Travelers' Laptops May Be Detained At Border

[Techman]

Interesting article from the Washington Post. This is getting ridiculous.

Federal agents may take a traveler's laptop computer 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.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/01/AR2008080103030.html?hpid=moreheadlines

 

[voyageur11]

Canadian custom is doing the same thing they are supposed to be looking for kid porn

 

[Doc Holliday]

Canadian custom is doing the same thing they are supposed to be looking for kid porn

This is getting ridiculous. I'd understand the logic if child porn would be an epidemic, but it's far from it. Is it just a matter of time before laptops are banned on flights? Total nonsense!

 

[real_talk]

It`s all part of the plan... call me a conspiracy parano but : www.zeitgeistmovie.com

it`s only a matter of time until everybody realise it`s too late !

 

[seymourhass]

Does anyone feel any safer boarding a plane with the recent security breaches at Trudeau airport or the arrest of a Canadian Border safety agent?

 

[Ben Dover]

In a few years they will remove your head so that your brain can be examined for dangerous thoughts.

Have we gone a little too far? Ummm, yes, I think so.

All this garbage is a waste of time and money. Terrorists could literally blow up thousands of buildings full of people and the combined cost to rebuild them and the combined loss of life would still be dwarfed by the money that has already been spent and lives already lost in the "fight against terror".

garbage...

BD

 

[korbel]

Interesting article from the Washington Post. This is getting ridiculous.



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/01/AR2008080103030.html?hpid=moreheadlines

Hello Techman,

This, "without any suspicion of wrongdoing", is the sad part. In the mind of G.W. Bush this is how to protect our security and "FREEDOM"...by using police state tactics.

Perverted,

Korbel

 

[Doc Holliday]

This, "without any suspicion of wrongdoing", is the sad part. In the mind of G.W. Bush this is how to protect our security and "FREEDOM"...by using police state tactics.

George Orwell's vision IS becoming reality.

 

[AllOverHer]

It`s all part of the plan... call me a conspiracy parano but : www.zeitgeistmovie.com

it`s only a matter of time until everybody realise it`s too late !

zeitgeist is also a propaganda. Many of their claims can't even be checked. I like their story about jesus and the stars and many similar stories identical to it in many cultures. Never found similar topic on the same subject. I would like to know where they came with that one.

I wonder what gwb will leave as a gift before he leaves. Iran?

one set of good documentaries is "the power of nightmares" I think it's adam curtis the dorector. He has many very interesting series.

 

[rollingstone]

I wonder what gwb will leave as a gift before he leaves. Iran?

To be honest I am concerned that GWB will try to help McCain get elected by issuing terror alerts close to election time. This is one of the tools he used to beat Kerry. Its unfortunate because I have quite a bit of traveling to do in the fall, and any politics-driven terror alerts are going to create a lot of hassle.

 

[EagerBeaver]

I have brought my laptop in to Canada the last 5 or 6 trips and never had it checked. And I have informed them that I had a laptop when asked what I was bringing with me in to Canada. On my last trip up during the Jazz Festival, I was travelling with a friend and we did get detained by customs and immigration at the border. However customs and immigration had no interest in my laptop. They were interested in knowing how me and my friend knew each other. By prearranged plan I did all the talking and explained everything. Then they took our passports and did the usual computer check for DUIs and other criminal convictions and let us go. Total detainment time: about 10 minutes.

The Canadians are employing young border guards these days. All that I saw are in their early or mid 20s, both male and female, and I saw a redhead who was very hot and reminded me of Brittany of Eleganza. They were also wearing bulletproof vests at customs and immigration. But these kids are not too bright, some don't have a strong command of the English language and thus when they are confronted with someone who knows how to answer their questions in pithy fashion, they lack the acuity to think on their feet and ask the necessary follow-up questions. Or else they just don't have the time or don't care.

With the laptops unless you have kiddie porn or Al Qaeda manifestos on it, nobody is going to care what's on it.

 

[bond_james_bond]

EB,

The concerns people have about laptops are:

a) Proprietary business documents, personal e-mails, etc. Things you don't want an unknown 3rd party looking at. Will the contents lead to more awkward questioning?

b) You may not know what's on your computer. There could be spam in your e-mail containing who-knows-what. Some seemingly innocent website you surfed could have placed who-knows-what on your computer via cookies. Or some hacker could have been quietly uploading files for months, years.

Now, when some border guard initiates a search, he finds who-knows-what that's been sitting on your laptop for years. And you're suddenly responsible for it without even knowing about it.

