DISQUS

S_in_Tokyo · 1 year ago

That's it. No more US trips for me. Not that I carry anything illegal around with me in my laptop. Just the idea of "federal agents" being allowed to do what they want is objectionable.

tduffy2 · 1 year ago

Hey S_in_Tokyo, that you BandBeyondDescription?

OleHippieChick · 1 year ago

Comrade Citizens! Go USSA, Go USSA!
GO! United Soviet States of Amerikkka! YAAAAAY!

tbhull · 1 year ago

This is further evidence of the continuing creep of an ever intrus\sive federal goverment, however, whether yone is inside the US borders makes a great difference Constitutionally.

TomJoad · 1 year ago

Check at flexyourrights.org (an EXCELLENT site for learning how to keep and use your rights). Great tips on how to deal with requests for unreasonable searches, as well as the excellent advice not to get agitated, keep calm, state clearly and politetely state..etc.

But if you look closely there or elsewhere on the web about "rights search citizen" etc. you will see (I was surpised at this too) that it is and has been the case for a LONG time.
That crossing a border, just like boarding a plane, you have no reasonable expectation of privacy. Laptops are only electronic representations of hard copies...what I mean is, IF you took a copy of your income tax form, sexy pictures of your wife on the beach, etc, etc. through customs, you wouldn't really have a leg to stand on being outraged that they could look at them. I can't say right or wrong, but it has been the case for a LONG time, so you might be best off buying a storage disk for home, dumping all personal stuff to it before travellling. Businesses are making employees start to do this, to protect priveleged info.

But the twist is, they take it too far, in many cases they have witheld the laptop, telephone, etc. Sometimes for a shorter period but I read of cases where it's been weeks or months where they still hold a laptop.

jr · 1 year ago

Stasidom running wild

High Crimes & Misdemeanors · 1 year ago

BUSHYBOY: South American, and old east block countries were the worst.

---------------------------------

There you go again spouting off like diarrhea of the mouth. I've traveled to South American numerous times in the last 10 years. Not once did they check my baggage as said above. Now you're just making shit up. Again.

InsideOutsider: The 14 tenants of fascism has been met. We live in a fascist country, you just haven't been told about it.


+

Busboy · 1 year ago

Maybe you don't carry any neat stuff that anybody wants; loser....

Rob Mule · 1 year ago

And remember kids, encryption only makes them rip and tear as they hunt and kill...

Indigo · 1 year ago

Intimate searching including electronics has been the practice since 9/11, legal or not. It's not really a surprize that the court says it's alright, the surprize is that anyone is still carrying a laptop with personal files on it. That's what memory chips are for. Tax files go on the home computer, intimate and adult files go on memory chips, work files stay at work, and travel with a laptop invites attention. Know that and reorganize the files accordingly. Yes, it's an invasion of privacy. Yes, they do it. Yes, everyone can adjust accordingly. No, we can't stop them yet. Oldhippiechick got it right when she was talking about the USSA although I'd have said Fourth Reich rather than Soviet but the ideas are similar. A word to the wise: Don't carry the "evidence" around on a laptop. Be real.

SteamingPile · 1 year ago

This is actually nothing new. Anything you bring back with you from overseas, including your laptop, is subject to perusal by Customs. Main reason? They want to know whether you've been exporting certain types of technology (like strong encryption - believe me, you WANT the State Dept. to keep this out of the wrong hands), which is illegal unless you have permission from the State Department. I admit, going through your email is a bit much, but if you have software on your laptop that is "controlled," you had no business leaving the country with it.

TomJoad · 1 year ago

Seriously folks...I see the US turning into a police state. As American living abroad I see it more clearly because I am away most of the time, so I don't get gradually used to it. I see the US generally giving police way too much power, more agressive police, and more cowed LAW ABIDING citizens. Then there is Bush, spying, all of it. Disgusting.

