Posted on 06/05/2013 2:01:37 PM PDT by Nachum
WASHINGTON (CBSDC/AP) — U.S. border agents should continue to be allowed to search a traveler’s laptop, cellphone or other electronic device and keep copies of any data on them based on no more than a hunch, according to an internal Homeland Security Department study. It contends limiting such searches would prevent the U.S. from detecting child pornographers or terrorists and expose the government to lawsuits.
The 23-page report, obtained by The Associated Press and the American Civil Liberties Union under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, provides a rare glimpse of the Obama administration’s thinking on the long-standing but controversial practice of border agents and immigration officers searching and in some cases holding for weeks or months the digital devices of anyone trying to enter the U.S.
(Excerpt) Read more at washington.cbslocal.com ...
Not the same people, but also related to those who get reports from Russia about young jihadists in this country, and cannot be bothered to follow up to see if there is anything going on... resulting in the Boston Marathon bombing. We will hear that, if only they had more money, they would be able to be more effective.
Some day it will dawn on the American Civil Liberties Union that democrats are thugs who don’t believe in the Constitution. Considering how radical left they’ve become - they might not care..
You're right - this has nothing to do with illegals and everything with targeting conservative Americans. Now it makes sense why these 'security guards' aren't given police training. A policeman would know this type of search is against the law.
Isn’t a following a hunch the same thing as profiling?
So , “Probable Cause “, as a ‘Law of the Land’ exists no more ?
Is this by adminstrative “guidance” ?
Any test legal case ?
Or is this another “OverReach Interpretation” ?
The word “hunch” has no legal basis in anything. There is “probable cause”, which itself is sufficiently nebulous to fill a textbook of case law, or their isn’t. This gang just makes it up as they go along.
Zero’s people winning more friends by peesing off the AySeeElYou.
Pop some corn, pull up a rock and we’ll watch the police state implode.
I was just reading that article at “Wired”.
The problem with decrypting is you are essentially being asked to recreate something that encrypt destroyed.
More like fishing with a trawling net.
The Dept. of Homeland Security can be de-funded based on hunches, too.
These searches of electronics, while controversial, are being done as part of a entry or exit inspection by Customs and Border Protection. There is a 4th amendment exception for border searches which allows a search of all materials crossing the border.
If we’re going to fight a war against a foreign enemy, we should be doing just that instead of gazing at our own national navel (descendants of Europe).
Oh, so they can search legal US citizens’ laptops and phones and probably bashing them to pieces in the process but they can’t be bothered to arrest illegals in a Mexican protest parade?
Makes me wonder why my grandfather went to Normandy for. I asked this in 1983, “what if we (the US) ever became the Evil Empire?” 30 years later, I think Pogo Possum had it right, “we’ve met the enemy, he is us.”
Anybody who takes data across international borders should expect to lose it to somebody. If you have to take a large amount of data, you should store it on a memory chip. A 32 gigabyte chip now costs as little as $32.
Heck, you could even use steganography software to conceal your data in the most boring tourist photos ever, or download an enormous pictorial guide to “the beetles of the world”, with 350,000 different pictures of beetles, that look exactly the same with encrypted data in them.
Anybody who takes data across international borders....
_______________
Constitution free zones are subject to search as well.
Fact Sheet
http://www.aclu.org/technology-and-liberty/fact-sheet-us-constitution-free-zone
... what is “the border”? According to the government, it is a 100-mile wide strip that wraps around the “external boundary” of the United States.
Map- includes zones around the great lakes
http://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights-constitution-free-zone-map
Yep, homeland is targeting middle class Americans again.. not too many illegals crossing the desert have laptops with them...
Does this include New York Time’s laptops? Or mabe James Rosen’s? Those AP guys look a little suspicious...
This is against the law ...
This is against the law ...
As a matter of fact, it's not.
The 4th Amendment bars "unreasonable search and seizure".
However, your baggage may be routinely searched when you enter and leave the country. Under the 4th Amendment, this has always been considered a "reasonable search".
And searching a laptop is no different than searching your luggage.
“....well....I have a hunch that a certain miscreant at 1600 is using a Blackberry cell phone for nefarious purposes...”
Yes indeed! If that Assange wanted any American respect, he would access and publish the contents of Obama’s offline fundamental transformation device, e.g., his Blackberry.
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