 

[Doc Holliday]

Many times when i travel, one of the security people will take my laptop & ask me if it's okay they do a test on it. It takes a few seconds & the computer is handed back to me. What exactly are they testing?

As for border personnel, most of them don't have much education & i know a few of them who used to be the class idiot & they wound up being hired by Customs Canada. All of the ones i know wanted to be cops but never passed the entrance exams & to their credit wound up as border guards, armed with guns & as much power (if not more) as a cop would have. So no none should be that surprised if they act like idiots whenever you get questionned by them....in many cases, THEY ARE IDIOTS.

 

[AllOverHer]

Many times when i travel, one of the security people will take my laptop & ask me if it's okay they do a test on it. It takes a few seconds & the computer is handed back to me. What exactly are they testing?

As for border personnel, most of them don't have much education & i know a few of them who used to be the class idiot & they wound up being hired by Customs Canada. All of the ones i know wanted to be cops but never passed the entrance exams & to their credit wound up as border guards, armed with guns & as much power (if not more) as a cop would have. So no none should be that surprised if they act like idiots whenever you get questionned by them....in many cases, THEY ARE IDIOTS.

they are making sure that your device is a working device and not a fake that could hide anything.

 

[Ben Dover]

Doc -- they run a piece of fiber over the keyboard and around the edges of the laptop and then test the piece of fiber for any trace elements of explosive materials... This has nothing to do with checking the FILES or data on the laptop.

The reason it takes so long for them to check what's ON the computer (should they choose to do so) is, as you pointed out, probably because most them don't know how to use a computer. We are indeed not talking about MIT grads here... Many of these guys would still be rent-a-cops, standing in the front door of a 7/11, if the border service didn't hire them.

BD

 

[metoo4]

The only one time my computer was searched, I had to show the guy how to browse the hard disk. And then he almost freaked when I told him I had 3 more 40Gb drives full of programs, pictures and music!

He browsed a few files on each drives, even if I had to swap each drive from the USB enclosure since it was 3 drives and 1 enclosure! (Only about 160Gb with the laptop's internal drive!) I could have had the plans to a nuclear bomb and a written order from Al Quaida and he wouldn't have seen it! It was more as a warning to peoples, someting like "Look, we can do it if we want." thing. All passengers with laptops were searched like this on my flight, including an older lady with grey hairs. It was a late flight (around 10:00pm) and it was at the Canadian custom in Montréal.

 

[real_talk]

zeitgeist is also a propaganda. Many of their claims can't even be checked. I like their story about jesus and the stars and many similar stories identical to it in many cultures. Never found similar topic on the same subject. I would like to know where they came with that one.

I wonder what gwb will leave as a gift before he leaves. Iran?

one set of good documentaries is "the power of nightmares" I think it's adam curtis the dorector. He has many very interesting series.

Thanks im watching it right now on YouTube
Have you watched `The God who wasn`t there` ?

 

[rollingstone]

Many times when i travel, one of the security people will take my laptop & ask me if it's okay they do a test on it. It takes a few seconds & the computer is handed back to me. What exactly are they testing?

X-raying laptops is a relatively useless activity since it has so many electronics jam packed into a very small space. So they first want to see if it is a real laptop simply by turning it on (as opposed to a bunch of electronics bundled together for a different reason) and test it for traces of explosive material. For instance if you had been on a farm and some fertilizer dust came on to the keyboard, it is possible you would be subject to further questioning.

 

[IamNY]

EB,

The concerns people have about laptops are:

a) Proprietary business documents, personal e-mails, etc. Things you don't want an unknown 3rd party looking at. Will the contents lead to more awkward questioning?

b) You may not know what's on your computer. There could be spam in your e-mail containing who-knows-what. Some seemingly innocent website you surfed could have placed who-knows-what on your computer via cookies. Or some hacker could have been quietly uploading files for months, years.

Now, when some border guard initiates a search, he finds who-knows-what that's been sitting on your laptop for years. And you're suddenly responsible for it without even knowing about it.

Many companies now require that if their employees are traveling out of the country to have their hard drives nuked. A lot of them are only allowing you to have acess your work documents via a secure website so that there is nothing on the hard drive.

It's getting ridiculous.

Walooo

 

[Gotsome]

In a few years they will remove your head so that your brain can be examined for dangerous thoughts.

Have we gone a little too far? Ummm, yes, I think so.

All this garbage is a waste of time and money. Terrorists could literally blow up thousands of buildings full of people and the combined cost to rebuild them and the combined loss of life would still be dwarfed by the money that has already been spent and lives already lost in the "fight against terror".

garbage...

BD

Excellent post. I agree, they should rename the "war on terror" with "America's war on their own citizens"