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."

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

[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 . . .

wow!

[A3gis]

The agent probably booted up World of Warcraft .. to check for terrorist activities of course
- guess she just has to wait til he gets his nightelf to lvl 70

Re:Angus McKraken?

[Anonymous Coward]

Story submitter, are you related to Phil McKraken? I used to work with a guy named Phil McKraken. Well, I didn't really work *with* Phil but I heard him being paged on the overhead PA system quite often. He was paged at least once a day so I think he must have been fairly important.

Is your real name Scott? Are you related to Ann Reynolds? Because she has a brother named Scott, and I used to date her briefly in college.

Re:Traveling while Muslim or Middle Eastern

[Lumpy]

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!!!!

Good!

[Fuzzums]

This is a very good thing.

Not only will it promote the whole idea of Freedom and help spread democracy in a non violent way, but as a result we will see that people will stop carrying around laptops or other portable storage devices.

And THAT is a good thing. We will soon see a sharp decline of missing or stolen sensitive personal or company data, so this is good for our privacy.

Instead people will start using VPN to get to their data.

Re:I don't travel myself...

[maxwell demon]

The only time I ever traveled by plane, I took NOTHING with me. NOTHING...well save for my ID and an American Express card.

You traveled naked? :-)

Re:United Police State of America

[Raven42rac]

Tim McVeigh wasn't a disabled octogenarian.

Need some export controls here

[EdIII]

The US has always seemed to be in the business of exporting freedom to other countries. Apparently we are exporting too much of it, especially since 2001. Maybe we need to create some more locally?

Re:Traveling while Muslim or Middle Eastern

[rhombic]

On the upside, it's a great way to get you out of Federal Jury duty. I got called up last year for a case involving a family member smuggling a kid into the US from Mexico. During voir dire, they asked if anyone had had negative experiences with Customs and Immigration. I swear, half of us got rejected as jurors after that one.

Re:Traveling while Muslim or Middle Eastern

[Lobster Quadrille]

Hehe. Weapons of Mass Distraction.

Thank you, I'll be here all week

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

[Fnord666]

Parent post links to Mythbusters for cripes sake.

Ok, we need a new form of Godwin's Law that applies to real scientific investigation and Mythbusters.

Re:Can you do this?

[maxwell demon]

Maybe you'll have to get your drive implanted, with bluetooth connection to your laptop. OTOH if they find that, seizure will literally hurt.

Re:United Police State of America

[Scrameustache]

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.

Perfectly cromulent, but you'll notice that they didn't search the tubing in the wheelchair, they patted down the old man.

As an aside, they should know better, I've seen a dwarf on TV [mattroloff.com] tell TSA agents that they should search his wheelchair, and that he's kind of insulted that they assume he's not a threat because he's a dwarf with bad knees.

Re:Proprietary data

[Jesus_666]

This means that there is less risk involved when a Chinese officer enters your hotel room and makes a copy of your hard drive.

Damn that happens to me all the time. Hotels in Germany are already considering stopping to give out free skeleton keys to Chinese officers. It's that bad.

Re:Traveling while Muslim or Middle Eastern

[tiananmen tank man]

When traveling thru the airport thru international boarders, you know they check your bags and stuff for bombs and other bomb chemicals like dihydrogen monooxide. You don't have an expectation of privacy. They can and will use this opertunity to go fishing for infomation and can and will use it in court as evidence if needed.

Full disk encryption perhaps not so good...

[Anonymous Coward]

Lots of people here have suggested using encryption etc. I was feeling rather smug with my new laptop which has the disk fully encrypted (no partition nonsense either - I boot off a USB stick), but I'm not sure it's a particularly good idea anymore. After all when my laptop is turned on without the USB key in, it gives two loud beeps and an error message about the lack of boot record, which is hardly going to convince your average airport security that your laptop is working and isn't a bomb! Then I have to try and explain why i need to plug my USB stick in etc. When I do and suddenly the laptop/bomb is "activated" with pages of scrolling technical looking text I fully expect to get shot...

So I think I'm going to put a liveCD in the drive before I next travel!

Re:United Police State of America

[mordenkhai]

Plans to invade Canada have been scrapped by three separate administrations. Your bilingual signs confuse us, and its cold. Please send us more "bacon" as we would like to have another Egg McMuffin, and we will conveniently forget about the everything else, eh?

Re:United Police State of America

[stuff and such]

My favorite airport story still comes from my dad. He has metal pins in his ankle from a car wreck many years ago. He had done the usual 'take the shoes off' and as they waved the wand around his bare foot, it goes off. Dad says "there are metal pins in my ankle", airport genius says "can you take them out?"

Re:Shouldda Waited

[OMNIpotusCOM]

Terrorists are bringing kiddie porn to our borders? Those sonsabitches.

Re:Traveling while Muslim or Middle Eastern

[Escogido]

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!!!!

Every-one, not every-thing. Remember, we are talking about Nordic blondes and Irish redheads blowing here.

Re:Well, we put the miserable screeners at Dulles.

[gronofer]

Yup. Part of the construction at one airport a couple of years ago (I think Oakland) put a couple of hundred people waiting at the baggage claim in a relatively small room with a hundred people waiting to get through security. I told my wife, "If these people are smart, they won't bother with the planes; there's a 747-load right here."

Sure, but that wouldn't hurt the capitalist system where it really counts: the cost of replacing an airliner.

Re:United Police State of America

[idontgno]

That would mean my stereo, for example, could be made out of C4.

"This one goes to 11."