US border laptop searches: the other warrantless surveillance

I find myself in a bewilderment. In ages before the TSA/HSI/ICE existed and in a variety of countries, I became accustomed to extensive checks of electronics. I have very “fond” memories of one checking session in Frankfurt accompanied by a gentleman with an automatic weapon. I am further bewildered because I always thought of data storage and processing devices not as some magical bag of holding containing a private universe of secrets but rather as physical containers of data in physical form. It just seemed perfectly natural to me that my data was just as much subject to search as my other physical items when crossing a border.

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Of course there’s the time airport security asked me to turn on a computer…

“It’s a desktop. I don’t have a screen with me. You aren’t going to see anything.”

“That’s OK. Plug it in and turn it on. … OK, you can go.”

“… That’s it?”

“Sure. The light came on. Can’t tell anything else without a screen.”

“… April fools?”

“Nope.”

Camera’s not a bad idea. In a power supply sounds dangerous. Or there’s always

Forget that idea. These days, they’ll get you on the pornoscanner. If you opt-out, well, those enhanced pat-downs keep getting more and more enhanced.

It’s my understanding that the pornoscanners don’t pick up objects inside the body. I guess you could hide a microSD card in a false tooth or something.

Anything to keep the gov out of my holiday photos. :slight_smile:

Note that the more work you do to hide the data, the more they’re going to be convinced – if they catch you – that they should detain and interrogate you until they find out what you thought was worth that effort.

All this walter-mitty spy stuff may be entertaining as a fantasy, but it really is a heck of a lot safer and easier to just not travel with anything you aren’t willing to declare. Or at least not hand-carry it.

From what I’ve read on them, the pornoscanners aren’t particularly good at finding flat objects. If you tape a SD card to the inside of your thigh or buttcheek it probably won’t be spotted. If you’re fat you can stuff just about anything small in a roll and get it through the scanner. If you have longish hair you could easily tape a MicroSD card to the back of your ear.

That said, all of this is pointless since SD cards aren’t contraband and you can just run them through the XRay machine with the rest of your carryons.

I don’t think in the butt counts as being hand-carried.

Assuming Truecrypt drives are still ok, an encrypted file that can be mounted as a Truecrypt drive is probably best. Store it somewhere you can download it once you cross the border.

That’s because we’re talking about two very different things here. You are talking about actually crossing a border. What is being done now, is that Border Patrol agents are being allowed to stop and question virtually anyone within 100 miles of any border of the U.S. Our Constitution provides that we are safe from unreasonable search and seizure, which means that, unless there is reasonable suspicion, any law enforcement officer must obtain a search warrant before proceding. In these cases, there simply is not reasonable suspicion, so the law is being abused, and our civil rights along with it.

The other situation is where you actually cross a border, and because you do, the government does have a right to make sure you are not bringing in illegal objects or substances. But that is done only AT the border itself, and prior to entry. That place could be a border crossing on land, or a shipyard, or an airport - but does not include stopping you on the streets for questions or searches just because they feel like it.

In this country, if the office of the President hands down an Executive Order, or Congress passes some law, it is typically assumed to be lawful until or unless they are brought before the court. And that’s where EFF and the ACLU and some others come in - they are usually the ones to bring those legal challenges. And those who tried to set such rules into motion are either elected officials or government employees. And we can refuse to reelect the officials, or in the worst cases, hold recall elections to dump them prior to a regularly-scheduled election.

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