Judge: Warrantless Airport Seizure of Laptop 'Cannot Be Justified' 200
SonicSpike writes with news of a ruling in U.S. District Court that the seizure and search of a man's laptop without a warrant while he was in an airport during an international border crossing was not justified. According to Judge Amy Jackson's ruling (PDF), the defendant was already the subject of an investigation when officials used his international flight as a pretext for rifling through his laptop. The government argued that a laptop was simply a "container," and thus subject to warrantless searches to protect the homeland. But the judge said the search "was supported by so little suspicion of ongoing or imminent criminal activity, and was so invasive of Kim's privacy and so disconnected from not only the considerations underlying the breadth of the government's authority to search at the border, but also the border itself, that it was unreasonable."
She also noted that laptop searches may require more stringent legal support, since they are capable of holding much more private information than a box or duffel bag. And while a routine search involves a quick look through a container, this search was quite different: "[T]he agents created an identical image of Kim's entire computer hard drive and gave themselves unlimited time to search the tens of thousands of documents, images, and emails it contained, using an extensive list of search terms, and with the assistance of two forensic software programs that organized, expedited, and facilitated the task."
She also noted that laptop searches may require more stringent legal support, since they are capable of holding much more private information than a box or duffel bag. And while a routine search involves a quick look through a container, this search was quite different: "[T]he agents created an identical image of Kim's entire computer hard drive and gave themselves unlimited time to search the tens of thousands of documents, images, and emails it contained, using an extensive list of search terms, and with the assistance of two forensic software programs that organized, expedited, and facilitated the task."
Eh (Score:5, Insightful)
I've never seen where lack of justification ever stopped the government.
Re:Eh (Score:5, Insightful)
I've never seen where lack of justification ever stopped the government.
Or due process...
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Re:Eh (Score:5, Insightful)
They will continue to do as they please, the only consequence on their end is the admissibility of any evidence uncovered. It's not like they are likely to face any personal criminal or civil liability for the violation of the person's rights.
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But hey, lets keep voting for bigger and more government, and consolidate as much power at the top as possible because our guy is there! (Which works for both D and R )
More hoops before travelling through USA (Score:5, Informative)
1) The TSA and assorted related three letter agencies don't give a crap about due process or warrants anyways
2) If you're travelling through the USA (into, out of, or stoppover in), either don't bring any electronics at all, or only bring freshly wiped stuff with absolutely no personal data on them. Blob up your personal files into a passworded file somewhere on the 'net that you can download when you get where you're going, and don't carry the URL for it on your person.
Re:More hoops before travelling through USA (Score:5, Informative)
The moral of this story is:
1) The TSA and assorted related three letter agencies don't give a crap about due process or warrants anyways
2) If you're travelling through the USA (into, out of, or stoppover in), either don't bring any electronics at all, or only bring freshly wiped stuff with absolutely no personal data on them. Blob up your personal files into a passworded file somewhere on the 'net that you can download when you get where you're going, and don't carry the URL for it on your person.
3) Encrypt your hard drive, make sure to shut down before walking through security, and remember "I do not recollect" was good enough for Reagan.
Re:More hoops before travelling through USA (Score:5, Interesting)
no, you miss the point. travel 'empty'. a plain fresh install with no URL history or anything on it. ie, you do a fresh build, you create a backup (that's your new image for any new travel) and you travel with a fresh install of linux (ideally not windows) and you remember, in your head, your passwords and key URLs.
its very sad that its gotton to this. but this is probably the best way to protect yourself and arrive in one piece, unmolested.
sadly, very few can even do this much. or are willing to do this before they travel.
I don't believe encrypting a full disk is going to help you and may cause you to be detained (unfairly, but you are not in control, here, realize that). encryption keeps so-called bad guys out, but the real ones to worry about are 'your own people' (so to speak). they won't take no for an answer.
better to travel with a blank install and keep all your login and history info in your head.
Re:More hoops before travelling through USA (Score:5, Interesting)
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Or a lot of shock porn like the goatse guy, etc
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Re:More hoops before travelling through USA (Score:5, Insightful)
"If we can't use justice, we'll just use bullshit. We don't need to be 'right'." kind of demands to be contested on sheer principle. No, not everyone can afford to do so, but we can be aware.
