Posted on Aug 24, 2017
Do You Have Any Privacy Rights When US Border Officials Search Your Laptop?
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If we simply executed these criminals this wouldn't have been an issue. Personally I think that this is a slippery slope. I don't agree with the government using methods to circumvent and restrict our rights. The constitution was written the way it was to protect American Citizens from an over reaching government. It was designed to protect the people from tyranny. If we accept it when the government restricts one right, our other rights can, will, and have been just as easily targeted. In this particular case, the individual was a convicted felon and a registered sex offender, so some of his rights were already restricted. I am planning a trip to Europe next year. I will be pissed if customs decides they want to send my laptop for a forensic analysis when I return. I am not a felon. I am not a criminal. I do not intend to commit criminal acts on this trip. I am an American Citizen who doesn't want to be subjected to an unreasonable seizure of my personal property.
Do You Have Any Privacy Rights When US Border Officials Search Your Laptop?
Posted from incyberdefense.com
Cybersecurity
Crime
U.S. Customs and Border Protection
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 4
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Encryption. Encrypt the hard drive. Even if the government can decrypt AES256 its not wouldn't be a cheap thing to do in terms of resources. There's no way they'd decrypt every HDD
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SSgt (Join to see)
Maj (Join to see) & I doubt TSA would bother w/ training their peeps to do it, let alone pay for it at every TSA station.
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PO3 Steven Sherrill I wonder if his history had something to do with the decision to search his laptop? Perhaps combined with where he was coming from & any known history of the region? Perhaps he has a permanent red flag on his profile. There's gotta be something else below the surface that the article is just skipping over.
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PO3 Steven Sherrill
SSgt (Join to see) I agree. There has to be more to the story. I have a hard time finding any sympathy for a sex offender who having been convicted was found to be continuing what he was convicted of in the first place.
The story did get me thinking about how a regular non convicted felon would or should react in that situation. A couple of years ago I got pulled over driving a moving van. I was coming across Florida, and missed a sign that said ALL TRUCKS MUST EXIT. I didn't exit, and a nice man from the FDOT pointed out the error of that mistake with blue lights for emphasis. Florida doesn't allow fruit trees of any kind from out of state to be brought in. That is what they were checking for. It is not a request to check it is a requirement. I had to open the back of the moving truck, and let him do his inspection. I didn't have anything, and the inspection lasted all of five minutes. I was also fortunate that he didn't write me the rather large ticket he could have for not stopping at the checkpoint. These checks are done to maintain the integrity of the orange crops. The state doesn't want the possibility of some out of state crop disease wiping out the economy. It seems like a good reason, but in retrospect, every truck coming through I10 in Northern Florida is being stopped and searched with no suspicion that the occupants have committed a crime. I know that I was concerned when I opened the back of the truck because I was carrying a shotgun in the back of the truck. It wasn't loaded, but what if he had decided that it was worth investigating now that the truck was opened.
The story did get me thinking about how a regular non convicted felon would or should react in that situation. A couple of years ago I got pulled over driving a moving van. I was coming across Florida, and missed a sign that said ALL TRUCKS MUST EXIT. I didn't exit, and a nice man from the FDOT pointed out the error of that mistake with blue lights for emphasis. Florida doesn't allow fruit trees of any kind from out of state to be brought in. That is what they were checking for. It is not a request to check it is a requirement. I had to open the back of the moving truck, and let him do his inspection. I didn't have anything, and the inspection lasted all of five minutes. I was also fortunate that he didn't write me the rather large ticket he could have for not stopping at the checkpoint. These checks are done to maintain the integrity of the orange crops. The state doesn't want the possibility of some out of state crop disease wiping out the economy. It seems like a good reason, but in retrospect, every truck coming through I10 in Northern Florida is being stopped and searched with no suspicion that the occupants have committed a crime. I know that I was concerned when I opened the back of the truck because I was carrying a shotgun in the back of the truck. It wasn't loaded, but what if he had decided that it was worth investigating now that the truck was opened.
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SSgt (Join to see)
PO3 Steven Sherrill - I see your concern. It was a law created for a good purpose, but appears to have lacked the specificity that it should have had - suspicion of trafficking foreign flora/fauna. I wonder how many drug traffickers are bust that way, though?
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I took my computer to Canada, and they searched it. Interestingly, the US didn't when I returned.
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