Examining the Search and Seizure of Electronics at Airports

Angus McKraken brings us a Washington Post story about how travelers are seeking more well-defined policies and rules about the search and seizure of electronic devices by U.S. Customs officials. The EFF has already taken legal action over similar concerns. We recently discussed the related issue of requiring people to disclose their passwords in order to search their private data. From the Post: "Maria Udy, a marketing executive with a global travel management firm in Bethesda, said her company laptop was seized by a federal agent as she was flying from Dulles International Airport to London in December 2006. Udy, a British citizen, said the agent told her he had 'a security concern' with her. 'I was basically given the option of handing over my laptop or not getting on that flight,' she said. 'I was assured that my laptop would be given back to me in 10 or 15 days,' said Udy, who continues to fly into and out of the United States. She said the federal agent copied her log-on and password, and asked her to show him a recent document and how she gains access to Microsoft Word. She was asked to pull up her e-mail but could not because of lack of Internet access. With ACTE's help, she pressed for relief. More than a year later, Udy has received neither her laptop nor an explanation."

United Police State of America

[by Anonymous Coward]

Y'all just keep on sleepwalking, the government is taking care of everything...

Re:United Police State of America

[Raven42rac (448205)]

I took a flight once from Dulles to Dublin. They told me my laptop tested positive for nitro glycerin. I said "so?" They said "well nitro glycerin is in a lot of hand lotions" "Then I used hand lotion." The TSA is really hit or miss. I had to take off my flip flop sandals at Louis Armstrong Airport in New Orleans. "You call these shoes?" "They're footwear" And they were patting down a disabled WWII vet in a wheelchair. I told the fresh out of high school kid that he should be embarrassed. That old guy obviously hates America. You're really at their mercy though.

Re:United Police State of America

[1u3hr (530656)]

And they were patting down a disabled WWII vet in a wheelchair.

You've never seen "Day of the Jackal" (the oringal version)? The asassin has a sniper rifle broken down and made into a set of crutches, for an old war veteran...

If you;re going to search people at all, you really should be searching people with large pieces of metal piping, no matter what medals they're wearing.

Yeah, I know, a "movie threat". Still, profiling people to wave through is as bad as profiling people to give a hard time to. Both allow an enemy to game the system

Customs agent's kid . . . needed a laptop . . .

[by Anonymous Coward]

. . . this is all part of that One Laptop Per Child thingie . . .happens all the time at airports, or roadside checkpoints in Africa . . .

. . . nothing new here, move along, sans laptop . . .

Traveling while Muslim or Middle Eastern

[OldBaldGuy (734575)]

If you RTFA, the examples appear to be cases of traveling while being Muslim, Middle Eastern or Asian. Any examples of Nordic blondes or Irish Redheads getting the same treatment?

Re:Traveling while Muslim or Middle Eastern

[PetriBORG (518266)]

Either Muslim, or Middle Eastern, or South Asian too... But yeah I'd agree it would appear that its racial.

What I think is maybe most disgusting though is that we're so pathetic as to accept this abuse. I travel to Asia with my wife - who is Chinese - quite a bit and the TSA and Customs people are always the worst. All I'm interested in is getting to my destination, but we all have to be treated like sheep to these people!

I've always avoided bringing the laptop on the plane because of weight, but they are even going after iPods and cell-phone data - going as far as to copy all of your contacts, call history, and take the SIM chip out of your phone. How am I supposed to call for a ride because my phone won't work w/o the SIM chip in it...

I can always use dm-crypt or true-crypt on my laptop but how the hell am I supposed to deal with them taking my terrorist iPod and phone? God forbid I try and bring an iPhone on the plane!

Re:Traveling while Muslim or Middle Eastern

[Lumpy (12016)]

Nordic Blondes and Irish redheads get frisked pretty throughly. If they are very large breasted then we have to really check them over, make them get naked, take photos, oil them up and take more photos, etc...

it's all in the name of security! If we did not do this terrorists would be blowing up EVERYTHING!!!!

Re:Traveling while Muslim or Middle Eastern

[walt-sjc (145127)]

What the terrorists want is to disrupt our lives, and cause fear. They have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. We have already lost the "war."