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Re:More hoops before travelling through USA (Score:5, Insightful)
Erase your hard drive with a multi-pass secure wiping program before restoring the fresh image on it. Yeah yeah yeah it may not be perfect and theoretically some magical device might be able to pick up variations in temporal magnetic quantum flux in adjacent bits and recover data blah blah blah. But if they go to that level to recover your data, you were fucked anyways.
If they ask why it's such a fresh install, you just simply state that you access everything via VPN and you only travel with a fresh laptop in case it's lost, stolen, detained, confiscated, etc and you don't lose anything and everything on it while you're traveling.
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[[If they ask why it's such a fresh install,]] If they ask why it's such a fresh install, you ask "are fresh installs against the law?".
And they think "that's exactly what a terrorist would say" and take you away for a few hours of interrogation so you miss your flight and, if you're a foreigner, investigate your background to find a reason to refuse you entry into the country.
All the internet tough guys and barrack room lawyers here don't seem to realise or remember that mouthing off to border/customs officials has never been a good idea, even before the paranoia about terrorism that we have now.
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Two points.
1) for spinning platters, being able to recover significant amounts of data after even one pass of zeros is a myth. See this article on recovering overwritten data [nber.org] or any of the top google results.
2) SSDs are different, but far easier to wipe if you get a good model. There is an ATA Secure Erase command, and you can use it directly with hdparm on linux. It takes seconds to wipe most SSDs this way.
However, firmware implementation of this is spotty. You will find some studies showing secure eras [ucsd.edu]
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Make it too blank and there's new grounds for suspicion and again, they'll duplicate the disk and attempt to find any deleted files.
Remember these are US law enforcement agents we are talking about. If the HD is too blank, they will helpfully upload their personal stashes of child porn onto your system before turning it over to their forensics guy to "find".
At that level of paranoia, why don't you just say that they can take you away and shoot you?
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no, you miss the point. travel 'empty'. a plain fresh install with no URL history or anything on it. ie, you do a fresh build, you create a backup (that's your new image for any new travel) and you travel with a fresh install of linux (ideally not windows) and you remember, in your head, your passwords and key URLs.
its very sad that its gotton to this. but this is probably the best way to protect yourself and arrive in one piece, unmolested.
If you want to arrive unmolested you might try not taking part in an ongoing criminal conspiracy. Did you read the ruling or TFA? This was an ongoing investigation, where the owner of the laptop had previously been arrested; it was not a random "Let's take that dude's laptop." search. If the Special Agents involved had done their due diligence they could have easily obtained a warrant to seize the laptop rather than relying on the border search exception.
I tend to agree with the ruling, the border searc
Re:More hoops before travelling through USA (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, I pay taxes in the US, thereby providing material support to a terrorist organization.
Easy to say "just don't do it", not so easy to spend a few years in Club Fed for resisting the IRS' annual shake-down.
Re:More hoops before travelling through USA (Score:5, Insightful)
Hoenstly, I feel the same way about it. But if its any consolation, I don't feel I pay taxes so much as they just take them. Hell, their "share" of my money gets allocated before I even get it....I have to ask for a portion of it back every year.
Yet all they ever want to ask me is which face I like, they never once asked me if stomping on liberty was ok, they never once asked me if I wanted to pay for their oil wars or their torture program. I would gladly pay taxes to put every fucking torturer in prison and keep them their till they die of natural causes, but, nobody wants to give me that opportunity.
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Hoenstly, I feel the same way about it. But if its any consolation, I don't feel I pay taxes so much as they just take them. Hell, their "share" of my money gets allocated before I even get it....I have to ask for a portion of it back every year.
Yet all they ever want to ask me is which face I like, they never once asked me if stomping on liberty was ok, they never once asked me if I wanted to pay for their oil wars or their torture program. I would gladly pay taxes to put every fucking torturer in prison and keep them their till they die of natural causes, but, nobody wants to give me that opportunity.
In a democracy, your option is to change the government and the law, not to decide what you personally want to spend money on, or else a load of childless people would withhold money for education, pacifists for the military, libertarians for social welfare, etc.
