Israel Airport Security Allowed To Read Tourists' Email

wiredmikey writes "Israeli security officials at Ben Gurion airport are legally allowed to demand access to tourists' email accounts and deny them entry if they refuse, the country's top legal official said on Wednesday. Details of the policy were laid out by Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein in a written response to the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), the group said in a statement. 'In a response dated April 24, 2013, the attorney general's office confirmed this practice,' ACRI said, quoting sections of the document which said it was only done in exceptional cases where 'relevant suspicious signs' were evident and only done with the tourist's 'consent'. 'Allowing security agents to take such invasive measures at their own discretion and on the basis of such flimsy "consent" is not befitting of a democracy,' commented Lila Margalit from ACRI."

Re:My house, my rules

[Anonymous Coward]

Israel has every right to require you show just cause why they should let you in. Just like the US has that same right.

Israel has no rights, nor does the US. Rights belong to people, not governments. Governments have powers, and to say that no government should have this particular power is right, proper, and objectively correct.

Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if people realize that to enter US you need a Tourist Visa (except if you are from approx. 17 states that are exempt).
To obtain a Tourist Visa, you need to prove your "residential ties" to the country of origin, which include your bank account statements, your apartment lease, etc.
On top of that you are finger printed on entry.

And If you think US is bad then try entering Switzerland if you are not from EU, US and a few other countries.

If you call the US embassy about this

[purnima]

they ask you about your religion and tell you that in any case Israel is able to access your gmail account without your password, because they 7h3y RUL3.

See The U.S. Government Wanted to Know: Am I Jewish" [dailykos.com]

"This is the conversation I recall having with Chris Kain at the US Embassy in Tel Aviv by telephone:"

CK: Hello. I got your number from ___. You are being questioned by the Israeli authorities, I understand.
ST: They are threatening to deny me entry and to deport me.
CK: Are you Jewish?
ST: No
CK: Have you been in contact with the Israeli government or military in the past?
ST: No
CK: Have you been here before?
ST: Yes, several times. I am a Palestinian with family in the West Bank.
CK: Oh, you have family in the West Bank. Then there is nothing I can do to help you. In fact, if I interceded on your behalf, it will hurt your case with the Israelis.
ST: I don't understand. You are saying you can't speak with them. You have no influence. They are demanding to access my gmail account.
CK: If they have your gmail address, they can get in without your password.
ST: What do you mean? How?
CK: They're good!
ST: This is crazy. You mean you know about these requests to access emails and you have no problem with it.
CK: It is in our travel warning. They won't harm you. You will be sent home on the next flight out.I hope I have been of good service to you.
ST: Frankly, you have done nothing for me.
CK: Well at least you can say I did it kindly.

Re:My house, my rules

[WaywardGeek]

Their airport security works, and the environment is hostile, so I can't blame them much for their airport interview techniques. In 1996, I was consulting for an electronics company in Haifa, where I wrote a technology mapper for digital logic. At the exit interview, the security guy wanted to understand exactly what it was I was doing in Israel, and he almost made me miss my plane. He just couldn't figure out what the heck I was paid to do no matter how I explained it. No biggie. I have a Palestinian friend who tells me about having to go through cavity searches to get on a plane. Their methods violate privacy big time, but it works.

If we want to pick on Israel, I think pointing out that 45 years of brutal occupation of the West Bank isn't cool. I can let the airport thing slide.

They have asked to see e-documents for a long time

[Anonymous Coward]

I have only traveled to Israel once. My passage in and out was very quick and easy. I spent less time in customs and security than I usually do flying into America. This may be because my company has a branch in Israel, and I think some pre-arrival and departure documentation was provided.

However, already 5 years ago when I traveled there, it was well documented that security screeners would ask questions like:
What do you do for a living? Why did you come to Israel? What did you do while you were here? etc.

For example, if you said that you were a writer working on a book about early Christianity, they would ask you to fire up your laptop and show them some of your writing, notes, and pictures. They would take your laptop and read some of the documents. If your story and the documentation didn't match, you could expect a lot more questions.

The fact that they have extended this to email does not surprise me much.

Re:Throw away email account

[Cwix]

I had no idea that the definition of a word would get the vocabulary nazis riled up.

Re:My house, my rules

[dgatwood]

You have no right to enter a country of which you are not a citizen, and they can deny you entry for any reason, and require whatever they want of you as a condition of entry.

Actually, no, they can't. Well, they can require it, but if I acquiesced to those demands and got caught doing so, I could lose my job, get sued for millions of dollars, and then do several years in federal prison.

At the core of the problem is the fact that most people do not have a legal right to give anyone else access to their email account. As an employee of a major Fortune 500 company, I am prohibited from doing so not only by my employment contract, but ostensibly by SEC regulations as well, because granting such access could constitute facilitating insider trading.

And even if you're not working for anyone at all, allowing other people access to your account is a violation of the terms of service, which according to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

And God help you if you happen to be working on anything that requires D.O.D. clearance. Sharing that sort of info with a foreign government could get you life in prison or even summary execution for treason.

In other words, Israel basically just closed their borders to U.S. citizens, for all intents and purposes, legally speaking. I mean, sure, you can go, but if you do, know that you're taking a very real risk that they might decide to demand that you break U.S. law as a condition of entry, at which point you have two choices: give up all the money you spent on travel and lodging or go to prison when you get back to the States.

Thanks, but no thanks. There are plenty of countries that actually want American tourists.

Re:My house, my rules

[halltk1983]

Without the United States crippling the Axis production lines, the USSR would have found their westward march a little more difficult. Not to say they might not have won anyway, but it would have been much harder pressed. As it is, with the US and the USSR working together, the loss of life, and difficulty of the fight was astounding. Let's just agree that had any of the key players sat on their thumbs any longer, things might have been a bit more difficult.