Mayor of Stockton, CA detained by DHS at SFO, forced to give up laptop password

boing
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I know, right? @mister44 has not appeared once in this thread.

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I think that’s the overriding reason for the company policy. That and strict export controls regulations. Also, IIRC in some countries it’s illegal to bring your computer if it’s encrypted.

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They haven’t demanded any passwords to guns yet.

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Those Tracking Point rifles run Linux.

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I have repeatedly been against unlawful searches, seizures of cash and property on suspicion it’s drug related, etc. I have constantly denounced the do-nothing security theater of the TSA, and the DHS is a redundant waste of money that should fall under the FBI and Boarder Patrol/Customs that we already had.

If there is one thing I try to be, it is consistent in my attitude of freedom for all and the basic legal concept this nation was founded on - innocent until proven guilty.

When I poked my head in on this thread, no one was making statements like, “The government should have access to his laptop. What if he was terrorist or a hacker or a child pornographer? Only those doing something wrong have something to hide. The UK has much more surveillance than the US, and look at how much safer they are.” Had I heard that, I would have made a counter statement.

But if you insist: I parrot all the outrage. It is ridiculous private property of US citizen was seized at the border with no warrant, no charge of a crime, just (apparently) random net casting for - who knows what. Maybe they were worried someone in China put malware on his laptop. Or maybe Bob’s daughter needed one for her first year of college. I dunno, but it’s ridiculous.

ETA - if you don’t think there are a lot of libertarian minded gun owners who are against 4th amendment violations, or conservative gun owners who see 4th amendment violations as Obama’s government over stepping it’s authority, you would be mistaken.

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You are Rand Paul, and I claim my five pounds.

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I don’t know what that last part means. Should I like it or not?

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When libertarians begin giving anything more than lip service to actual issues of civil or economic liberty rather than attempting to foment race wars or getting their tongues so far up their boss’ ass that they think they can see things through the eyes of a billionaire, we can have a discussion. But only then.

Instead of repeating talking points cribbed from Rockwell, consider supporting the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, open source software, and non-exclusive licensing of patents. Things that would be termed libertarian if the taste weren’t so excreable.

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This has been happening to years. It has happened to friends of mine more than once (the same friends more than once) within the security community where I work. A number of people, including myself, don’t travel over a border with any data though it is hard not to bring your phone. You might as well toss it when they give it back (if they do) though.

Hell, Jake Appelbaum had either three or four phones seized the first time they did this to him and they never returned any of them, years later.

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Yeah and they hold you until you change your mind. Unless you have counsel handy and they let you call said counsel, you’re at a border crossing and don’t have any effective rights.

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Work is easy. With work (and work laptops), you invoke “This isn’t my property/system to give you permissions to. You’ll need to loop in corporate legal and I’ll do whatever they tell me to do with their system.”

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This isn’t the gun thread. We’re already full up on crazy on that one, please don’t import it from the gun thread.

BTW, these policies started under Bush so this isn’t where you invoke “Obama!” to explain things or are you saying your gun nut Libertarian friends were ok when Bush was doing this?

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I don’t know the origin of the quote, but I’ll paraphrase my thoughts on the whole “security” situation:
“People should not be beholden to their governments, governments should be beholden to their people”

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Still a bit confused, but how much is that in Shekels?

Whoa, whoa, what? I assume this is Koch jab? The term libertarian has a very broad meaning. More so then liberal and conservative. There are people who claim to be libertarians who are way radical - taxation is theft sort of stuff.

But there are a lot of moderates who just want less government, and more personal freedoms. They are the last people “attempting to foment race wars”.

There are some open to more social programs than others. You can’t find two libertarians that agree on everything. It sounds to me you want to pigeon hole the term as one particular stereotype, and that isn’t accurate. I know many libertarian types who support all or most of the 4 orgs you mentioned.

I was literally called out on it, which is the only reason I brought it up. It was the only reason I posted.

It doesn’t matter who started it. It is who is in power. That is how punditry works. And yes, liberals are more likely to excuse Obama’s actions they would have crucified Bush for, and vice versa. It doesn’t have to make sense, it’s politics.

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Yes, I know, you are the true Scotsman and you know many other Scotsmen; you have binders full if them. If I believed you, we might talk.

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So you’re saying everyone who identifies as a libertarian is a Koch toady and probably a racist?

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I’m tired of the gun crap coming up over and over, too. I joked upthread out of tiredness, but I shouldn’t even bring it up. We need to leave the guns at the door and talk about other stuff. INSANE GUN DEBATES ARE GETTING OLD. Let’s have a cease-fire on fucking gun debates for, say, a month. We can talk about them again sometime in November.

What d’yall say?

@mods?

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I’m game. I’ll be more productive at work.

ETA - and to point out - I didn’t bring it up. Someone else said “why don’t gun rights people get upset about this” and then specifically called me out on my silence.

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OK, great. I’ll joke about other stuff.

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