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You can adjust your W-2 (is that the right form?) so that you don't have any (Federal) income tax withheld. I don't think you can do that for other deductions, though.
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You can adjust your W-2 (is that the right form?) so that you don't have any (Federal) income tax withheld. I don't think you can do that for other deductions, though.
You could, but you have to have within 10% of your final tax bill withheld to avoid penalties.
I suppose you intended to tell him he could adjust his employer's withholding to better match his deductions so that his net tax bill would be close to zero. This is sound advice. Nobody should let the government hold their money for free if they can help it.
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Unfortunately, I pay taxes in the US, thereby providing material support to a terrorist organization.
Easy to say "just don't do it", not so easy to spend a few years in Club Fed for resisting the IRS' annual shake-down.
I believe the correct response to extremist right wing guff like this is "fuck off to Somalia then you retard".
Instead, being slashdot, you get modded "insightful".
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You can leave, but your money stays behind with the IRS. Plus you will pay a good chunk of change for the privilege of losing your US citizenship. This is more like a Berlin Wall situation than a free country. Or trying to convert to Christianity if you are Muslim. Not a good reflection of American exceptionalism.
Re:More hoops before travelling through USA (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure it is. As a country we're exceptionally stubborn. Exceptionally greedy. Exceptionally fat. Exceptionally arrogant. Exceptionally stupid. Exceptionally self-absorbed...
Why, what did you think was exceptional about the US these days?
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No longer true. In recent years the US has started going after non-residents who don't file.
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Actually, Australia has similar laws [ato.gov.au].
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Which is why I said leave and don't come back. Take all of your money with you, and don't rely on an income from a United States based source. The IRS can always "require" you to pay taxes, but can't do much to collect if there's nothing of yours for them to grab.
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That's not true. Many countries have a reciprocal tax treaty with the US. I live in Israel. If I don't file, the IRS can request that my assets in Israel be frozen. On the flip-side, because I earn all my income in Israel and pay local taxes, I don't owe anything to the US, unless I earn a ridiculously high amount. I actually get a refund every year for my daughter, until she hits 18, of course.
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That is not true. The US requires you file income taxes. I pay nothing. I actually receive the child credit for my daughter, so I am literally getting $1000/yr just for filing.
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>> If the Special Agents involved had done their due diligence they could have easily obtained a warrant to seize the laptop rather than relying on the border search exception.
Well, if they could've, they would've. But it seems they didn't have substantial evidence to support a search warrant and they decided to get a sneak peek using border as an excuse. And yes, if it's not legal inside the US, then it's definitely without probable cause, at least legally speaking. Being involved in an investigation
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> If you want to arrive unmolested you might try not taking part in an ongoing criminal conspiracy.
And how exactly do you ensure that you aren't part of some investigation? Being innocent doesn't protect you from being under false suspicion ... given the level of snooping NSA, GCHQ, BND and the likes are doing, falling under some sort of false suspicion could be caused by a mis-dial or an errant email ... or possibly by some government-critical comment you do on some public forum or similar ... just take
Re:More hoops before travelling through USA (Score:5, Insightful)
Bullshit.
TSA et al have done the exact same thing with the laptops of people who aren't suspected of any criminal activity. And even if they are suspected of criminal activity, they're still entitled to due process.
What you're saying is "you have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide".
Have we actually reached the point where people are willing to accept fascists bypassing the law to make their lives easier? Or bullshit searches defended by the notion that innocent people have nothing to fear?
Because what yo're saying is "a little fascism is OK if we think they're bad guys". Fuck that.
Then get a fucking warrant . Bypassing legal obligations because you think you can game the system and get the TSA to do it for you means you should lose your fucking job.
It's bloody well time law enforcement was actually penalized when they do crap like this. And parallel construction should be grounds for criminal perjury charges.
None of this "oh we had to lie to get a conviction and keep our sources secret". Because that's a crock of shit.
