained it to me, like so much in America, it is nothing but a cynical ruse. Americans voted for George W. Bush in 2004 and are now morally culpable for every baby they've killed through bombing, every child soldier they hold in a secret CIA prison.
For shame.
Re:Except.... (Score:5, Interesting)
My vehicle, without any just cause, no drug dog etc, was completely taken apart and destroyed by Customs officials, and I had no recourse. This was in 1989. They cut up and removed the seats, dash, headliner, carpet. They drilled a hole in the gas tank and drained it. They removed all 4 wheels and the tires from the wheels. They took all my luggage and dumped it out on the ground. Then, when they didn't find anything, told me I had 30 minutes to remove everything from their parking lot or it would be confiscated and destroyed. 30 minutes to remove a vehicle with no gas and a hole in the gas tank, no seats and no wheels. I basically packed up my suitcases and bags, grabbing as much as I could carry, and left the vehicle behind. Walked across the border, hitched a ride into town, and took the Greyhound home. Never did find out what they did with my Bus.
While they were tearing apart my vehicle, any protest I made was greated with the usual "You are interferring with Customs Officials, if you continue, you will be arrested."
Re:Bad Case... Burden and Pain... (Score:2, Interesting)
Nations conducting these searches need to tone down. There are ways to deal with drugs and physical contraband by using various X and other types of ray or wave search equipment. While I am sure that not EVERY border agent is a snoop and a thief, it only takes ONE to cause hell for someone who is NOT a trafficker of illegal materials.
Do these people KNOW how many wannabe writers pen their own salacious materials, write incendiary journals/material, and conduct research of various kinds, and -- based on the mores of the agent -- could be summarily relieved of their non-crime-committing property, arrested, and tarred for life, possibly even being fired?
Another responder said FULLY encrypting one's laptop is a GOOD thing, and legitimate, as simply using public transit it is easy to have one's laptop stolen. Why, in 2006, I saw a thuggish asshole running off with the Linux laptop (I assume it was Linux-based, as this was the time of the Linux convention in 2006, at Moscone) of a convention goer who was in the Powell Street BART entrance. I am SURE that victim is hating his life if he had no HARD disc encryption and the asshole thief managed to find an adapter and keep the thing powered longer than 2 hours afterward.
But, had I been quicker-thinking, I'd have stuck out my foot and tripped that *motherfuck* and worried later about the consequences. That way, the victim of the theft would have relief that even if his laptop died and the disk crashed permanently, at LEAST that bastard who stole it wouldn't benefit from the data AND the hardware loss. I'd do this for the user of ANY OS, as long as I realized it was THEIR laptop being stolen from them. Realization only requires seeing the victim using it and then out of the blue seeing some bastard run off with it, with a menacing, victorious look, the look of buying his next drug hit, or the look of glee from tormenting someone who was careless and easy prey...
Pretty much, person privacy and the right to encrypt one's data should protect one from prying eyes of the government.