DHS Can Take Your Laptop At US Boarder

[IllTestYourGirls]

Border security policies recently disclosed by the Department of Homeland Security state that officers may "detain" laptops and other electronic devices "for a reasonable period of time" to "review and analyze information." This may take place "absent individualized suspicion.




updated 12:54 a.m. ET, Fri., Aug.

1, 2008


WASHINGTON - 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.

No requirement for ?individualized suspicion?
Civil liberties and business travel groups have pressed the government to disclose its procedures as an increasing number of international travelers have reported that their laptops, cellphones and other digital devices have been taken -- for months, in at least one case -- and their contents examined.

The policies state that officers may "detain" laptops "for a reasonable period of time" to "review and analyze information." This may take place "absent individualized suspicion.

"

The policies cover "any device capable of storing information in digital or analog form," including hard drives, flash drives, cell phones, iPods, pagers, beepers, and video and audio tapes. They also cover "all papers and other written documentation," including books, pamphlets and "written materials commonly referred to as 'pocket trash' or 'pocket litter.

' "

Reasonable measures must be taken to protect business information and attorney-client privileged material, the policies say, but there is no specific mention of the handling of personal data such as medical and financial records.

When a review is completed and no probable cause exists to keep the information, any copies of the data must be destroyed. Copies sent to non-federal entities must be returned to DHS. But the documents specify that there is no limitation on authorities keeping written notes or reports about the materials.

........

"They're saying they can rifle through all the information in a traveler's laptop without having a smidgen of evidence that the traveler is breaking the law," said Greg Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology. Notably, he said, the policies "don't establish any criteria for whose computer can be searched.

"

Feds cite ?routine searches and seizures?
Customs Deputy Commissioner Jayson P. Ahern said the efforts "do not infringe on Americans' privacy." In a statement submitted to Feingold for a June hearing on the issue, he noted that the executive branch has long had "plenary authority to conduct routine searches and seizures at the border without probable cause or a warrant" to prevent drugs and other contraband from entering the country.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff wrote in an opinion piece published last month in USA Today that "the most dangerous contraband is often contained in laptop computers or other electronic devices." Searches have uncovered "violent jihadist materials" as well as images of child pornography, he wrote.

With about 400 million travelers entering the country each year, "as a practical matter, travelers only go to secondary [for a more thorough examination] when there is some level of suspicion," Chertoff wrote. "Yet legislation locking in a particular standard for searches would have a dangerous, chilling effect as officers' often split-second assessments are second-guessed.

"

In April, the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld the government's power to conduct searches of an international traveler's laptop without suspicion of wrongdoing.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25960741/

[Manowar]

They've been doing this for a while

i saw them look through some dude's iphone once LOL

[MaDalton]

i always just take a usb stick with my vpn software nowadays

[MaDalton]

DHS = Gestapo

think about it

[pornguy]

Things are getting out of control and will be that way with this until someone takes them to court.

[RobertD]

Border Agents OK?d to Search Laptops & Cellphones

The Washington Post reports federal border agents are now allowed to take and search a traveler?s laptop computer, cellphone or other electronic device without any suspicion of wrongdoing. Under the Department of Homeland Security, policy officials may also share copies of the device?s contents with other agencies. The policy applies to anyone entering the country, including US citizens. Senator Russ Feingold described the border policy as truly alarming. The policy covers any device capable of storing information in digital or analog form, as well as all papers and other written documentation.

[Tanker]

you need to get www.folderwarden.com


they use CCBTools for thier affiliate program

[Wizzo]

I know of at least 2 people in this business that its happened to.

[96ukssob]

this blows. im going to Italy for 2 weeks in November and NEED to have my laptop and phone while I'm there for business. Im half tempted to just FedEx it to my hotel to save any problems

[Tom_PM]

DHS itself was a typical knee-jerk reaction. They claimed that the reason it was formed was because the CIA and the FBI failed to share information on the hijackers. Which was after they considered the memo "Bin Laden Determined To Attack Within The United States" as nothing more than "historical data" - (Condy Rice before the 911 commission).

So.... what did we expect, and what can we reasonably expect in the future? Only that you should pre-ship or pre-arrange to ship your important computer(s) UNLESS you dont MIND someone stealing it for your own good. Bear in mind while you decide that these are the people who came up with the primary color charts to scare... I mean warn.. you and your kids. And told you to keep plenty of duct tape and plastic sheets on hand to thwart a chemical attack.

blah. Every one of these nuts is as numb as numb gets.

