Laptops May Be Seized on Entry to U.S.

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Doesn't this story sound familiar? The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that authorities can search and/or seize your laptop for any reason they like. Refusal or resisting only gets you a free trip to the baton testing room.

That ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit last week is the second in less than a year that allows the U.S. government to conduct offsite searches of digital devices seized at the border without a warrant, Network World reported.
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Didn't they already decide they were doing this when the Patriot Act was born a few years ago? I remember already reading something like this before.
 
Another insane ruling from the 9th circus, what part of the 4th amendment do they not understand?
Oh wait, this court is dominated by leftist that believe the constitution is a living document that should be changed as they see fit, or that rulings can be based on the foreign law.

Just because you leave the country doesn;t mean you give up your 4th amendment right when you return. Now if the rule only applied to foreign nationals coming into the US (not US citizens) then this MIGHT be constitutional.

Looks like another case for the supreme court.
 
Azhar said:
Didn't they already decide they were doing this when the Patriot Act was born a few years ago? I remember already reading something like this before.
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Ya it has been going on for awhile, however it has been getting challenged. It'll probably eventually end up in the Supreme Court. The government says "We have a right to search you at the border. The Courts have continually ruled you've no right against searches when crossing the border. This is just an extension of that." The people opposed say "Yes but that is for security and smuggling and the like, it is not unlimited. You can search me, but you can't take my stuff. You can look through my bag, but not my journal of private thoughts. My computer is the same deal."

So no, this is nothing new other than the 9th Circuit said that it is ok. They've been doing it for years.
 
nutzo said:
Another insane ruling from the 9th circus, what part of the 4th amendment do they not understand?
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... except that the 4th doesn't apply to non-citizens which are most likely the intended target of the original bill.
 
just make sure to encrypt your shit, and store any contraband on portable media.
 
Thuleman said:
... except that the 4th doesn't apply to non-citizens which are most likely the intended target of the original bill.
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The article says the hearing was targeted at a case of a man who crossed back into the US from Mexico. The man was a registered sex offender and they decided to search his laptop. It doesn't state if he's a US citizen or not, but the fact that he took this to court citing Fourth Amendment violations would make me assume he is a US citizen.

(yes they found kiddie porn on his laptop after the search)
 
Since when has there been an expectation of privacy at the border? They'll already search pretty much everything else. If you had a book they'd look in it. Why should the expectation of privacy be any different for your 1s and 0s?

I'm not saying it's right, I'm not saying it's consistent with the ideals of the founding fathers, but I am saying that anyone surprised by this simply wasn't aware of the latitude Customs agents have at our border.
 
nutzo said:
Another insane ruling from the 9th circus, what part of the 4th amendment do they not understand?
Oh wait, this court is dominated by leftist that believe the constitution is a living document that should be changed as they see fit, or that rulings can be based on the foreign law.

Just because you leave the country doesn;t mean you give up your 4th amendment right when you return. Now if the rule only applied to foreign nationals coming into the US (not US citizens) then this MIGHT be constitutional.

Looks like another case for the supreme court.
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This is nothing new, this is rehashed every year, sometimes twice a year, this has always been the case, they have always been able to take what they want if they want in Customs.
 
dr.kevin said:
just make sure to encrypt your shit, and store any contraband on portable media.
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Doesn't matter. Customs can make you give up the passwords to decrypt. Comply or else.

http://www.aclunc.org/issues/techno...of_your_laptop_at_international_borders.shtml

"US Customs agents now have free reign to search through all the photos of your personal life, emails to your friends and family, all the e-books you have purchased, and your entire music library. If you have confidential work information about clients, patients, breaking news stories, or business deals, US Customs may attempt to view those materials. And if you try to keep that information private through the use of encryption, you may face a further problem with US Customs."

Hope somebody with common sense gets all this changed, but I won't hold my breath waiting.
 
Just take out the hard drive of the laptop if you're paranoid, if they take the laptop then there's no HD...say you mailed it before you flew back!
 
Got to love the ninth circuit court of appeals. It is amazing that the judges sittings on the ninth circuit are not censured or removed.
 
pgaster said:
Doesn't matter. Customs can make you give up the passwords to decrypt. Comply or else.

http://www.aclunc.org/issues/techno...of_your_laptop_at_international_borders.shtml

"US Customs agents now have free reign to search through all the photos of your personal life, emails to your friends and family, all the e-books you have purchased, and your entire music library. If you have confidential work information about clients, patients, breaking news stories, or business deals, US Customs may attempt to view those materials. And if you try to keep that information private through the use of encryption, you may face a further problem with US Customs."

Hope somebody with common sense gets all this changed, but I won't hold my breath waiting.
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I thought about filling a few dozen old flash drives with TrueCrypt volumes containing "this is an empty file" repeated then re-encrypt the volumes lots of times using randomly generated passwords (making a note of them). Jumble the password order and print them out. If they ask for the passwords I hand them over and inform them of the file contents and that I have no idea what order to use the passwords.
 
