Examining the Search and Seizure of Electronics at Airports 699
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."
Traveling while Muslim or Middle Eastern (Score:5, Interesting)
Decoy Data (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:United Police State of America (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Traveling while Muslim or Middle Eastern (Score:5, Interesting)
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!
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
guilty until proven otherwise (Score:5, Interesting)
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:Can you do this? (Score:1, Interesting)
When I traveled on military projects I used to line "You do not have the necessary security clearance. But you can telephone General X if you really insist." I was able to glide through security screening without a problem.
Re:Is this the United States or some banana republ (Score:1, Interesting)
Yes and Yes to your questions.
It's caused by the mixing of functions of our government; legislative, executive, judicial. Used to be the police, at all levels, were executive. Judges disciplined them severely for dishonesty or even stupidity and incompetence. No more, police are now Officers of the Court, and judges close ranks behind their employees (see Terry Schiavo).
TSA is just another police agency and the judge you appear before will defend ANYTHING they do.
Yes, now we're just another banana republic, just look at the power of a Home Owners Association.
Re:United Police State of America (Score:3, Interesting)
The boots were in her suitcase. The guys got to rummage through her underwear. She was *not* amused. I understand female celebrities tend to mail their underwear home for just that reason.
This theft of laptops at airports is in a different class though, those guys have been given too much power.
Sounds like her company did the right thing (Score:5, Interesting)
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:United Police State of America (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:United Police State of America (Score:5, Interesting)
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
Re:United Police State of America (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:not the answer (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Traveling while Muslim or Middle Eastern (Score:5, Interesting)
"We're not doing racial profiling! Look, we're searching a disabled veteran, out of the dozens of brown people we searched today! See?"
what is to stop (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:You know why you can't get relief? (Score:3, Interesting)
There was a case here a few years ago of a police officer who was attacked by a prisoner in a cell, he shot and killed the prisoner, the cop claimed self defence (that the criminal had grabbed for his gun and was shot in the struggle over the weapon). The case went to trial 3 times before the cop was finally convicted (first 2 cases resulted in hung juries) I can't think of any criminal that would have been tried 3 times to get the conviction, the case would have been dropped after the second trial for sure, but there was too much pressure to make it look like they were doing right, even if it meant going farther than they would ever normally do.
This cop's life is now ruined over a decision that he had less than a second to make, that had potential life and death consequences for both him and the prisoner, and was analysed for several years afterwards.
But then again... I don't live in the USA...
Re:not the answer (Score:5, Interesting)
One poster suggested that government contractors refuse to cooperate, and call their corporate security officer and/or DSS. That's an interesting idea, but someone undergoing a TSA or Customs search won't have any opportunity to contact their security office during the search. They're not going to let you make a cellphone call. You either consent to the search, or you don't. If you don't consent, they might take it anyway, and I'll bet money you wind up in handcuffs.
Re:Bloggers and YouTube killed your great nation (Score:1, Interesting)
remember vietnam? the lesson learned about never being able to win against a determined local populace in their own backyard? well the western governments have apparently missed that lesson, and the US in particular has spread their resources so thin that not only are they assured to lose both the war in iraq and afghanistan, but they are incapable of even protecting their own borders in the event of an invasion.. well my friend, if you happen to live within those borders, and if you happen to be determined to keep your freedom and dedicated to the ideals that our forefathers put forth in the declaration of independence, constitution, and bill of rights, i suggest you secure a firearm, dig in, and firmly state your intentions to keep your freedom.
the US government has 10x more guns than it has men.. and the men they do have are your brothers, neighbors, cousins, and sons.. the will of the people can not be ignored by any government. there was once a time in antiquity when the roman army had to dispatch large squads of men to protect the tax man.. why? because when he came knocking on the peasant's door he was never seen again. the US has put itself in a situation where there is not enough soldiers to protect the other soldiers, let alone the tax man. murder the fucking tax man, and send a message that we, the people, are the source of a government's strength, and we are revoking their "divine right" to represent us.
Re:United Police State of America (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Traveling while Muslim or Middle Eastern (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, there's the No-Fly List. I know a civil rights attorney in Manhattan who has to drive or take the train much of the time, because he's on the federal govt's unpublished, unacknowledged No-Fly List. He's never been charged with a crime, he's not a terrorist ... but his firm represents a handful of them down at Guantanamo, and he's filed briefs on their behalf.
He's a Jew of European descent, caucasian by appearance. I think it's down to his job and the actions his firm takes on behalf of Guantanamo detainees.
Re:United Police State of America (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:United Police State of America (Score:3, Interesting)
No, we don't have to break any laws, we have to break the lawmakers by voting them out of office and putting in people who will listen to the voters, rather than money.
One definition of insanity is: "Doing the same thing over an over again and expecting a different result each time. As long as a legislator can spend a lifetime in office, even if demonstrated to be totally in the pocket of the big moenybags, being voted in again and again, how can anything change?
Right now a certain female wants to get into office. She and her husband are for big business, even if that big business is in opposition to the people and the little competitors.
Re:Corporate Data and Spying (Score:3, Interesting)
They've already got that one covered:
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/05/70908 [wired.com]
I think it is reasonable to assume most commercially available VPN-based encryption (as well as TLS/SSL) can be broken by the NSA. Even if this is not the case, traffic analysis based on unencrypted headers can reveal a lot about what is being communicated to whom.
