The Washington Post has an interesting article about a coming lawsuit against the TSA US Customs and Border Protection for possible invasion of privacy. Apparently, U.S. Customs has been known to require travelers to turn on their laptops so their data can be inspected.
A few months earlier in the same airport, a tech engineer returning from a business trip to London objected when a federal agent asked him to type his password into his laptop computer. “This laptop doesn’t belong to me,” he remembers protesting. “It belongs to my company.” Eventually, he agreed to log on and stood by as the officer copied the Web sites he had visited, said the engineer, a U.S. citizen who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of calling attention to himself.
Maria Udy, a marketing executive with a global travel management firm in Bethesda, said her company laptop was seized by a federal agent as she was flying from Dulles International Airport to London in December 2006. Udy, a British citizen, said the agent told her he had “a security concern” with her. “I was basically given the option of handing over my laptop or not getting on that flight,” she said.
…
“I was assured that my laptop would be given back to me in 10 or 15 days,” said Udy, who continues to fly into and out of the United States. She said the federal agent copied her log-on and password, and asked her to show him a recent document and how she gains access to Microsoft Word. She was asked to pull up her e-mail but could not because of lack of Internet access. With ACTE’s help, she pressed for relief. More than a year later, Udy has received neither her laptop nor an explanation.
The Post says that the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Asian Law Caucus plan to file a lawsuit to force the government to disclose its policy on searching and confiscating electronics. A U.S. Customs spokesperson said that they don’t engage in racial profiling, but that a laptop may be seized if it “contains information possibly tied to terrorism, narcotics smuggling, child pornography or other criminal activity. “
Clarity Sought on Electronics Searches [Washington Post] (Thanks, AK!)
(Photo:devwalla)
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re: porn. Returning from Germany and the Czech Republic we had a bunch gay to-do guides mixed in with some club flyers and local stuff.
Returning to Denver this particular customs guy started leafing through it- took one glance and couldn’t get us out of there faster…
@zouxou: You’re not serious about being off-topic, are you? All the freedoms we’ve seen steadily erode are a direct result of the current administration (and yes, the kowtowing Congress that went along with them).
Until there’s a change in leadership these kinds of abuses will continue. Nothing could be more on-topic.
@sixseeds:
When modes of intercontinental travel other than air travel became virtually nonexistent, and when utterly non-transparent, unaccountable blacklists came about.
@godai: Similarly, a writer could claim protection by the first Ammendment because the computer may contain material from a interview with a source that asked to remain anonymous.
So, it seems we have the 1st and 5th ammendments and other privacy acts that are on our side on this issue.
@Id_LQQK: Man-made rules, such as the US Constitution, are only good if they are obeyed. We can be screaming “It’s my Constitutional Right!” as much as we want, but it doesn’t do us any good when we’re being dragged off by the customs agent to a holding cell.
Um… yes.
I’m an IT Professional. I spent 43 weeks on the road last year, mostly to the places so remote Google Maps never heard of them. There is no reliable net connection in many of them. And amount of data I haul around… let’s just say I would need a lot of portable media for it all (I already haul 2 USB Hdds in my luggage) – not to mention that some of it is important enough I am not willing to lose it to crappy USB storage failure.
I have been asked to power on my laptop several times – this I gladly complied with. Likewise, several times I was asked to log in into it for inspection. First two times, I spent ungodly amounts of time explaining TSA Agents the meanbing of words such as NDA, subpoena and proprietary company information. After that, I developed a habit of leaving UbuntuLive CD in my laptop; anytime TSA asked me to power and log in, I allowed Ubuntu to boot up from CD, logged into it and smugly smirked while watching TSA agents struggling with a ‘nix shell (GUI disabled). It gives me such sadistic pleasure.
On a side note, laptop I travel with is a Dell Precision M6300 – a huge, 17″ monster of a laptop workstation. If I wanted to, I could put in guts of one of tiny lappies everyone totes around, and still have plenty of room for Semtex. And yet, not once did they swab it… go figure.
@Andr0: I like the LiveCD idea. Maybe I’ll set my Mac to boot into single user mode (basically a BSD terminal), since I can just tell it to boot into OS X without much trouble but some inspector dipshit won’t be able to navigate his way around.