Wow, At first I thought lets get rid of more rights, but in reality if you come back into the country, they can search anything they want physically before admitting you back into the USA. After all you do not have the rights of a US citizen until they stamp your password again.

Just try to get in if you don't have your passport!
 
nutzo said:
Another insane ruling from the 9th circus, what part of the 4th amendment do they not understand?
Oh wait, this court is dominated by leftist that believe the constitution is a living document that should be changed as they see fit, or that rulings can be based on the foreign law.

Just because you leave the country doesn;t mean you give up your 4th amendment right when you return. Now if the rule only applied to foreign nationals coming into the US (not US citizens) then this MIGHT be constitutional.

Looks like another case for the supreme court.
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https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Border_search_exception
 
Points of entries are magical places for customs and border patrol, they can pretty much get away with everything at a point of entry.
 
IMHO the greatest travesty here is where your laptop goes "missing" until they complete their investigation. ESPECIALLY if you HAVE encrypted something and have "forgotten" or refuse to provide the password. I'm sure you'll NEVER see that laptop again.
 
pgaster said:
Doesn't matter. Customs can make you give up the passwords to decrypt. Comply or else.

http://www.aclunc.org/issues/techno...of_your_laptop_at_international_borders.shtml

"US Customs agents now have free reign to search through all the photos of your personal life, emails to your friends and family, all the e-books you have purchased, and your entire music library. If you have confidential work information about clients, patients, breaking news stories, or business deals, US Customs may attempt to view those materials. And if you try to keep that information private through the use of encryption, you may face a further problem with US Customs."

Hope somebody with common sense gets all this changed, but I won't hold my breath waiting.
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Council for Foreign Relations strikes back.
 
ol1bit said:
Wow, At first I thought lets get rid of more rights, but in reality if you come back into the country, they can search anything they want physically before admitting you back into the USA. After all you do not have the rights of a US citizen until they stamp your password again.

Just try to get in if you don't have your passport!
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ive been to numerous countries and have never had my passport stamped when entering back into the us.
 
Most encryption systems have plausible deniability passwords.

Your real password boots into your normal partitions, and a lame password holds a 2GB windows XP install. Rest of the drive looks like random data.

gj gj can't get caught.
 
Would taking out your hd/ssd from you laptop and mailing it home from outside the US completely bypass this? Can't sieze what isn't there.
 
Opty1218 said:
Would taking out your hd/ssd from you laptop and mailing it home from outside the US completely bypass this? Can't sieze what isn't there.
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They probably fucking shoot you. I fucking despise USA B/P and ICE. They can't do their fucking job and they make everyone else's lives hell. The vendetta's these people hold makes me thing every single B/P agent was raped, repeatedly, in their childhood. :eek:
 
Hows that whole "land of the free" thing working out down there?
 
Dodgerpro said:
Points of entries are magical places for customs and border patrol, they can pretty much get away with everything at a point of entry.
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It's called border search authority and yes they can seize your laptop if they want. And copy all the data if they want. And get your laptop back to you in a few months.
 
ir0nw0lf said:
Can I add that to my Christmas wish list? :D
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Sure. I did, too. Doubt Santa will oblige, though. He lives there during the off season.

We sure are throwing our freedoms away in the face of "security" lately. I guess if I travel overseas, I sure as shit am not taking my laptop.
 
good time to use cloud storage.
That said, it's almost like they don't want people to visit the US. I know I stopped visiting quite a few years ago, it's just too much of a hassle.
 
Dont worry look at the track record of the turn over on the 9th courts decisions they make some of craziest rulings sometimes.
 
Filter said:
ive been to numerous countries and have never had my passport stamped when entering back into the us.
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I thought they only stamp your passport on the way into visiting country. If the US is your home country why would they stamp it. I could be very wrong though.
 
So what you're saying is that if I were to travel to America, on vacation or otherwise, they would have the power to seize my laptop for an indefinite amount of time, and return it (actually, no, they'd just forget about it) at their leisure? What bullshit is this?

I'm not saying it'd happen to everyone, but this is just pants-on-head retarded.
 
Customs reasons for searches are to find contraband. Exactly what contraband would be on a laptop that couldn't securely be transferred online? The purpose of the border checks aren't to check if you're a criminal, they are to check for stuff being smuggled in more or less. I see no logical explanation for checking a laptop's at the border. Nothing can be stored on it that couldn't be brought in easily online.

The example in the article shows customs agents clearly were clearly exploiting the law to let them bypass the 4th amendment to check for kiddie porn. This law effectively give them the excuse to do warrant-less searches. When the government is given power they abuse it. Of course they don't do this to everyone but if they had the resources it would be more commonplace, at least up to the point that would incite public resistance to the law.
 
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