Re:Traveling while Muslim or Middle Eastern

[MadMidnightBomber (894759)]

UK international development minister Shahid Malik, was detained on the way back from a series of meetings in Washington on combatting terrorism. You really couldn't make this stuff up if you tried. ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_yorkshire/7066944.stm [bbc.co.uk] )

Re:Traveling while Muslim or Middle Eastern

[Maxo-Texas (864189)]

For what it is worth, you see examples of both being hit in this thread-- the example of the disabled elderly vet above being one.

Let's not make it about race-- it is about seizure of property without cause.

Decoy Data

[Doc Ruby (173196)]

Mobile devices have very large storage, which can be compressed to varying degrees at will, better than 50% averaged across all data types. It wouldn't be very hard to make a filesystem (or other storage type) for any of them that stores an equal amount of fake data, with a fake password, with everything compressed in the same space as an uncompressed set of real data. Such a filesystem could look just like a real filesystem in every way, including total size, but hide the real data behind fake data and fake password. If it's all encrypted, it would be very hard to tell the difference, especially in an airport screening line.

Of course, that would probably violate some law. And "only the bad guys" would do it. But if those bad guys actually have something to hide that also violates those security laws, then of course they'll break that law's "coverup" prohibitions, too.

Terrorist and other criminal orgs with enough resources to be a real threat, and carry notebooks and phones around on flights they don't just blow up, will be able to afford such a filesystem. And once there is one in the wild, anyone will get it, probably for free.

So this is yet another stupid simcurity (simulated security) measure. It's intimidation of everyone to scare us into thinking our government is "doing something severe" to terrorists, when it's just abusing our own freedom. While wasting everyone's time, eroding our trust of our government, and letting the terrorists go free.

Sounds like they're already using sophisticated decoys at DHS: fake security to hide the dangerous absence of any real security.

Sounds like it's getting to the point ...

[ScrewMaster (602015)]

where a traveler would be better off shipping his or her laptop separately rather than trying to take it on a plane. This is starting to get out of hand: confiscating personal property without cause? What the Hell? The government must be running short on laptops, I guess. Twenty years ago I'd have said this could never happen here, if anyone had asked. Sorry to see that I'd have been wrong.

In 1984, I remember my aunt flew from Chicago to Boston, with a .44 Magnum and a box of cartridges in her suitcase. Nobody noticed, nobody cared, she didn't even think twice about it (I'll tell you though, had there been any boxcutter-wielding bastards on that plane she'd have killed them all. You don't know my aunt.) Can you imagine trying that today? One group of Islamic assholes causes some damage and just look at what we've done to ourselves.

I'm still proud of my country but not as much as I used to be. That bothers me. What also bothers me is that bad behavior on the part of the TSA and other government organs is in danger of becoming institutionalized, which will make it very difficult to eliminate.

Is this the United States or some banana republic?

[rpp3po (641313)]

Can't believe this happening in a country which promotes itself as a global exporter of freedom. Do Americans just sit at home and watch this as just another ironic comedy on their TVs?

You know why you can't get relief?

[MikeRT (947531)]

Each component of the system, that is supposed to be separate, is in bed with those it is supposed to be a check against. This wouldn't surprise anyone who has paid attention to the way that police officers are treated by judges and prosecutors, especially in "liberal areas" for abusing their authority. In places like Northern Virginia, one of the bluest parts of the country, the prosecutors won't touch a cop who shoots and kills someone in a criminal way while on duty. The very argument for giving them their extra powers over the public is that they're professionals with how they use it, and yet they're more likely to be treated like a well-meaning retarded child with a handgun rather than a professional for whom human error should almost invariably be regarded at first blush as criminal negligence.

The prosecutors will rarely try them, the judges will rarely sanction prosecutors who do things like hound a guy they know is innocent, etc. Why? Because in general, the people in law enforcement, the DA's office and the judiciary are bad apples, with a few good ones mixed in. This applies to federal agencies as well.

guilty until proven otherwise

[bazorg (911295)]

interesting quote from TFA: Your kid can be arrested because they can't prove the songs they downloaded to their iPod were legally downloaded. Oh goody, when I immigrated to the UK I brought the MP3s but left the CDs behind. Got to remember leaving all music behind if travelling to the USA.

Oh, and my laptop might be tricky to search... I wonder what procedures they have in place for people travelling with computers running alternative operating systems or simply in a language the officer cannot understand. 200 translators waiting behind the security booth? sounds practical.