I just wanted to confirm how that works, if you have a Mac, set it to require a login after being woken from sleep or when you first turn it on.
Also, change the login screen from “list of users” to “name and password entry boxes” so the TSA or whoever can’t see your normal login name.
In the name box type >console and hit enter, and you’ll be at a DOS looking screen. Login as a fake account name you made, and the TSA won’t be able to find or view anything. To get back to OS X, type exit and hit enter.
Ugh! I hate the tactics those in authority use. The tsa threatening to not allow you to board your plane unless they go thru your laptop with a fine toothed comb is akin to the cop who just pulled you over asking to do a search of your car & threatening a ticket (for some OTHER infraction he can “find”) if you dont allow him access.
I wonder if the tsa has bomb-sniffing dogs that can false alert on command like the police have with drug dogs? Wouldnt be suprised.
Seems these days if you dont allow the authorities to get their way …. they will make you pay one way or another. Its becoming a scary world more & more.
@Andr0: …that’s brilliant.
And suddenly, I have a good reason to not upgrade the primitive dual-boot setup on my travel laptop. (It boots to a ‘nix shell, I have to type in the name of the GUI manager I want it to run.)
@jamesdenver: Awesome. But actually, I’m surprised you didn’t get selected for further inspection, and by inspection, I mean harassment.
…this is one reason I am glad I am white caucasian male with a normal last name who doesnt leave the US.
@teh:
Except for the article and the case that you link to say the opposite…. According to the article, the person had a 5th Amendment right not to give up their password, and the government couldn’t compel it again.
@noquarter:
you’re right. It is Customs/Border Patrol, and not TSA. And you’re also right, it does have nothing to do with bombs and the safety of fellow travelers.
So, since we’ve established they’re not trying to protect travelers or prevent terrorism, why are they rummaging throught people’s computers without warrants or probable cause?
Becauese they can?
Because they never liked the 4th Amendment anyway?
The TSA at Dulles didn’t want to let me through in November 2005 becuase my flight got pushed back in Marseilles, France, and the airline (Air France) didn’t update my paperwork correctly. After an hour of arguing (my connecting flight was set to leave in 1/2 hour), I asked to speak with a supervisor. The supervisor had me identify my bag and contents before allowing me to go to the conveyor belt. After searching my luggage to match the content to my description, she then made me start up my computer so that she could see what disc was in the optical drive, followed by a brief overlook of the photos I took while abroad. I didn’t even think of the implications of it not being legal since I was too stressed about catching my connecting flight.
Wow that is scary stuff! I am an attorney. This absolutely terrifies me. Utterly unacceptable! Worth researching further. I am sure that pleding the 5th won’t help. That is only applicable in certain fact specific instances.
In the case of Maria Udy, she just got robbed. I guess we will get more and more people getting employed with TSA just to steal some laptops.
@ThomFabian:
That would be quite silly since you could easily fit a bomb in a laptop and use a program if you are savvy enough, or simply the PCMCIA card slot eject button to trigger it.
@sixseeds:
When your government can ruin your entire life with just a few minutes.
I think the biggest issue here is the fact that this is a problem. Their verified checks of it just working does not mean there is no bomb in there, nor does your data have anything to do with terrorism bs. You can’t even tell if it was stolen either since it is easy to wipe the OS and reinstall it.
@rhombopteryx: There is a border search exception to the 4th Amendment, which is why they can rummage through your bags. More detailed searches (like a strip search) at least require a reasonable suspicion, but no warrant or probable cause. The question of where computer searches fall on this spectrum is unsettled. Wikipedia is actually not bad on this:
[en.wikipedia.org]
Now if a company were to pay an employee to be hired by the TSA for the purpose of corporate espionage… would that be illegal?
You can generally tell a business traveler works for a given company because laptops are quite often labeled. It’s not to hard.
It would be a very easy way to get trade secrets. Then hide behind the federal government to avoid prosecution. I doubt the government would allow it to go to trial since that would raise a bunch of questions about the entire practice.
@unklegwar: If you go there from the continental United States (mainland) you will not pass through customs. Its like driving from one state into another. Now if you’re flying into Hawaii from any other country, thats a different story.
Unless they could provide me with A) a search warrant for my laptop, or B) VERY good probable cause, I’d have told them to go suck on the fifth amendment, because that constitutes illegal search and seizure.
