A consumer is a shopper who is sore about something - Harold Coffin
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ACLU sues US Customs over laptop searches
The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit over the seizure of laptops by border police without reason.
The court action is designed to obtain records of searches performed by the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) of laptops and written materials from travellers entering the US.
The CBP currently conducts such searches, including taking images of hard drives, on anyone, rather than on people about whom they have reasonable suspicion.
"Travelling with a laptop should not mean that the government gets a free pass to rifle through your personal papers," said Catherine Crump, staff attorney with the ACLU First Amendment Working Group.
"This sort of broad and invasive search is exactly what the Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches are designed to prevent."
The increase in such searches is causing headaches for companies. Many now issue travel laptops which contain no commercially sensitive information, and set up a File Transfer Protocol site for staff to download necessary data once through border security.
The ACLU originally requested the data in June, and began legal proceedings after gaining no response.
"Under CBP policy, innumerable international travellers have had their most personal information searched by government officials and retained by the government indefinitely," said Larry Schwartztol, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project.
"The disclosure of these records is necessary to better understand the extent to which US border and customs officials may be violating the Constitution." µ
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"The disclosure of these records is necessary to better understand the extent to which US border and customs officials may be violating the Constitution."
Constitution, what constitution? There may have been one in the past but it is long gone and dead.
Why not carry confidential data on microSDHC card in the the shoe.
Just carry 2 x8GB and that should be enough.
F U US Customs
MY experience in leaving US border was CBP will scan your computer for possible threat hidden in your notebook, as this device is battery operated.
Whereas CBP will scan your hard drive if you are a possible suspect of illicit activities like child pornography.
Was the ACLU member computer scan because of being a suspect?
Hard to say as there are many crazy people in the world nowadays.
Time to denixonify the world.
...that multi-national commercial companies have begun to actively defend against this sort of governmental snooping.
In fact, it's likely to be merely a matter of time until someone or some company creates a web site that accepts and stores large encrypted files...uploaded prior to a border crossing...which can be downloaded to a different physical location once a traveler reaches his/her destination.
And anyhow, it's a good practice to backup one's hard drive(s) at regular intervals, and encrypt the backup.
So I expect I'll soon be able to store several encrypted monolithic backups online, and simply take a blank laptop with me whenever I travel overseas.
The principle is that a TrueCrypt volume is created within another TrueCrypt volume (within the free space on the volume). Even when the outer volume is mounted, it is impossible to prove whether there is a hidden volume within it or not*, because free space on any TrueCrypt volume is always filled with random data when the volume is created** and no part of the (dismounted) hidden volume can be distinguished from random data. Note that TrueCrypt does not modify the file system (information about free space, etc.) within the outer volume in any way.
store everything online and set password to never save :D and they will not know what you got
or just not take laptop with you and loan one there another one for online store?
Because you know, TERRORISTS have never heard of USB thumb drives or the internet.
/sarcasm off
Dumbest plan ever. The terrorists know that the US customs is doing this. They would be first rate idiots to keep any sensitive data on a laptop. And we know they are not idiots, but really calm calculated and very patient fanatical lunatics, but not stupid.
...is bullcrap!
Any gov't has the right to protect its citizens. But this goes beyond the need for protection and is dangerously close to the violation of the Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, Tenth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the US Constitution. In this case, the Fourth Amendment is quite obviously violated. But if not that, any one of the above will do as grounds to get the information and, eventually, bar the practice.
What makes stuff like this so messed up is that the gov't is harassing folks who have done nothing but visit this country. And yet any diplomat could murder someone right in front of the police, and they would be free to go! Something isn't right there.
Kudos to the ACLU for finally doing something useful for a change.
"...they have full rights to confiscate your property..."
I think this article is all about how they are in breach of the constutional rights, and without reasonable suspicion they have no rights to confiscate the laptop.
yes, truecrypt is free, what is the cost of your laptop? If you don't de-crypt it and give them the data they have full rights to confiscate your property with no recourse for you to get it back. The only solution today is not to travel with data and instead download it or ship it to your destination.
Winzip has built in encryption, and if the border Nazis demand a password just say you forgot it. Or as Hillary would say "I don't recall". It worked for her.