Traveling? Don’t Bring Your Laptop.
| July 31st, 2008I can’t see any possible way this power could be misused:
Federal agents may take a traveler’s laptop or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed.
Also, officials may share copies of the laptop’s contents with other agencies and private entities for language translation, data decryption or other reasons, according to the policies, dated July 16 and issued by two DHS agencies, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“The policies . . . are truly alarming,” said Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), who is probing the government’s border search practices. He said he intends to introduce legislation soon that would require reasonable suspicion for border searches, as well as prohibit profiling on race, religion or national origin.
DHS officials said that the newly disclosed policies — which apply to anyone entering the country, including U.S. citizens — are reasonable and necessary to prevent terrorism. Officials said such procedures have long been in place but were disclosed last month because of public interest in the matter.
So for the record: don’t take your laptop out of the country, because DHS will seize it, image your hard drive, and share that image with other government agencies, for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Also, visitors from other nations…wait, do people still visit America? Because I’ve gotta tell you, if I was a foreign national and I wanted to go on vacation, I’d aim for pretty much anywhere else at this point.
August 1st, 2008 at 8:13 am
funny how, for all of the american right’s red-baiting over the years, it’s a republican administration that has turned this place into the united soviet socialist republics of america. get ready for long lines and empty shelves at the grocery store, and $20 for a loaf of bread. someone i know was planning a trip overseas and got distracted by horror stories of crime and corruption in the country she was going to, and i wanted to laugh. after living here, visiting most other countries ought to be a cakewalk by comparison.
This comment was written by r@d@r.Report this comment to the moderators
August 1st, 2008 at 8:43 am
Well, that’s because on a really essential level, when the left said “Soviet Russia is bad,” and when the right said “Soviet Russia is bad,” we meant two essentially different things.
The left meant, “Living in an ever-present surveillance state where the citizens are kept in a state of fear by the government’s use of imaginary enemies and secret police that can sweep you away and imprison you indefinitely without trial or justification” is bad.
The right meant, “goddammit, that was our idea!”
;-)
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
August 1st, 2008 at 8:44 am
Also, Jeff?
I actually LOL’d.
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
August 1st, 2008 at 10:02 am
Also, visitors from other nations…wait, do people still visit America? Because I’ve gotta tell you, if I was a foreign national and I wanted to go on vacation, I’d aim for pretty much anywhere else at this point.
I have many good friends in the US that I’d love to see face-to-face. I’m hoping I can persuade them all to come here, because my chances of visiting the US aren’t looking good :(
This comment was written by Nick Kiddle.Report this comment to the moderators
August 1st, 2008 at 10:22 am
O.K. I don’t like this either. This reminds me of the Benjamin Franklin aphorism on the matter. He had two versions:
and
As usual, he had it right.
As an aside; I wonder how many people visit the U.S. for tourism as opposed to business reasons?
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
August 1st, 2008 at 10:33 am
Having said that, this statement is incorrect:
They might seize it. And, having done so, they might share that information with other government agencies. And they will do so not for no reason, but for at least the reasons specified.
The fact that you don’t like the policy doesn’t mean that you fight it by spreading lies. That tends to destroy your credibility right when you need it the most.
I wonder what the actual number of laptops seized have been, for what reasons (the issue of what reasons they have or might seize a laptop was not covered in the above at all), and what the disposition of the information was.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
August 1st, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Myca, I wouldn’t blame the Right for this. This is more of the powerful seizing more power, regardless of liberal or conservative philosophy. Free Republic has a thread on this and the posters seem to think uniformly ill of it there as well.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
August 1st, 2008 at 1:00 pm
I believe Customs got this ability shortly after diskettes became common and encryption software was still considered a military munition.
This comment was written by jed.Report this comment to the moderators
August 2nd, 2008 at 2:51 am
Good thing there’s no other way of getting files across borders. Such as a global network of interconnected computers.
I feel safe knowing that there is no such thing that whoever the bad guys are today could use to get around this “safety measure.”
This comment was written by Jerad.Report this comment to the moderators
August 3rd, 2008 at 6:40 am
I assume the big risks are that they won’t give your laptop back or they’ll give it back broken. It’s so hard to keep my cynicism calibrated properly.
This comment was written by Nancy Lebovitz.Report this comment to the moderators
August 3rd, 2008 at 8:29 pm
In context, Jeff appears to have meant it as more of a rhetorical flourish and less a rigorous analysis. The very first sentence of the quote, after all , is “federal agents *may* take…” - which is still in itself too much. Even if only 2% people have their laptops taken away, that’s 2% too many, not to mention the chilling effect on freedom that such a policy would have on the other 98%; people respond to incentives, after all.
I’d also counter that the only people to whom Jeff’s credibility would be destroyed by something like that are people who didn’t really care about civil liberties in the first place. You know, they (say that they) are a bit perturbed by this, because politically speaking you have to say that, but, but, but… … . Damn fascist appeasers.
This comment was written by sylphhead.Report this comment to the moderators