Re:More hoops before travelling through USA (Score:5, Insightful)
Just a point of order, warrants are not required for searches and never have been. The vast majority of searches are conducted without warrants. For instance, the cops don't need a warrant to search somebody they're going to arrest. What's needed is that the search be "reasonable." So, either probable cause ("I smell weed!" rofl rofl rofl) or permission ("Hur, dur, of course you can look in my car occiffer!"). And a warrant is just a way of crossing the i's and dotting to the t's to demonstrate that you have established probable cause. So, don't think that just because a cop doesn't have a warrant he can't search you.
However, in this case, there is zero probable cause to search this guy's laptop. There is no way one can reasonably believe criminal activity is underway on his laptop, RIGHT NOW such that obtaining a warrant would be unnecessary.
There seems to have finally been some realization by judges that searches of electronic equipment are BIG FREAKING DEALS. Now that everybody has their life on their phone and computer, a look on your phone or in your laptop is a look inside your brain. I would rather have the cops look in my closet than on my phone. Now that computers have permeated society, I think judges and legislators are becoming less clueless, and we might finally see some progress on civil rights when it comes to electronics. The stuff we've been screaming about on /. for 15+ years is starting to come out of the mouths of judges.
Just sayin' it's a positive sign.
Border Search Exception (Score:2)
TSA et al have done the exact same thing with the laptops of people who aren't suspected of any criminal activity.
TSA doesn't conduct border searches; you fail on the very first sentence of your post. Border searches are typically conducted by ICE.
Actually, it's really irrelevant *which* agency does the search for these purposes. The question is the permissible scope of the border search exception, which is the same regardless of agency.
Fundamentally, arguments against the border search exception are usually weak. The Fourth Amendment was written largely by the same people who sat in the First Congress, and the First Congress explicitly granted customs officials the power to do thorough searches of ships, etc... in order to regulate contraband comi
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Searching ships for contraband is reasonable. Imaging laptops for contraband is not. I haven't RTFA, but I understand from the comments that the officers were not looking for contraband at all, but rather for leads in an ongoing criminal case.
If your country has laws regulating when and how much law enforcement can violate your privacy and your freedom, law enforcement should respect that and not circumvent those laws by abusing regulations made for an entirely different purpose. If lawmakers found it reas
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Those same people also passed the Alien and Sedition Acts. Saying "The first Congress did it" is not generally a good argument for interpreting the Constitution.
It is nevertheless the doctrinal origin of the border search exception. Personally I find much better arguments lie in the massive harm that can be done by importing contraband today--post WW-1, you have weapons like the machine gun. Post WW-2, you have the atomic bomb. Today you have highly developed bio-threats.
Of course, a search of your *computer* doesn't help much with those...
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When a crime has no victim, the criminal is the government, no exceptions.
If it was a theft investigation it would be one matter but, export tyranny? Its sad we live in a country where law makers can make and have laws like that enforced without being in jeopardy of never feeling the sun on their face again.
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Anything can be called "dual use". I don't rightly give a damn what something CAN be used for. Sell them missles for all I care, they have a right to defend themselves, just like we do.
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Anything can be called "dual use". I don't rightly give a damn what something CAN be used for. Sell them missles for all I care, they have a right to defend themselves, just like we do.
I think you're letting your gloriously righteous indignation overpower your common sense.
It is not OK to help hostile nations arm themselves against you. Would you really not care if the US sold nuclear weapons to Iran? Because the theory is that nuclear weapons are for defending yourself, although the "dual use" is pretty fucking obvious in that case.
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which is why liberty matters so much. Because mob rule has always favored tyranny and enforcement of its will on others, in fact, the only liberty that matters is the liberty to do what others do not approve of, nothing else even deserves be called liberty.
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Who uses that technology to kill more people, the US or Iran?
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Hmmm, if you want fascist America, why don't you go back to Germany, circa 1939.
I want a better America. Why don't you leave if you don't?
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Right. See: your sig.
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Exporting duel-use technology (accelerometers useful for missile guidance systems) to enemies of the United States (Iran) is far from a victimless crime.
That's because duel-use technologies are pistols and swords. Sometimes knives and banjos.