[GrouchyAdmin]

If you're going to do something which is not necessarily legal in any country you are a gues, you might at least want to, oh, encrypt your shit. I'd hope you wouldn't be dumb enough to do it at home. Just saying.

[IllTestYourGirls]

Originally Posted by PR_Tom

DHS itself was a typical knee-jerk reaction. They claimed that the reason it was formed was because the CIA and the FBI failed to share information on the hijackers. Which was after they considered the memo "Bin Laden Determined To Attack Within The United States" as nothing more than "historical data" - (Condy Rice before the 911 commission).

So.... what did we expect, and what can we reasonably expect in the future? Only that you should pre-ship or pre-arrange to ship your important computer(s) UNLESS you dont MIND someone stealing it for your own good. Bear in mind while you decide that these are the people who came up with the primary color charts to scare... I mean warn.. you and your kids. And told you to keep plenty of duct tape and plastic sheets on hand to thwart a chemical attack.

blah. Every one of these nuts is as numb as numb gets.

It was government intervention that caused 911. If the government allowed airline companies to take responsibility for their own property the terrorists would never had a chance.

But of course in a fed power grab they create MORE government that still wont protect you. Just take away more of your rights.

[wyldblyss]

Originally Posted by bossku69

this blows. im going to Italy for 2 weeks in November and NEED to have my laptop and phone while I'm there for business. Im half tempted to just FedEx it to my hotel to save any problems

I travel with a virgin laptop. If I need to check or do anything I remote in to my home computer. Now I am not saying this it is fail safe, but a quick check of my laptop will show nothing more than a basic installation with a couple extra programs on it such as firefox etc. I only browse g-rated sites (travel information, tourist stuff, weather etc.) and I will not even go to my banking site on it. There are no documents, the only pictures that end up on it are pictures of the vacation and they are more than willing to go through those. In fact, I would be delighted to tell them about the trip lol

I do NOTHING illegal, however, being in the adult industry may give some ignorant individuals the idea that there might be something illegal going on somewhere. For that reason I travel squeaky clean. Hell, even my iphone would bore the hell out of them as I have no pictures, no music.

One warning to people though is if you travel with batteries, for heaven sakes put them in your checked baggage. I made the mistake of putting a couple boxes of them in the laptop case (for the mice, camera etc.) and never thought how it would look in the x-ray. They had me to secondary inspection going through my laptop bag with a fine tooth comb. They were very nice and I said "you know I never even thought how a box of batteries might appear as something dangerous and now I feel like a total fool. They just smiled, and said no problem, finished their inspection and let us go on our way.

[Juicy D. Links]

coming back into the US i never have issuues....... the border patrol of US always give me a high five and says welcome back Juicyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

But going into canada for example is a diff story they assrape me like crazy

[SmokeyTheBear]

officials may share copies of the laptop's contents with other agencies and private entities for language translation, data decryption or other reasons



so in a nutshell they can copy and share your harddrive with any private company or individual for any reason they choose . wtf

[Phoenix]

if you are going longterm somewhere bring a lappie...but if not....leave it at home and enjoy the time away...dont let fascists ruin your biz

[RobertD]

"The policy covers any device capable of storing information in digital or analog form, as well as all papers and other written documentation."

[IllTestYourGirls]

Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

[yahoo-xxx-girls.com]

I would consider the US to be a police state...

[rowan]

If I was ever planning to enter the US with a laptop I would:

a) wipe the drive (not just delete files... actually zero out every sector. when you delete a file some or all of its contents remain hidden on the HD and can be recovered with enough work)

b) do a fresh install of Windoze using the manufacturer recovery DVD

c) stick some family and generic photos onto the drive

d) upload any "sensitive" information to some sort of encrypted online storage system

I do most of my work "on server" so I don't have anything outwardly incriminating, and it's all legal anyway, but you never know what's lurking in that temporary internet files directory.......

[fris]

sounds fair, not

[D Ghost]

Originally Posted by Manowar

They've been doing this for a while

i saw them look through some dude's iphone once LOL

wow holy fuck lol

[Iron Fist]

Originally Posted by rowan

If I was ever planning to enter the US with a laptop I would:

a) wipe the drive (not just delete files... actually zero out every sector. when you delete a file some or all of its contents remain hidden on the HD and can be recovered with enough work)

Actually.... if the original file resides physically on the drive where there is no other data overwritten, then the file will be completely intact. The File Allocation Table are updated and flagged to "release" that sector on the drive to be written over when you mark a file for deletion. Visibly windows just doesn't display the file, but physically it's still there until you copy something over that sector.

Your right.. just elaborating a bit more.

