Posted on 08/01/2008 10:07:50 AM PDT by cowtowney
In further evidence of our rapidly eroding civil liberties, the Department of Homeland Security disclosed today that US Customs and Border Protection and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement have the right to confiscate and search a traveler's laptop or other electronic device without any suspicion of wrongdoing. The rules -- which we reported on in February -- allow for searches of hard drives, flash drives, cellphones, iPods, pagers, and video or audio tapes, and specify that the agencies can "detain" belongings for a "reasonable period of time," (i.e., as long as they please). Additionally, the DHS can share the data found with other government agencies or private entities for translation, decryption, or (astoundingly vague) "other reasons." The DHS says the policies apply to anyone entering the country -- including US citizens -- and claim the measures are necessary to prevent terrorism. In other news, Big Brother issued a statement today guaranteeing a bonus for turning over family members suspected of crimethink to the Thought Police.
(Excerpt) Read more at engadget.com ...
Big brother is watching us.
Any policy can be put in place “to reduce terrorism” these days.
My entire HDD on my laptop is encrypted. Their search would be short.
how convenient.
An easy way to breach attorney client confidentiality.
imagine what an obama would do
I am too busy thinking what a so called Republican President has done.
You could always put your private data on a Furby. Government agents aren’t allowed to be around Furbies in the workplace. :)
Or physician-patient confidentiality. I email my doctor frequently.
then they'll just keep you're laptop till you open it for them and possibly detain you till then.
They can say you have kiddie porn, bomb making information, names of web sites that are jihadist, e-mails to people on watch lists...ets..... on it and I'm sure that if they really want to get or put dirt on you, that the NSA, FBI or whatever alphabet agency has an IT geek that can manage to do the work for them.
beware of making the beast angry....
No, it won't. Military-grade encryption and decryption technologies are not available to private players. If you did succeed in encrypting the contents in a way that exceeds military levels, your HDD contents will be copied, and worked on.
:^)
Big Brother is alive and kicking in the Great White North. According to The Vancouver Sun, the Canadian government is preparing to revamp its copyright laws in regard to portable electronics, including laptops and iPods, as it forges an alliance with the U.S. and the European Union called the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). ACTA would essentially turn international borders into a copyright Gestapo, compelling border guards to check "laptops, iPods and even cellular phones for content that 'infringes' on copyright laws, such as ripped CDs and movies."You ripped a DVD legally (say, using one of those digital download editions now included on some discs)? Doesn't matter. Guards can seize your iPod and even destroy it if they deem you've broken the law. Then you will be fined. Canada already performs random searches of laptops to search for child pornography. The new rules would step up these searches considerably.
abuses described by the 4th amendment to the u.s. constitution were a
contributing factor to the american revolution.
“Canada: We’ll search your iPod for infringing media”
like Celine Dion “music”
You never had a right to cross the border without having your person or property searched, so all the courts have ruled is that your electronic devices are no different than your luggage.
iT is more tHan obvious that thE trendY anti-AmeRican, quichE-eating bufFOOns we have guarding the hen house are totaLly out of touch with any Semblance of reality!
It takes minutes (and a cheap set of jewelers’ screwdrivers) to swap a laptop drive so I carry a generic, minimally loaded Windows XP spare drive. Swap the drive before you get on the plane and keep the screwdrivers in checked baggage. Put just enough on the spare drive to do whatever work you want to do on the plane. Why would they think you have another drive somewhere else when you have a perfectly good working one in your laptop? Use free Truecrypt on the “real” drive. If they find it and can’t access any data, well then, they must have destroyed it. Well-encrypted data looks like total garbage. It costs quite a bit to analyze and decode AES256, Twofish, and Serpent combined encryption, assuming it’s even possible to do so. Keep a backup of the data at home. Chances are, the drive is basically useless to anyone else if it’s confiscated.
If you don’t want to go as far as the spare drive route, Truecrypt can hide entire file structures using steganography on your existing drive. Hide it all in plain sight. It encrypts using algorithms that the NSA has approved to protect Top Secret. Truecrypt also works on thumb drives. Great tool!
I would suggest traveling with a broke laptop...inviting them to seize the laptop and keep it for weeks...while trying to download or check your data. When you finally get it back....then you claim they broke the laptop. Because these guys are fairly dim about this whole IT business (based on all of their policies so far)...they would eventually agree that your laptop is broke and they’d pay you for it. You’d get $1500, and then use that to buy three round-trip tickets and three more broke laptops. You repeat this entire episode, with those three seized as well...then receive them back. You take them back into the claims area...and clear $4500. You repeat the episode over and over. Eventually....you’d clear $100k off this act.
As dim as these guys act....they’d never track their pay-outs for broke laptops, and just keep giving you more and more cash. Eventually....someone in the GAO would wise up, and congress would ask why they are paying several million a year for broke equipment. You’d do the same thing with IPODs, cellphones and flash memory, as well.
A guy could get rich off the Bush administration, and its poorly run programs.
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