Re:More hoops before travelling through USA (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, you'll need to avoid:
+ having a name remotely similar to someone who is part of an ongoing criminal conspiracy,
+ driving a vehicle the same model and color as someone who is part of an ongoing criminal conspiracy,
+ being mentioned in a communication by someone who is part of an ongoing criminal conspiracy, even via typo,
+ looking vaguely like someone who is part of an ongoing criminal conspiracy in the eyes of the half-blind TSA agent,
+ looking like a brown person
+ having a nice looking new computer that a TSA agent just plain feels like stealing.
All of those things are reasons that either we've seen articles posted here about illegal seizures being justified by, or that people I know myself got "grabbed off the street" for. (That would be the same model/color vehicle one. The 60 year old woman they grabbed was not allowed to contact anyone until she was released with an "oops, license plate was wrong, and we were looking for a 20 year old guy anyways" 12 hours of interrogation later.)
As long as you manage all of that, AND have nothing to hide, I suppose you're totally safe as can be! (At least until you're not.)
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you might try not taking part in an ongoing criminal conspiracy
It's *not* "an ongoing criminal conspiracy" until a jury says it is.
It does mean the government was being horribly lazy because they should have had more than enough for a suitable search warrant, but there's certainly nothing the victim should have done differently.
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...without basis or probable cause.
Not random, but according to the judge it was without probable cause. Surely if they had probable cause, they could get a warrant.
So what we have here is that he is suspected of involvement with criminal activity, but not with cause sufficient to get a warrant and search him properly. What should one do to not arouse the vague unfounded suspicion of a LEA?
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empty? No fuck that.
Step 1: Install linux with its own /boot partition on /dev/hda1 (adjust as needed) and encrypted root disk
Step 2: reboot from live CD
Step 3: change encryption key to a random string you don't know
Step 4: Go to airport, say "sure you can look at my laptop, the encryption key WAS something like..." now say what it WAS before you wiped it, but sound unsure; insist thats what it was last you knew it. (which is true, that was the last passphase for it you know
Step 5: Smile, knowing you just t
Re:More hoops before travelling through USA (Score:5, Funny)
6. Enjoy detention until you spill the password?
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At least you know you would be costing them, and thats worth something. Let our domestic enemies waste their resources.
Re:More hoops before travelling through USA (Score:5, Insightful)
Similar problem with deniable encryption. [wikipedia.org] It sounds great, but if the bad guys think you've fooled them, they'll just keep beating you with the $5 wrench [xkcd.com] even after you've broken and given them the real password.
Best idea is to simply avoid people who are legally allowed to beat you. Trolling them sounds like fun, but, well, the wrench...
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They've shown so well that torture gives good results.
Oh, wait.
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Which, I'm sure, is a huge relief for the people being tortured by fools who believe in it.
Re:More hoops before travelling through USA (Score:5, Informative)
The moral of this story is: 1) The TSA and assorted related three letter agencies don't give a crap about due process or warrants anyways
The moral of your comment is you can't be bothered to read the fucking article. TSA has nothing to do with it. It's an investigation of a foreign national suspected of violating export laws regarding aerospace hardware with defense implications (accelerometers that can be used in missile guidance systems) to China. The search was carried out by a United States Special Agent, of the DHS Security Investigations Office, not TSA.
The ruling is actually an interesting read, the long and short of which is that the Government had tons of probable cause. The owner of the laptop had even been arrested previously and given testimony regarding his activities. This reeks of laziness on the part of the Special Agents conducting the investigation; they had more than enough to get a conventional warrant but choose instead of rely on the border search exception. Something tells me they won't be repeating that mistake in the future.
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Last I checked the TSA fell under DHS. DHS is a very broad category. this person may not have been a TSA agent, but it would not be hard to believe he was.
Re:More hoops before travelling through USA (Score:4, Informative)
The lion's share of TSA employees are not "Agents." They are inaccurately labeled as "Officers" but in reality they do not possess law enforcement powers. They have no special powers (beyond that of a citizen's arrest) to arrest or detain you; that's what the uniformed law enforcement officer monitoring the checkpoint is there for.
TSA does have a few Special Agents working for it that have such powers, as do all United States Special Agents, but they're focused on transportation security. The case being discussed here relates to export laws.
B I N G O ! (Score:2)
People do not realize the US has always exerted strong export controls. These accelerometers are most likely ECCN 7A001 (maybe 7A101) and software for their control 7D001 and drawings/specs 7E002 . All highly controlled.