BUT HERE, you are fighting the wrong fight. Please explain why, when from time imemorial, since the world has had borders between countries, states have always reserved the right to go through anything the person is bringing through, into the country, on their person? This is not new. This is not "since 911" this has always been the case. Laptops are relativeley new, but since they represent electronic documents, and customs officers all over the world have always gone through corresponance, etc when they feel like it, I don't see where you think this is something new, or particularly oppressive.

There are real police-state, fascist things going on, this is not one of them.

Saying "I've never had them go through MY things..." isn't really proof of anything. They have always gone through SOME peoples things, and are not bound by the same criteria that say a traffic stop, or street stop has, where one DOES have a expected right to privacy.

LeslieB · 1 year ago

I'm shocked! [snark]

Bushie, if you're reading this, you know where you can stick it.

The Tim Channel · 1 year ago

1984. Well, I graduated high school in 1976. It was the country's bicentennial celebration. We were learning computer programming and entering programs in our new computer lab (on PUNCH CARDS). High tech was everywhere. Front wheel drive in cars was poised to go mainstream. Even in that type of environment, when we had discussions about the possibility of the government actually being able to acquire, file and sort through the vast data sets that are now feasible to do on your desktop, NOBODY COULD reasonably IMAGINE the technology to do 'Orwellian' surveillance of the type in the book would be available anytime sooner that 2184!! We were vaguely aware of Moore's Law, but in a sort of "Fusion power is 20-50 years away" fashion. The ability to imagine, in 1976 that we'd have mastered all the various challenges to doing what needed to be done (electronically-technologically) for a 1984 totalitarian nightmare was THE STUFF OF SCIENCE FICTION! To calm our fears we were reminded that it took an area several football fields in dimension, operated by scores of high tech people and sucking enormous quantities of electrical energy in the attempt just to keep track of citenzen social security and tax info. NO WAY was the government EVER going to be able to track your movements, purchases, correspondence, etc. on a realtime basis IN OUR PERCEIVED LIFETIMES. We had no reason to disbelieve our instructors. It could conceivably happen we supposed, just like a meteor could hit the earth and kill us all, but we weren't likely to see it in our lifetime so there was very little discussion of how to confront such a situation if it were to eventually present itself. Such talk would be the discourse of 'future' generations.

As a result, our class didn't ponder what structures should be in place for the protection of personal privacy. We all figured it wouldn't matter by now because of the cornucopiate paradise we'd all be living under with clean abundant nuclear power (fusion) that was "too cheap to meter!" and just over the horizon. Always 20 to 50 years away. Just like now. So while industry has been unable or unwilling to move the tech forward to save our economy and planet, they somehow managed to develop nearly EVERY technology necessary for the implementation of a totalitarian state modeled on the basis of an Orwellian surveillance society.

GPS, microsized cellphones with cams/video, gigabyte networks, warp speed processors.

Like fusion, cheap solar cells of reasonable efficiency and affordable battery technology are always another 10-50 years 'in the future', but bad shit that can kill you or be used against you gets developed with lighting speed and capital. See Darpa.

Enjoy.

OlderAndWiser · 1 year ago

Why is anyone surprised by this? I thought customs always went through people's bags looking for contraband, items not declared, etc.

If you were bringing back kiddie porn, for instance, that once was printed, and is now available online or in other electronica, you're not going to be let off from searches. Are digital devices more personal than your underwear?

Leave it home if you don't want it searched, I guess.

Andrew A. Gill · 1 year ago

I'm somewhat conflicted.

``reasonable and articulable suspicion a crime had occurred'' seems too high, but what they have replaced it with is far too low.

Border crossings are not like tarry stops, and you can't apply the 4th Amendment standard to it (and this actually seems more stringent than the 4th Amendment)

Rob Mule · 1 year ago

I guess its just a matter of time before the Jenna/Henry sex tape is on YouTube...

