Suit: Airport searches of laptops, other devices intrusive – CNN.com — If I was doing the searches you can be sure I’d want to get a look inside the laptops and briefcases of every investment banker who passed by. You betcha!
The Customs and Border Protection defends the searches, saying the agency does not need to show probable cause to look inside suitcases or laptops.
“We have broad search authority at the borders to determine admissibility and look for anything that may be in violation of criminal law,” says agency spokeswoman Lynn Hollinger.
Hollinger says electronic devices could contain evidence of possible ties to terrorism, narcotics smuggling, child pornography and other criminal activities.
Russ Knocke, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, equates searches of electronic devices to those of papers in briefcases.
“You forgo your right to privacy when you are seeking admission into the country,” he says. “This is the kind of scrutiny the American public expects.”
Actually, no.
bobbo said
#1 and #2–Could you two post something other than your adamant naivete that somehow the world should revolve around your infantile desire to keep secrets as you cross international borders?
Man caught crossing border with cocaine hidden in ice cream bars. Why that horible that they would search my food!!! I don’t like food once someone else has poked around it.
So because of YOUR personal desires, you want the border to be wide open to anyone who wishes to cross over with whatever information he wishes to bring and be free from challenge?? And yet I’ll bet you think Bush is doing a poor job of protecting us too?
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You are completely and utterly INSANE.
grog said, on February 11th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
THIS IS SO EASILY CIRCUMVENTED IT DEFIES BELIEF THAT ANY THINKS IT WOULD WORK
1.) put files in encrypted zip file on private, web-connected file server.
2.) enter u.s. without computer
3.) buy $1000 laptop
4.) download
BONUS? you get through customs FASTER than law-abiding citizens
UNBELIEVABLY STUPID!
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Yeah, that’s the problem. There are dozens of ways, that anybody with a bit of computer savvy, can circumvent these searches. How about encrypting the file, that you’re trying to sneak in, and then renaming the file, and it’s extension, to look like a system .dll file, and then burying it in your Window folder?
Now that the bad guys are aware of these sorts of searches, I’m sure that they will take such imaginative measures.
As usual, these rules are about fascism and not protection. Anybody that thinks otherwise, is a completely brainwashed moron.
#31–JPV–why so?
#10 – OFTLO should get after me on this.
You caught me on a day when I was taking a break from giving a rat’s ass about your right to privacy…
But now that I have a new laptop (just bought a spiffy new Toshiba over the weekend) I think I’ll take my old one, format it with a fresh OS and encrypt some tasteful hi res shots of my glorious ass, then make a hobby of passing it through security until someone finally decides to crack the code and get an eyeful.
#34–OFTLO==just label those pics “Old Faithful” and you might get by.
Well, Bush/Cheney and the Repukes never did like the Bill of Rights !!! Who needs to be “secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” – when the JACK-BOOTED REPUKES ARE ON THE CASE !!! Your PAPERS – OR ELSE !!! Lady Liberty Weeps !!!
#9, Calin,
cocaine in ice cream is nothing like information on a hard-drive. One is a harmful substance, the other is a series of 0’s and 1’s.
Alright. But the same logic that allows computer data to be 0s and 1s can also be used to suggest cocaine is only a collection of various atoms.
It is not the individual constructs that make an object. It is the combined construction that give an end product. A 0 and 1 by themselves are meaningless. As are a single Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, and Nitrogen atoms. It is when you string them together into something recognizable, be it a cocaine molecule or a picture, they become what is outlawed.
And yes, you have made your position on this clear. Although I don’t agree with profiling, I respect your measured response.
OFTLO,
BTW, congrats on the new laptop. I hope you’re happy with it