I see no legal reason the border search exemption should be symmetric (incoming/outgoing) since the consequences are different -- inbound contraband can always be later seized; what is lost to outside is gone. DHS should have searched laptop and seized it if controlled material found (as
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Yes its true, people are too busy going around pretending to live in a free country when the truth is, anything some luddite in the government can make a flimsy justification is something you have no freedom to do anymore. free.....to do whats approved by our masters.
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Or if you're traveling in any vehicle with a more-than-infinitessimal chance of being diverted to the USA in the event of a problem.
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This. I wish I was looking at it from the outside but this place is getting scary. Police everywhere you look more often than not in unmarked or barely marked cars. Free speech only exists in "zones" whenever the tyrants decide its advantageous for them, they can deny anyone a trial indefinitely just by uttering the word "terrorist".....and thats hardly even scratching the surface.
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The moral of the story is that the US is hostile territory regardless. Avoid at all costs, stopover or otherwise.
You guys need to take your country back before I would set foot anywhere near your borders.
The moral of the story is not to get involved in smuggling arms from the US to Iran.
I no longer want to visit the US either, but it's not because they're trying to stop international arms smugglers.
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you seem to hold a Manichaeistic viewpoint that believes the government is inherently evil and individuals are inherently good
This is slashdot, of course he does.
Anything else is socialist fascist liberalism, and probably involves limiting the number of machine guns you can buy at once.
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Unless you are a megalomaniac multi billionaire living inside a hollowed out volcano, of course.
Violators. (Score:5, Interesting)
... agents created an identical image of Kim's entire computer hard drive ...
So in addition to conducting an illegal search, they also violated several copyrights.
Re:Violators. (Score:5, Informative)
Ironically though, this is pretty standard forensic practice. If you look at the active original, there's all kinds of possibility of tampering that could go on, even unwittingly. It's akin to trampling through a potential crime scene with no gloves, hair nets, etc, possibly while bleeding profusely over everything in sight.
Instead, computer forensic investigators are supposed to create an image of the disk, and then they can look through that image. This is also for the defendent's protection too, since this way if the prosecution does something shady, the defense can use its own copy to point that out.
Re:Violators. (Score:4, Informative)
Simply a "container," (Score:2)
The government argued that a laptop was simply a "container,"
They x-rayed it and it obviously wasn't full of explosives and it's not a liquid container of 3 ounces (or less) in a "one quart sized, clear plastic bag".
If they can prove that the files on the computer can somehow explode and be an imminent threat to the flight he was on, I might agree with the TSA. Otherwise I hope this judges decision is upheld. It would be a nice baby step toward having our constitutional rights restored.
Easier to get forgiveness than permission... (Score:3, Insightful)
What troubles me most is the mindset that allows this kind of bullshit to occur regularly- - and I can only assume it's because there is a now a concrete pattern of never prosecuting government officials for crimes like this.
The long-term message that comes from NOT prosecuting government torturers, mass surveillance-ers and directors who lie to congress is there will be no consequences, so there is no reason to stop. Is it Snowden who should be prosecuted, or every person who works at the NSA, knew what was happening and that it coudln't possibly be legal, and did NOT speak up?
PS- hi, nsa
Burners (Score:5, Interesting)
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Do you physically snap the burner laptop in half after each use, like on Breaking Bad?
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Do you physically snap the burner laptop in half after each use, like on Breaking Bad?
You have to eat the laptop to be sure.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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1. A large majority of the population (at least <50%) when placed in a position of power, will feel superior and disrespectful towards those they have power over. Thus they become corrupt. Pretty much most of human social history is an attempt to prevent and eventually overt
FedEx your power supply... (Score:2)
And leave the battery at 1%?
I'm not sure how intricate they get with laptops, Are you just required to show that it turns on? They can't rifle through it if it's out of juice. Or do they keep an emergency set of generic power adapters?
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then they still just start keeping a few power cables laying around.
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Some airports don't allow you to carry on a device that can't be powered on. It's harder to hide something in a functional device than one that doesn't function I guess is the theory.
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Hence the battery at 1% idea. Show them it turns on, then 60 seconds later it's dead.
