US Courts Consider Legality of Laptop Inspection

ceide2000 writes "The government contends that it is perfectly free to inspect every laptop that enters the country, whether or not there is anything suspicious about the computer or its owner. Rummaging through a computer's hard drive, the government says, is no different from looking through a suitcase. One federal appeals court has agreed, and a second seems ready to follow suit." This story follows up on a story about laptop confiscation at the borders from a few months ago.

next will be...

next is your banking information, previous employments, medical history and telephone calls made in the past 6 months.

Welcome to the USA.

How I do it...

I encode all my dangerous stuff with everyday words and string them into mundane sentances disguised as personal communication.

There, everything you need to construct your own death star is in the line above. Oh, and some extra information is hidden in this line about exhaust ports. Damn, I just realized, my encoding for "exhaust ports" renders as "exhaust ports". Well, back to the drawing board.

Re:How I do it...

Don't worry about the exhaust ports - anything they would use in a large scale assault would never be in position to target them. Besides, think of all the labor, parts and rework expense that can be avoided by leaving them as they are.

But

Can they demand you decrypt data or, worse, provide the key?

No you have a choice.

A. You can decrypt the data
B. You can go back where you came from

Re:No you have a choice.

B. You can go back where you came from

What if you came from the US? I know that many Americans are ok with tourists to the US having no privacy rights, but what about US citizens - is it ok that a citizen loses his rights as soon as he encounters US borders? It seems the 4th amendment ought to protect you against "unreasonable searches and seizures". It's certainly reasonable to search a suitcase for illegal drugs, explosives or quantities of goods which exceed the import limits. All of these things are directly border-related. However is it reasonable to search a laptop at the border? Sure a laptop might contain illegal files, but that's always the case. So if it's reasonable to search for these at the border, it should be reasonable to search for these on all computers all of the time.

Ridiculous

They are not looking for passwords to nuclear reactor equipment - the clowns at the border probably wouldn't recognize such lists unless they were marked "passwords to nuclear reactor equipment." They're not even looking for bootlegged movies because they'd be detaining damn near everyone with a laptop.

No, they are pretty much just looking for naughty pix of little kids - that's it. And much as someone might find that offensive, sorry it just aint "dangerous."

It's encouraging to see ONE judge in this country got it right - _personal_ computers are an extension of our mind and deserve the utmost protection.

Re:No you have a choice.

Is there now a place for a program that decrypts data in two ways?

It's called TrueCrypt [truecrypt.org] and is available for Windows, Linux and to some degree for OS X.

Main Features:

        * Creates a virtual encrypted disk within a file and mounts it as a real disk.

        * Encrypts an entire hard disk partition or a storage device such as USB flash drive.

        * Encryption is automatic, real-time (on-the-fly) and transparent.

        * Provides two levels of plausible deniability, in case an adversary forces you to reveal the password:

            1) Hidden volume (steganography - more information may be found here).

            2) No TrueCrypt volume can be identified (volumes cannot be distinguished from random data).

        * Encryption algorithms: AES-256, Serpent, and Twofish. Mode of operation: LRW.

            Further information regarding features of the software may be found in the documentation.

Re:But

Not that the Bill of Rights has much sway in cases where "terrorism" or "national security" can be applied, but the 5th amendment applies to "persons" rather than "citizens" (this distinction is made several times in the Constitution), and thus applies equally to anyone under US jurisdiction, whether they are a citizen or not.

So, if we actually followed the Bill of Rights, no one should be compelled to give that information, regardless of where they come from.

Suitcase opening... HAH!

This is not suitcase snooping, this is opening a sealed envelope found within my suitcase and reading the contents even though both the suitcase and envelope test negative on the bomb sniffer.

Re:Suitcase opening... HAH!

Um, upon entering the country, they can open a sealed letter in your possession and read the contents already.

Re:Suitcase opening... HAH!

That sounds suspicious (for instance I doubt they can do it for mail). Care to back up that statement?

They can [schneier.com] for mail. Thank this one to the "war" on drugs.

No, it's worse than that

No, it's not "opening a sealed envelope". Envelopes can contain toxic chemicals, weapons, etc. Computers only hold information. The difference is that they're now policing thought.

Re:Suitcase opening... HAH!

Your assumption is wrong. It's to search for items which are illegal to bring into the country. That would some plants and animals (quarantine laws), and also certain bit sequences on a hard drive (child pornography), bits of paper (undeclared currency over a magic value), arbitrary objects (that you didn't pay duty on) and a lot of other things. It's customs doing the searching, they don't actually care about bombs - of course if they found one they'd bring in the people who do care about such things...

A better analogy...

Rummaging through a computer's hard drive, the government says, is no different from looking through a suitcase.

Wouldn't a more apt analogy be "can border security read all the paper documents a person is carrying?" Is it legal for border security to open every binder of notes, and open every letter on your person, including medical records, bank statements, things marked "private" or "confidential" or "top secret"?

I think the answer is: no, that's not allowed. They are allowed to search in order to satisfy themselves that it is a book/document and not something nefarious (bomb, contraband, etc.)... but beyond that they cannot go rummaging through any data you happen to be carrying on your person.

By analogy, I would expect that physically inspecting a laptop (to make sure it's not hiding anything nefarious) is okay, but I can't think of a legitimate reason to start scanning through the data on it.

Re:A better analogy...

curious are they going to search every MP3 player, every Thumb drive, every floppy disc, or cd that enter's the country?

If I wanted to get information beyond the border without It being noticed, a partitioned MP3 player HD hiding an encrypted volume.