If I were just a bit more paranoid, I'd say the point of laptop confiscation is to force commercial entities to use easily broken commercial crypto over communications lines that are already heavily wiretapped.
Re:not the answer (Score:3, Interesting)
Is this explained to your clients in your companies privacy policy? I'm rather interested in knowing what my credit card companies policy is regarding data safety. Unfortunately, that part of the web site doesn't work. [americanexpress.com] Some of the information being seized may be my information, even though I am not the one traveling. Do I have legal recourse if my information is copied from the laptop of a company I do business with?
Re:Well, we put the miserable screeners at Dulles. (Score:5, Interesting)
But what can you do?
Now of course, Airports are beyond miserable.
FWIW, this is why I won't be going back to the US any time soon (although I've been there several times in the past, and to Canada). I really like the US, I like the people and the country. Americans are some of the warmest most friendly and helpful people anywhere in the world. I have relatives there and I could quite happily spend my holidays there every year, one state at a time.
The US tourist board run adverts on TV telling us to come visit at DiscoverAmerica.com [discoveramerica.com], which - given the way they treat you when you do get there, post 9/11 - is entirely a mixed message it seems to me. Trips there are nothing but a hassle with endless queuing and stupid security checks. I've had on multiple trips and the absolutely insane delays and had to deal with concentration-camp guards that pass for Airport security staff that ask you stupid pointless questions and what you do for a living.
For example, on our last trip (which I didn't want to go on, but a relative had just died, and there was a service):
We didn't have all the technical details of where we were staying at every point in our trip - we didn't need them - but they detained us because we didn't have them. They then directed us to a computer and let us *Google for them*. We filled out the details and they let us on our way. I have no idea what the point in that was. I could have named any hotel chain in a nearby city and said "oh yeah, that one", it's not like they called to check.
You certainly can't expect to turn up and just "take each day as it comes" as they expect you to say exactly where you will be and where you are staying. Personally I like to be spontaneous and free wheeling while I'm on holiday - especially when I'm visiting somewhere like the US where there is so much to see. On the last two trips I did multiple flights internally too, that was also an unbelievable hassle. Even the major airports are not designed to have large queues like there are now - clearly waiting areas and shopping areas have been altered to turn them into giant queuing zones.
Of course there are queues at UK airports and some silly rules (e.g. flying from Heathrow to a domestic airport requires you take off your shoes, but fly back to Heathrow from a domestic airport and you don't have to) but the delays don't seem any worse than pre 9/11, especially now that new faster facilities are available. The security staff are by and large pretty chilled out. I've heard of some abuses by immigration officials specifically (who seem to be hired primarily on the basis of how much they hate foreigners), but I've also seen them shrug off abuse and being ranted at at by drunk passengers late for a flight for having to wait all of 10 minutes to go through security (from guys who were quite obviously in the bar when they should have been checking in).
I'm looking forward to a future administration sorting this mess out and restoring some semblance of normality, I just hope that happens sooner rather than later. I know the US economy is a behemoth but the current regime has got to be hurting trade and tourism and impacting on the bottom line (I'm sure it's denting consumer confidence too, and so helping to depress the domestic market).
Re:Well, we put the miserable screeners at Dulles. (Score:5, Interesting)
Or you could just go to a phone booth, call the airport, say that you've planted bombs in the airport, hang up and walk away. Your friends could help by firing firecrackers close by.
I work for a company that does classified work (Score:3, Interesting)
We have to send it in advance via secure courier now.
Which leads me to believe the TSA doesn't care if you stuff is labeled "classified", they will go ahead and search it anyway
Re:United Police State of America (Score:2, Interesting)
On data encryption (Score:3, Interesting)
I've carried military hardware in my carry-one (Score:1, Interesting)
One such case:
TSA: "What is that?"
US: (we answer truefully)
TSA: "It's not going to melt the plane or turn on while you're flying or anything, is it?"
US: "No, it doesn't have a power supply."
TSA: "Well, we're going to need check it for explosives."
US: "We'd really rather you didn't take it out of the case; it's fragile."
TSA guy: 'Ok. We'll just check the outside then.'
And that was it. We were wearing our company polo shirts, and we had some paperwork on company letterhead we could have waved around, but no one even asked.
Re:United Police State of America (Score:3, Interesting)
If you're going to have random (or universal) searches, though, they should always be at least random. If you have exemption criteria that mandates disregarding a "hit", then you're allowing a loophole that becomes a known "pass". How hard would it be for the ever-present "potential terrorist" to fake being a wheelchair-bound war vet? For that matter, is it completely outside the bounds that a wheelchair-bound vet might have terrorist intentions?
Admittedly, I'm not that well-traveled, but from the couple times I've been to the Cancun airport in Mexico, I really liked their random screening method for customs. There's a big traffic light and a button, presumably on a randomizer. Hit the button: if it buzzes and goes red, your stuff gets the high-intensity search. Not only does it give an exciting game-show contestant mentality to the whole thing, it also makes it clear to everyone involved that it's just plain luck-of-the-draw, whoever's chosen.
What is this fascination with airports? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:United Police State of America (Score:5, Interesting)
No, this is just a symptom of the biggest problem, which is that the people at the top are completely clueless.
Check out this article [guardian.co.uk] which shows just how bad it's getting.
Re:Knoppix - leave the HD home (Score:3, Interesting)
Thanks for this article