Re:guilty until proven otherwise

[ScrewMaster (602015)]

The procedure is this: they take your laptop and you don't get it back.

No Holiday in the US for us.

[krischik (781389)]

Well one more reason for me to remove the US off possible holiday destinations. Of course the poor guy was on a buisiness trip and had no choice.

Martin

Sounds like her company did the right thing

[Dielectric (266217)]

In the article, it says that Radius went to an encrypted network to access company data. Given the recent news of stolen laptops, and the ensuing uproar over the data contained on them, it seems to me that everyone should take this approach. There are very few places that I go in the course of business that don't have some kind of network access. Even the hot dog stand down the street has free wifi, for crying out loud! Of course, you need an access scheme sufficient to keep thieves and DHS agents out of your database, but that's a solved problem with revocable certs, etc.

The note about going through the recent documents log and browser history has me concerned, though. I may set the defaults on my work machine to never-save on the history. I can think of any number of services to archive bookmarks online. The idea here is that your travel machine may be lost, stolen, broken, or compromised at any time, and we should behave as such.

It sucks that we have to protect ourselves from unreasonable search and seizure by our government, but we'll just have to deal with it for now. Not to get off on a rant here, but I think the Second Amendment should be interpreted to include strong encryption. The writers of the Constitution put that in there as a safeguard against jackbooted government thugs. In today's world, I see no political difference between a Kentucky Long Rifle and AES-128.

Re:Can you do this?

[MichaelKaiserProScri (691448)]

I am unclear if that is being offered as an option. If I cannot take my laptop with me on a business trip, there is no point in doing the trip. I am a Software Engineer and my laptop is the primary tool with which I do my job. If I do not have it, I cannot work. Furthermore, in many cases the contents of my laptop are far more valuable than the device itself. As far as I am concerned, the device is disposable, the data is what is valuable. Yes, I keep a backup, but there is always that last little bit I have just done that is not in the backup yet....

Sure -- you just miss your flight.

[localroger (258128)]

And I'm pretty sure you don't get your airfare back. And you probably get on a list that makes sure it will happen every single time you ever try to fly again in the future. The stupid thing here is she did everything they asked, and they still stole her laptop. I can't see any rationalization for that.

... and miss your plane.

[krischik (781389)]

While you are right doing so will take so long that you will miss your plane. In fact creating/using tight time contrainst is one of the three main ingredinence for any kind con jobs to cheat you out of your property.

Re:Yet another reason to use linux

[pdwalker (113292)]

All it means is that those retards would be more likely to confiscate it because they don't recognize what it is.

Re:2 options....

[jamar0303 (896820)]

This can also be done with a normal PC and OSx86. My install will not boot into Mac OS without the install DVD in the drive. I do my work in Mac, put the DVD in my checked bag, then get on the plane. It'll boot straight into Windows without the disc, and since Windows can't read HFS+ it doesn't see the Mac partition.

not the answer

[tacokill (531275)]

The answer, of course, is to rely on your employer. Let me explain.

Go ahead and fight them. I mean - do not let them search your laptop until forced to do so. Cite your company's information as the reason. Perhaps individual privacy is gone but we still have some sanctity for corporate data. It doesn't even have to be trademark/copyright/legally protected data. It just has to be data that your company deems 'private and confidential'. If people start missing flights because of over-ambitious TSA agents, eventually, businesses will start screaming about these searches....if they aren't already. Not only are they overly intrusive but they are causing losses in a very real way. Measurable losses.

Anyone from Oracle or MSFT read this post? How would you feel about your laptop being held like this? How about someone from Adobe or Boeing? What about the big-3 car companies? Consulting companies?

There are lots of businesses that require international travel and I am betting they don't want some $10.50/hr TSA employee reading your laptop anymore than you do. I expect employers to enter the fray any second now. They will not stand for this unless there are some checks and balances. They have no interest in writing off confiscated assets because of over zealous TSA agents and they are (unfortunately) our best defense.

Re:Shouldda Waited

[QCompson (675963)]

She shouldda waited for that Supreme Court case that said divulging your password was a violation of your 5th amendment right.

Don't get ahead of yourself. It was a federal magistrate in Vermont that gave that ruling, not the Supreme Court. We have no idea what the SCOTUS would do in such a situation... especially if it involves child pornography. They've been known to make exceptions to the Constitution when it comes to child pornography.