Hangtown Danile · 1 year ago

I never have anything on my laptop that is worth looking at anyway.
I know that if I plug into a WiFi anybody can take a look up my dress.

sa2968 · 1 year ago

Let's not get histerical. The border search exception to the Fourth Amendment has been in placed for over 20 years, well before 9/11. This exception allows federal authorities to conduct a routine search of a person's belongings for absolutely no reason, as opposed to needing reasonable suspicion to conduct a non-routine border search (ie: body cavity). This exception applies only to individuals seeking to enter the United States after crossing an international border and is needed in order to prevent individuals from introducing contraband into this country and, as someone very familiar with federal law enforcment, you would be absolutely amazed at the type of crap people try bringing into the United States (as in this case, child porn). The sheer number of travelers compared to the low number of federal agents at our entry points, results in very very very few border searches. There is always an option, stay out. If you refuse to allow agents to search, then you are denied entry. I see no problem with this policy.

TomJoad · 1 year ago

mirth, lighten up man, it is NOT unreasonable, (and coming from me, I'm against roadblock stops, a policeman asks me if I mind him looking in my backpack I say "I do NOT give consent to search my bag", etc. etc. but...) you miss the point drastically. It has been in effect for 20 years, it has been the practice for since borders existed.

You better read up on rights, for your own protection. There ARE places nowdays where a reasonable person has "no reasonable expectation of privacy", boarding a plane (you see THAT as ceding rights?), visiting a prison?

And I am RABID on civil rights, right to privacy, but this is ridiculous.

MorgaineSwann · 1 year ago

We're so far past 1984 we can't even see it in the rearview mirror anymore. Orwell never dreamed of intrusion on this scale. I'd really like my Constitution back now, please.

TomJoad · 1 year ago

Mirth, no, I am mad as hell about the curtailment of our rights, liberties, and right to privacy since 911.

My only point here, the border crossing check of baggage and personal items is not part of that. That has always been the case, is necessary, and is done by virtually all nations on earth. Thus lumping that in with actual, honest-to-god infringements on our liberties and privacy is kind of deceptive and lessons the argument. It's like accusing somene "he's a murderer, rapist, AND he spits on the sidewalk regularly"....

Legally, the border crossing, I point out, they have always gone through suitcases, papers, everything, up to and including making some people bend over and looking in the most private places a person has. This has always been the case, and why anyone would think a laptop, filled with information...just like a bunch of papers, would be immune from inspection is way beyond me.

So crying about "...and THIS too" is just ridiculous. The other stuff (eavesdropping, spying, roadblocks, mass arrests, "free speech zones", I could go on and on) is illegal, criminal, impeachable, disgusting, not consistent with democracy and freedom, and worth fighting over. Border crossings...not so much, no.

By the way, I was using "man" in the vernacular (I think it is called) meaning...not meaning the male sex, but like "hey, man, what's up?" kinda...if you know what I mean.

TomJoad · 1 year ago

Probably a dead thread now, but IF you want some thing to WORRY about regarding border crossing HERE it is:
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?AC...

that the border agents can look in a laptop is expected, that they hold US (or ANY ) citizend for hours, days, without charge, without humane treatment, in many cases without needed medicine, without food or water, THAT is disgusting and not acceptible.

mirth · 1 year ago

TomJoad,

I'm missing your point.

Are you saying that our civil liberties haven't been drastically curtailed since 9/11?

Are you equating existing laws with their bastardization under the Bush regime?

btw: I'm not a man...not that there's anything wrong with that.

mirth · 1 year ago

So, sa2968, you have no problem cedeing your rights to privacy in order to catch a bad guy out of the vast majority of good guys?

Yep. I think we probably need 4 more years.

Busboy · 1 year ago

Are you a virgin traveler; S in Tokyo? We and our friends have been through customs in many countries where the agents just took whatever they wanted out of your luggage; closed it up and gave it back to you. South American, and old east block countries were the worst.