The DHS concludes, no surprise, that it would be a burden to have to actually have a "suspicion" they can point to before taking any electronic device you cross the border with — laptop, smart phone, dumb phone, thumb drive, anything — and searching through it for Anything Suspicious (or, maybe, fun for them to see.).
"We also conclude that imposing a requirement that officers have reasonable suspicion in order to conduct a border search of an electronic device would be operationally harmful without concomitant civil rights/civil liberties benefits."
Sure, why would my liberty benefit not worrying that someone's going to be pawing through my love letters to my wife, my personal diary of possibly unpopular religious or political thoughts, my pictures of a political rally, notes about my business dealings, or anything else. If they were sitting on a hard drive in my house, or even in file cabinets at my house, then a little something called the Fourth Amendment would require a reasonable suspicion as confirmed by a judge. Now all some DHS guy at a border (or even a few hundred miles from the border) has to do is say, "Hey, he's dressed funny" or "Huh, she's pretty hot" or "Wow, I'm bored and haven't met my Search Quota today" and they can just search pretty much any and everything they want. Sweet deal, Constitution notwithstanding.
Oh, and that includes being able to demand your encryption password.
And, of course, if they do find something they can make a charge about (or at least that they think at that point actually is suspicious), well, have a nice day. (h/t +Wendy Cockcroft)
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DHS Watchdog OKs ‘Suspicionless’ Seizure of Electronic Devices Along Border | Threat Level | Wired.com
The Department of Homeland Security’s civil liberties watchdog has concluded that travelers along the nation’s borders may have their electronic devices seized and their contents reviewed for any reas…
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According to the map I saw, Florida is wholly "on the border". Nothing is "private" here…
So watch what you keep on your computer, I guess. Remember, innocent people have nothing to hide …
Oh I know…I hope they don't see all my convos with you and think I'm some sort of "radical" 😛
Seriously, though, I don't consider myself a huge 'privacy advocate'…I have nothing to hide….but still…this is too much, in my view.
The concern I have is not so much that I have anything I think I should hide, but that there could be stuff that someone with differing views might disagree with, possibly vehemently, and the "someone" in this case could be the person doing the searching. Would you casually get into a political or religious conversation with an ICE or TSA officer at the border or in an airport? Probably not, because there's little to no upside, at the possibility that they might somehow take it into their heads that you are an undesirable may be enough to tip the interaction into a very unpleasant encounter. There are more than enough cases of abuse of power by such folks, let alone ordinary police — not, perhaps in all, or most, or more than handful of encounters, but Constitutional Rights are not required for the normal and everyday, but for the rare or unpopular.
As Cardinal Richelieu put it, "Show me six lines written by the most honest man in the world, and I will find enough therein to hang him."
Another problem is that even if there is nothing illegal in your device, they can take it from you and keep it for weeks. If you’re traveling on business, you need to ensure you have access to your necessary data in ways that do not depend on having access to your computer.
Here’s a recent article from the NYT on the same subject: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/04/business/court-cases-challenge-border-searches-of-laptops-and-phones.html?pagewanted=all
Yeah, you’re correct in that being one of the problems. Which is not only functionally a difficulty, but makes for another area of possible abuse. Tick someone off at the inspection point, and your laptop is now under investigation by the US Government, here’s a receipt, we’ll let you know when you can come back and pick it up …
Dave and Dave Newman, business has been one of the biggest problems wth this I have seen.
If you have a phone, laptop, tablet, that is comapny based, that has access to classified info (be it HIPPA, govermental, or some big new project info), and handing it over to the TSA would then put you into the into a legal blackhole for violating *other* laws, what do you do?
There was a case on the BBC a year or two ago where this come up, and the person in question would not turn over his laptop and provide them with all of his passwords to the TSA so they could rumage through his files, and he was threatened with arrest if he did not do so. If he had done so, he would have been in violation of the EU Privacy laws, but luckily, he was just able to get out of the security check point with his computer and went out and had it overnighted by mail to his desitination.
But, hey, it’s always safer living in a Police State…
Good point. Though I’m sure the TSA would argue vigorously that (a) their security needs trump those paltry privacy laws (“Who do you want to win, America or doctors & TERRORISTS?”), and that (b) they are government professionals and we should trust them.
This agency is modeled after Russia and Germany to spy on innocent. Hitler was big on murdering all unfit in his mind. This is not helping it's stripping freedom for pro complete Communist Change. That is the Change that was being talked about. If they lie enough and drug enough they csn make some believe anything. This agency will doing what secret police did in Russia and Germany. Why stalk innocent with psych ops. Abuse of power corrupts.