The MP3 player plays just fine, but only a physical search by a trained IT person would even notice that something was wrong. especially if I "upgraded" an old 20gb model with a 40 or 80 gb hard drive, and partitioned it in such a way as to leave 20gb for the player, and the rest was hidden from view, unless inserted into another computer.

I just thought of that reading these responses.

4th Amendment

I guess if they're going to ignore the 4th Amendment when it comes to suitcases, they might as well ignore it when it comes to laptops. After all, who is to say what it means for "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects,"

The 4th does not apply to border searches

The 4th amendment does not apply to searches at the border, and it never has. Throughout modern history, every country in the world (the U.S. included) has reserved the right to search anything and everything entering the country, save diplomatic pouches.

The 4th amendment only covers "unreasonable" search and seizure. Border searches are considered reasonable, and therefore require no warrant. This was formally codified by the 1st Congress (thank you Findlaw), who could be assumed to know the intentions of the founding fathers. More intrusive operations over and above a cursory search (such as X-Rays, or I supposed computer checks) only require "reasonable suspicion", as opposed to the more strict "probable cause".

The current version of the law states:
19 USC 1581:
(a) Customs officers
Any officer of the customs may at any time go on board of any vessel
or vehicle at any place in the United States or within the customs
waters or, as he may be authorized, within a customs-enforcement area
established under the Anti-Smuggling Act [19 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.], or at
any other authorized place, without as well as within his district, and
examine the manifest and other documents and papers and examine,
inspect, and search the vessel or vehicle and every part thereof and any
person, trunk, package, or cargo on board, and to this end may hail and
stop such vessel or vehicle, and use all necessary force to compel
compliance.

I would think a search of the hard drive falls well within a "package".

SirWired

New plan for border agents...

Folder on desktop named "Kiddie pics?" Check.

Thousands of JPGs within? Check.

All JPGs are hello.jpg? Checkmate.

Re:New plan for border agents...

Reasonable suspicion that person has explored the possibility of hiding something up his anus? Check.

Rubber glove? Check.

Any way to refuse? Checkmate.

Not about rights, but rather usefulness

I can see the court's argument, and I suppose it really isn't any different, since you're crossing a border. But what's the point? I've heard there's actually a big network that extends internationally outside the United States (an "inter-net" if you will) that makes data transfers into the US without physical hard disks fairly easy. If this is truly the case, wouldn't anything "contraband" be sent via that? (I mean, assuming it's not too difficult to get an account on this network.)

Just create a dummy account?

I don't think you'd need to encrypt anything. Your laptop won't be on when they begin their inspection, right? So add another account that you fully cooperate with them with that has access to nothing, and maybe has some default pictures and stuff for them to browse around with. Configure login script to fix whatever they screw up on that account on each login. Log into *that* one for them to do their probing. They won't have any way of knowing it isn't your main account. Heck, make that a nice self-healing account that friends can use. Bonus!

If you assume somewhat more sophisticated inspectors, you may want to put what can be construed as nefarious software (nmap, tcpdump, nessus, kismet, etc) in a more secure than normal place.

Now, if you expect the thing to be confiscated, that is a different story.

Terminal A?

As a heavy terminal user I long since lost interest in running a desktop environment. This has become a problem when I travel internationally, something I do very often.

On two separate occassions I've been asked to boot my machine. On both occassions the security officials became quite disturbed when they saw a text only boot sequence. One asked me to turn the machine off immediately and after 30 minutes I was able to explain what was on my computer in a way they liked. The second incident was worse. Once my laptop had come out of suspend-to-RAM the security guy demanded "Log into your computer please". On seeing a single maximised xterm he became nervous. He held me until an official came down from upstairs, who promptly laughed warmly and said "It's unix. It's OK".

I know a couple of other people that have been in very similar situations.

These days I have a session manager such that I can boot into a clean GNOME desktop should such a situation arise, complete with soothing coastal background image.

The rationale for having me boot my computer apparently was that it may be a bomb, not that my contents might be suspicious. The logic of having me sit in front of them and power on a bomb just to find out if it is, in fact, a bomb still escapes me to this day. Nearly as bizarre as the giant liquids disposal vat at security check: "Please mix your bomb ingredients in this packed airport instead of on the plane. Thankyou."

Re:What are they looking for?

Or just travel with an old broken laptop and when he asks you to boot it, ask the guy to fix it first. - "but officer, I'm taking it to Best Buy for repair!?"

I find traveling with sex toys in your carry on is a great way to get searches to end quickly.

-Rick

Re:Company Computers and NDA's??

Can they ask to see the contents of a company laptop? If that information is proprietary you have every right to deny them access as an employee or face legal liability for showing others that information.

The US Customs agency is operating under the mandate that they can detain you and/or inspect you arbitrarily, and that you have no legal recourse against it.

You used to be able to say "I withdraw my petition to enter your country" and they'd just basically ship you back. Now, they don't really care. Gonzales basically gave them a legal opinion that says you, as a foreign national, have no legal protections or expectation of privacy. I'm not sure of the specifics, but at one point, they said "we can do anything we like".

Arguably, they have no right to a laptop that isn't yours or viewing information that you do not have the right to show them; they would need to get a release from the company in order to view that data.

Refusing to give them the information on the grounds of a NDA will mean nothing to them. They'll jail you if they want to. They are not bound by your NDA, and they can compel you to answer whatever they ask or open what they request.

I wouldn't be willing to try to stand behind an NDA with my company at a US border -- but then again, I don't plan on presenting myself to one any more. Over the last few years, I have decided that there really isn't a compelling enough reason to travel to the US. The level of draconian crap and complete loss of rights which can ensue is just not worth the exposure or the risk.

It gets echoed a lot here on Slashdot, but an awful lot of people simply will not travel to the US again.

Cheers