@ekthesy:
Well said. The TSA and DHS have too much power, some of it verging on unconstitutional. I hope whoever is elected in November seeks to curb their abuses and possibly downsize them.
@forgottenpassword: Don’t forget, the cop will now swab your cheek and take a DNA sample as well, because there may or may not be a *vicious murderer* on the loose.
The problem with things like this is the rebellious teenager lurking in the back of my mind is screaming, “just tell them to f*** off and die,” while the supposedly more mature, maybe just more jaded me is imagining the six months of sitting in jail waiting for a hearing while not being charged with anything simply because I told someone they didn’t have the right to search my laptop and being blacklisted from flying. And the memory of my high school English teacher is cringing at my apparently undying tendency to compose atrocious run-on sentences and starting sentences with the word “and.”
@littlejohnny: I have no problem at all with them swabbing laptops for explosives. In fact, it makes me glad to see them do that. Over a decade ago I did some business traveling with an IBM PS/2 P70. They called it a portable but virtually everybody who had one called it a “luggable”. It was basically a full fledged PC, complete with capacity for full sized expansion cards, designed to fold up and fit in a carrying case (there’s a picture at [pc-museum.com]). Given that it could hold a full-sized expansion card I used to joke with coworkers that it’d be the perfect place to stash a gun, bomb, knife, etc. At that time the airport security guards might make you turn it on, but that wouldn’t catch whatever you might be hiding inside the case. The same thing goes, to an extent, wtih laptops these days. An older style laptop could easily be used to smuggle some explosives on board. Just remove a CD/DVD drive or some other unnecessary components and pack in some high grade plastic explosives. Searching for that sort of thing is perfectly fine with me. Requesting access to private/confidential data on the computer itself is crossing the line.
@aaron8301: Actually yet another reason to not fly through the US or use their carriers. Not that they were anything to write home about anyway.
@kityglitr:
@Trick: So, what do Muslim men aged 14-49 look like, exactly? Are they all of Arab descent? What about the Nation of Islam (African-American)? What about Caucasian Muslims? Just be the racist you are and admit you believe that all people of Arab descent should be searched. If it’s what you really think, don’t be shy about it.
–
I don’t have to admit anything to make your over-dose of PC misery feel better. Plain and simple, harrassing old ladies and little kids and treating everyone as if they are terrorists to justify a bloated, idiotic program is just plain stupid.
Oh but at least you can go on and on and on and on about little Timmy, the white terrorist. After all if little Timmy can be a terrorist, so can Grandma.
Did it ever cross your little sensitive mind that *ANY* profiling is just plain stupid? It doesn’t matter if you are a Muslim man aged 14-49 or a 79 year old grandma.
But don’t let those little facts get in the way of your racist hissy fit.
See, If I had to travel abroad, I would load up my back ground of nothing but goatsee. maybe add some cups videos or maybe a tubgirl. For this I would make a dummy login for it.
Maybe make all my sounds nothing but curse words and possibly have a porn video inside.
But still For all you who do travel abroad make a dummy account and load up with the worst pics you can find. Legal ones. Personally I think this would be best if you flew into utah, greatest possibility of offending someone.
And nothing is more visually searing than tubgirl or the gaping goatsee.
One word: Truecrypt ( [www.truecrypt.org] )
Create encrypted hidden partition – without the right password the partition won’t even display. Works for Mac, Windows and Linux. Then feel free to show them all the nonsense stuff on the open partition 8)
@DrGirlfriend: coventry is slinking around the corner. . . .
//She was asked to pull up her e-mail but could not because of lack of Internet access.
why the hell do they need to look at her email its not tied to the physical laptop itself so they have no right to look at it.
i’m encrypting my computer if i have to take it on a flight. they have no right to pry into personal documents
@Helmut Spargle:
There is no “exception” to the Constitution…. That’d be, well, unconstitutional.
I understand your point that the 4th Amendment is relaxed @ the border, but if you read the wikipedia article (agreed, a fairly good one, not all crack-edited out) it does point out that the 4th Amendment, though relaxed, still applies. Some of those searches do require warrants or the like. Continue reading, and it looks like a court has already struck down (at least at LAX) these computer searches as unconstitutional.
Note to self – fly through LAX.