What's a "software program" (Score:2, Funny)
"with the assistance of two forensic software programs that organized, expedited, and facilitated the task."
Oh, a "software program"... As opposed to a hardware program? an exercise program? What's wrong with just calling it "software",
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Because "two forensic softwares" is ungrammatical.
It's like asking why somebody said they had two works of art when "works of art" could be replaced with just "art" without confusion. You can't just say you have "two arts". You could say you have "some art" but now you've lost information from the sentence.
Program is countable, but software is linguistically uncountable.
Been through it (Score:5, Interesting)
4 officers took over an hour going over all pictures in my camera, emails going way way back, friends posts on facebook and facebook messages some over a year old.
I gave them all access immediately, but then asked about this process and they gave me a CBSA leaflet that explained if I denied them access they will confiscate the device, copy the contents and ship it back to me.
I got to keep my electronics because I gave them immediate access even though it cost me long distance data plans there.
Being a Canadian citizen, I dont think I have any teeth to complain to anyone but our own politicians here. And all they can do is make life miserable for US citizens entering Canada in retaliation.
I'm just so glad I havent cracked any stupid jokes regarding violence, drugs or terrorism in the last 1-2 years in any facebook messages or comments.
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I'm just so glad I havent cracked any stupid jokes regarding violence, drugs or terrorism in the last 1-2 years in any facebook messages or comments.
Next time you enter Miami they're going to make you log into your Slashdot account, read that post, and send you to Guantanamo.
Simple solution (Score:2)
We just need to realize this.... EVERY illegal search is depravation of rights under color of law. EVERY time evidence is tossed by a court, there should be felony charges filed against someone for having collected it in the first place....no matter what that evidence is, or why they thought it was ok. No Exceptions.
I don't get to claim I thought my actions were legal, why should they? If my ignorance is no excuse, why is the ignorance of a professional an excuse?
Start locking a few of these rogue agents up
I had 40 blank USBs retained and searched (Score:2)
Re:How long before Obama fires this judge? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How long before Obama fires this judge? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Backwards much? (Score:5, Interesting)
But, honestly, with the bullshit "we can do a border search at an airport and within 100 miles of the border", they probably figured they didn't need to.
They've already been told they have search powers that are effectively unconstitutional, but some how magically legal.
Which means they felt they could bypass the law by doing the search in an airport, and then using that as grounds for a warrant.
Evidence that, once again, law enforcement is taking advantage of all of the stupid rules which allow them to bypass the law.
As much as the judge shut them down, you can bet your ass this was a conscious strategy and not a mistake.
Re: (Score:2)
But, honestly, with the bullshit "we can do a border search at an airport and within 100 miles of the border", they probably figured they didn't need to.
They've already been told they have search powers that are effectively unconstitutional, but some how magically legal.
There's nothing bullshit about the border search exception.
It was defacto law before it was dejure law and it was done before The United States were United.
Yes, 100 miles from the border is nonsense, but the basic principle existed long before the Constitution did.
Re: (Score:2)
So long as an American citizen is travelling within the US, even if by air, there is no justification for any search or seizure of his or her personal documents, thoughts, or even religion.
My laptop may contain personal information, and only with a specific court order by a judge (not a blanket warrant for "all Americans") can they force us to reveal our personal data or thoughts.
It doesn't matter what their excuse is.
Can they scan it for potential hazards, or ask us to turn it on to "prove" it is not a hazard?
Sure.
But that is all the Gestapo can do.
You let me know how good you feel after $10,000 is spent on lawyers fees and you "win" your case against the Gestapo here.
Oh don't worry, You're right. The problem is it's going to cost YOU several thousand dollars to simply defend yourself and PROVE you're right.
Re: (Score:2)
$10,000? Drug! Civil forfeiture!
Now try to defend yourself.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Can they scan it for potential hazards, or ask us to turn it on to "prove" it is not a hazard?
Sure.
But that is all the Gestapo can do.
Yes, and that's why they're nothing like the actual fucking Gestapo.
Re: (Score:2)
This makes me feel a bit better. Also makes me feel like a bit of an ass for being so lame about my computer organisational skills, both on my pc and on backups.