Appeals Court Affirms Warrantless Computer Searches

suraj.sun writes with this excerpt from ComputerWorld: "Laptop computers and other digital devices carried into the US may be seized from travelers without a warrant and sent to a secondary site for forensic inspection, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled last week. The ruling is the second in less than a year that allows the US government to conduct warrantless, offsite searches of digital devices seized at the country's borders. A federal court in Michigan last May issued a similar ruling in a case challenging the constitutionality of the warrantless seizure of a computer at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport. Several other courts, including the Ninth Circuit itself, have ruled that warrantless, suspicion-less searches of laptops and other digital devices can take place at US border locations."

"Suspicion-less searches" comes in handy

[ls671]

"Suspicion-less searches" comes in handy

"We had your laptop searched for no reason, we never suspected you of doing anything wrong..."

This way, nobody could ever complain of discriminatory treatment based on race, nationality, religion, etc.

Re:"Suspicion-less searches" comes in handy

[lgw]

Detroit is in the Constitution-Free Zone [aclu.org], so this isn't much of a surprise. It's sad what we threw away in the War on Drugs, and will of course perpetuate in the Wars on Whatever's Handy.

Does this bother any other travellers?

[Wrexs0ul]

I travel with a laptop for remote access to business stuff, even on holidays (emergencies only, of course). Because of travel to the USA I've specifically bought a EEE that could be confiscated without too much out of pocket expense, but it's a real pain to operate some things on the tiny 10" screen instead of my purpose-bought Dell.

Does this seriously bother any other /.-ers? Having to double my personal hardware just to accommodate US travel is a pain in the ass for the overwhelming number of legitimate travelers, and there's nothing that couldn't get-into/leave the country via the internet anyway. Seems like there's no benefit at all to this nonsense.

-Matt

Anecdote

[Anonymous Coward]

I work for a subsidiary of a large defence contractor and we've been told via an IT Security Policy announcement never to keep work data locally on our devices (laptops, phones etc.) when crossing any border. We are to connect to the VPN after we get there and download it if we need it. This is even the case if the whole point of going overseas is to demonstrate an a purely IP-based/digital product. This policy was announced at the start of the year, I wonder if it's related.

Re:What is the purpose exactly?

[Martin Blank]

It's not always that easy. The Brazilian authorities enlisted the aid of the FBI in cracking the encryption on the hard drive of banker Daniel Dantas, who was suspected of money laundering and attempting to bribe law enforcement. Despite five months of work by Brazil and about twelve months by the FBI, they couldn't get into his drives protected by TrueCrypt using AES-256 and good, long passwords. He was eventually sentenced to ten years in prison, but only on the bribery charges. The money laundering case couldn't proceed without the data on the drives.

Re:"Suspicion-less searches" comes in handy

[MartinSchou]

Am I the only one who wants the ACLU to publish a map of the revised US map, if you remove the parts that aren't covered by the US Constitution

Re:Does this bother any other travellers?

[dev.null.matt]

Last time a flew (last week) I noticed the people being selected for "further screening" seemed to be primarily attractive women traveling alone. I'm sure that was a coincidence as well.