[Tom_PM]

Originally Posted by IllTestYourGirls

Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Awww.. you folks and your quaint pre-911 notions.

Now thats sarcasm.

Can someone tell us what "KGB" stands for, and what the english translation is?

[Tom_PM]

Originally Posted by sharphead

Actually.... if the original file resides physically on the drive where there is no other data overwritten, then the file will be completely intact. The File Allocation Table are updated and flagged to "release" that sector on the drive to be written over when you mark a file for deletion. Visibly windows just doesn't display the file, but physically it's still there until you copy something over that sector.

Your right.. just elaborating a bit more.

Back in the late 80's I had a quick program that repeatedly wrote random 0's and 1's between complete low level formats. 5 in a row left it pretty scrambled, lmfao. Fuckin 10MB full height hard drive cost me hundreds USED too. Sure abused that thing til it's death.

Hardware is different now, but damn that was fun programming in those days.

[rowan]

Originally Posted by sharphead

Actually.... if the original file resides physically on the drive where there is no other data overwritten, then the file will be completely intact. The File Allocation Table are updated and flagged to "release" that sector on the drive to be written over when you mark a file for deletion. Visibly windows just doesn't display the file, but physically it's still there until you copy something over that sector.

Your right.. just elaborating a bit more.

Does NTFS even have a FAT?

A webhost gave me a pair of used drives on a new server I'd ordered, neither of them were actually wiped, just the first had FreeBSD installed onto it (and the second was mounted by the tech, with another customer's data on it. WTF???)

Because of the way I'd set up mirroring, and the fact that I didn't want to reinstall everything, even though the drives have been replaced with new ones that server still contains fragments of SOMEONE ELSE'S data hidden on the drives. Scary stuff.

[rowan]

^ the above incident isn't completely isolated either... at another host when I asked them to break me from RAID1 into two separate drives they replaced the second drive with a used one, which had what appeared to be an existing Linux file system on it. I didn't have time to fuck around with trying to mount it look what was on it, but the fact remains that they gave me a drive which contained another customer's data. I was more concerned about where MY old drive was going, of course.

If you cancel a server, make sure the drive is wiped.

[minddust]

bye bye privacy

I asked my lawyer a few days ago, even if you encrypt your data, they can ask you to decrypt/give them the key/passphrase.

[2MuchMark]

Correct: Encrypting your data won't help at all at the border. I'd say, put a folder right on your desktop called P O R N and let them find it and get your machine back quicker.

I'm going to Internext next week but I think I'll leave my laptop at home this time.

[JFK]

Originally Posted by MaDalton

DHS = Gestapo

think about it

sounds like it

[d-null]

might not be a good idea to have any galleries with the word teen anywhere on them even if they are nineteen years old, that part about "officers may "detain" laptops "for a reasonable period of time" to "review and analyze information" is pretty vague

[Doctor Feelgood]

sandisk makes a 8gb memory card now so small nobody will find it,
and theres some secret MEMORY DOT like in mission impossible 3

[klinton]

interesting....
this should be not accepted case for people's minds, not new standard

[the Shemp]

orwell was only 20+ years off...

[Tickler]

Originally Posted by minddust

bye bye privacy

I asked my lawyer a few days ago, even if you encrypt your data, they can ask you to decrypt/give them the key/passphrase.

Actually one of my clients encrypts all drives moving between places. And to get around the "key/passphrase" they can only be decrypted by the destination machine. So if they want to follow you to your destination, the files can be decrypted.

I guess it kinda helps that one of the sister companies does military electonics, and they don't let nobody have access to trade/military secrets.

[D-man]

Originally Posted by sharphead

Actually.... if the original file resides physically on the drive where there is no other data overwritten, then the file will be completely intact. The File Allocation Table are updated and flagged to "release" that sector on the drive to be written over when you mark a file for deletion. Visibly windows just doesn't display the file, but physically it's still there until you copy something over that sector.

Your right.. just elaborating a bit more.

Your right as well...

Low Level format can/will erase all data - I have a CSC workstation that can do a DOD low level format, not to hide anything mind you, i use it to copy drives mainly and I can do data recovery if needed and I charge an assload to do recovery, starts at $150 and up avg $300 - I do have one law firm as a client and I do erase any drive they are no longer using and the data is gone. And it can take 12 to 24 to 36 hours to low level format a drive (depending on size) to DOD requirements.

[IllTestYourGirls]

Originally Posted by minddust

bye bye privacy

I asked my lawyer a few days ago, even if you encrypt your data, they can ask you to decrypt/give them the key/passphrase.

Isnt it a lovely world?