Senate Hearing On Laptop Seizures At US Border 526
suitablegirl writes "As we have discussed, Customs and Border Patrol is allowed to seize and download data from laptops or electronic devices of Americans returning from abroad. At a Senate hearing tomorrow, privacy advocates and industry groups will urge the lawmakers to take action to protect the data and privacy of Americans not guilty of anything besides wanting to go home."
Re:Can we be a little more inclusive? (Score:5, Informative)
I completely trashed any plans I had for ever visiting the US when I heard from my friends that not only were they fingerprinted when they flew into the US, they also had their retinas photographed.
One wasn't even staying in the US, he just had to change planes so he could continue onto Mexico.
Fuck that for a joke.
Re:Can we be a little more inclusive? (Score:2, Informative)
But I'm one of us (Note the proper syntax) non-Americans, and I really don't want my laptop seized at the border either.
Re:About time. (Score:5, Informative)
As a refresher, additional information can be found here [wikipedia.org].
4th Amendment: "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."
Fortunately, I haven't been subjected to such seizures, but I've read enough horror stories from frequent travelers to warrant such a response.
Good luck to us all...
Re:About time. (Score:2, Informative)
On a technicality... (Score:4, Informative)
At least, that is the kind of logic that people who defend this or at least shrug it off as nothing use. I think it is bullshit, but well, it has precedent and seems to be the law. :-/
Re:Can we be a little more inclusive? (Score:5, Informative)
I think the last time I transferred in the US my bags were taken off the plane and I had to pick them up again and wait whilst some completely rude and unpleasant monkey went through them and then check them back in, at which point the airport lost them and I didn't see them again until a week after my outgoing flight landed.
This sort of thing really does make me think twice before either transferring in the US or going there in general. As well as my experience a friend recently transferred in Miami to somewhere in South America and was held up by American customs giving him the unpleasant rude treatment for so long he actually missed his connection.
Re:On a technicality... (Score:5, Informative)
The UK customs at the French end of the channel tunnel say that the customs post is UK territory [bbc.co.uk] in order to apply UK border control laws.
Re:Can we be a little more inclusive? (Score:5, Informative)
Nice try. On the occasion of deciding which flight to book from Ireland to Argentina, I called American Airlines and was informed that, in order to fly from one international destination to another on a flight that stops at a US airport, one has to change terminals, as arrival and departure will just about always be on different terminals. That, however, means leaving the international area, going through both Immigration and Customs, be photographed and fingerprinted like a criminal, potentially have the luggage searched, and the wife having to apply for a US visitor visa beforehand because Argentina fell out of the Visa Waiver Program a few years back when Argentina's currency collapsed. All the hassle for a few hours in the US? Sorry, mate. Too many reasons to choose Iberia and fly through Madrid instead of through Chicago with AA.
Re:Can we be a little more inclusive? (Score:3, Informative)
With the ammount of data that devices can store there's no way a customs agent could inspect it immediately with any thoroughness.
Confiscating a laptop or other device is obviously really inconvenient for the owner, especially if they don't know when or if it'll be returned.
Copying a disk - or whatever - is possible, but apart from the issues that raises about the security of the data and its eventual disposition, I wonder if whatever customs agents do would meet the requirements to be used as evidence. Normally forensic specialists are very careful about exactly how a disk is copied. Simply copying the files won't do.
Re:On a technicality... (Score:5, Informative)
BTW UK has been doing electronic search and copying, only for a short time not practical, of devices since 1998. Don't know dates but other parts of Europe but they also do electronic search, got asked for laptop when recently going in and leaving Sweden.
Re:ECHELON/Warrantless Wiretapping (Score:3, Informative)
Echelon's existence has been pretty thoroughly described and analysed by the European Parliament: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=REPORT&reference=A5-2001-0264&language=EN&mode=XML [europa.eu]
(resolution on "the existence of Echelon": http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+TA+P5-TA-2001-0441+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN [europa.eu] )
So I don't think you can still really call it a secret.
Re:Can we be a little more inclusive? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:About time. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:About time. (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:About time. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:ECHELON/Warrantless Wiretapping (Score:3, Informative)
Someone else clearly has no idea either :-) Echelon is so 1950's and simply has never existed in the way you claim. Aside from this it is a physical impossibility anyway. Anyone calling attention to this persistent little word is actually somewhat deserving of the phrase you have used. This is simply because they close their eyes to reality in favour of a good old conspiracy theory instead.
The Echelon spy system, whose existence has only recently been acknowledged by US officials, is capable of hoovering up millions of phone calls, faxes and emails a minute.
Its owners insist the system is dedicated to intercepting messages passed between terrorists and organised criminals.
But a report published by the European Parliament in February alleges that Echelon twice helped US companies gain a commercial advantage over European firms.
former CIA director James Woolsey, in an article in March for the Wall Street Journal, acknowledged that the US did conduct economic espionage against its European allies [bbc.co.uk], though he did not specify if Echelon was involved.
Re:About time. (Score:2, Informative)
Really the most ridiculous thing about this is the ability to store all of your illegal data on a portable hard drive and throw it in your checked in luggage when flying. They can't search that, they can only search your carry on items. It's almost as if they are afraid you plan on watching child porn on the plane...
Re:About time. (Score:2, Informative)
The argument goes, Prior to passing customs you are not inside the US, and as such the constitution does not apply. Your effectively in "International Waters" until Customs allows you in, and as such they can do anything they want.
Re:About time. (Score:4, Informative)
Border search exception [wikipedia.org]
Here's the Supreme Court case that affirmed the USA's long standing border search practices
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=473&invol=531 [findlaw.com]
Being a strict Constitutionalist isn't all that useful if you don't know what the Supreme Court has decided over the years or if you don't propose alternative ways to accomplish the results of those decisions.