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Newsjock

(11,733 posts)
Sun Jan 8, 2012, 11:13 AM Jan 2012

Laptop seizures at customs cause thorny legal dispute (5,000 during 2011)

http://bostonglobe.com/business/2012/01/08/laptop-seizures-customs-cause-thorny-legal-dispute/dnbJ2nTqirLOnsVRIBRwjP/story.html

David House took his laptop to Mexico a little over a year ago, hoping to squeeze in some work between sightseeing, fishing, and laying on the beach. All went well, vacation- and work-wise, until the former MIT researcher landed in Chicago, where federal agents seized his laptop, kept it for nearly two months, and may have shared information on his hard drive with several government agencies.

They didn’t have a search warrant. They didn’t charge him with a crime. And there was nothing House could do about it.

House, 24, ran into what civil liberties advocates call the “Constitution-free zone’’ at US ports of entry, where courts have carved out broad exceptions to the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. As long as they don’t use invasive techniques such as strip searches, government agents don’t need reasonable suspicion or probable cause to seize what they want - including laptops, a 2008 appeals court ruling held.


House’s case forms the basis of one of two lawsuits the American Civil Liberties Union has filed to stop the search and seizure of laptops at US borders without reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing and calls attention to a vulnerability that many people are unaware of when they travel in and out of the United States with important files on laptops, smartphones, and tablets.
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Laptop seizures at customs cause thorny legal dispute (5,000 during 2011) (Original Post) Newsjock Jan 2012 OP
DHS - Keeping America Safe. He might've had a copy of "Tropic of Cancer" on there, or leveymg Jan 2012 #1
This message was self-deleted by its author Tesha Jan 2012 #2
More proof Osama Bin Laudin WON the War on Terror FreakinDJ Jan 2012 #3
the American Stasi marmar Jan 2012 #4
It's worse than just laptops. freedom fighter jh Jan 2012 #5
They already do. Marnie Jan 2012 #7
So eventually, courts could decree that the Constitution doesn't apply at all anywhere in the US DavidDvorkin Jan 2012 #6
Border patrol checkpoints Ron Obvious Jan 2012 #8
That's freaky Art_from_Ark Jan 2012 #9
They've been there for years Ron Obvious Jan 2012 #10

leveymg

(36,418 posts)
1. DHS - Keeping America Safe. He might've had a copy of "Tropic of Cancer" on there, or
Sun Jan 8, 2012, 11:19 AM
Jan 2012

Osama bin Laden's home address, or something.

Cheez-itz.

Response to Newsjock (Original post)

freedom fighter jh

(1,782 posts)
5. It's worse than just laptops.
Sun Jan 8, 2012, 12:26 PM
Jan 2012

Last fall, the Department of Homeland Security issued an environmental impact statement for an effort to upgrade security along the U.S.-Canadian border. In it they claim the right to search not just at the border, but within about 100 miles of it. They propose x-ray searches, checkpoints, aerial surveillance, etc. See http://www.themoneyparty.org/main/?p=2846#more-2846. Notice that the links to the EIS don't work. It seems DHS has yanked the EIS off the Web.

 

Marnie

(844 posts)
7. They already do.
Sun Jan 8, 2012, 03:46 PM
Jan 2012

If you drive north from Lorado, Tex, a major portal out of Mexico, even if you have not been in Mexico, you have to pass through a check point.

So there is a check point at the border for everyone entering, and another for everyone who uses the highway north.

I experienced that 6 or seven years ago.


DavidDvorkin

(19,404 posts)
6. So eventually, courts could decree that the Constitution doesn't apply at all anywhere in the US
Sun Jan 8, 2012, 02:58 PM
Jan 2012

I wonder how far away that is.

 

Ron Obvious

(6,261 posts)
8. Border patrol checkpoints
Mon Jan 9, 2012, 05:17 PM
Jan 2012

I passed through 3 border patrol checkpoints driving between Tucson and San Diego on I-8 last year (within the dreaded 50 mile zone) The border patrol agents were dressed in military khaki, were heavily armed and went around with sniffer dogs. At one point the dogs alerted to the car in front of us and we watched them being taken to the side and the car completely emptied. They just passed us right through, but they wouldn't answer my questions about what they were looking for. Man, it felt like living in a dystopic SciFi movie.

As for laptops, TrueCrypt, people! It works, and it can even pretend to unlock itself and show dummy data if you have to provide the password to officials. These days, foreign companies frequently send their employees to the US with their laptops free of company data, and instructs them to download the company data over a secure line once there, and to delete it when going back home. Largely this is because of concerns about industrial espionage and fears that US customs shares secrets with US industry.

That's how far our reputation has diminished since W.

Art_from_Ark

(27,247 posts)
9. That's freaky
Thu Jan 12, 2012, 10:12 PM
Jan 2012

I remember some woman back in the '80s telling me that they did stuff like that in Mexico (checkpoints far from the international border), and I had a hard time just wrapping my head around that.

 

Ron Obvious

(6,261 posts)
10. They've been there for years
Thu Jan 12, 2012, 11:14 PM
Jan 2012

When I lived in El Paso in the early eighties, every time I went to Las Cruces on I-10 I'd have to stop at one. If, like me, you're obviously non-Hispanic they'd usually just wave you through, but Hispanic friends got a lot more hassle.

I never understood how these checkpoints can be constitutional, but there it is. I think the rule is that they can exist anywhere within 50 miles of the border. The courts have recently ruled that the oceans are to be considered borders, so now we get them on the Olympic peninsula in Washington as well.

These 3 checkpoints were different, though. Much more militaristic and scary in a "Ihre Papiere, bitte!" sort of way, especially when everybody pounced on that one car.

It was just before Christmas, and I'm guessing they must have had a tip-off and were looking for something specific, but as I said, they refused to answer my questions.

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