Border Agents Can Search Laptops Without Cause

[Siji]

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/0 ... nts-c.html

Border Agents Can Search Laptops Without Cause, Appeals Court Rules

By Ryan Singel EmailApril 22, 2008 | 6:21:20 PMCategories: Privacy, The Courts

Federal agents at the border do not need any reason to search through travelers' laptops, cell phones or digital cameras for evidence of crimes, a federal appeals court ruled Monday, extending the government's power to look through belongings like suitcases at the border to electronics.

The unanimous three-judge decision reverses a lower court finding that digital devices were "an extension of our own memory" and thus too personal to allow the government to search them without cause. Instead, the earlier ruling said, Customs agents would need some reasonable and articulable suspicion a crime had occurred in order to search a traveler's laptop.

On appeal, the government argued that was too high a standard, infringing upon its right to keep the country safe and enforce laws. Civil rights groups, joined by business traveler groups, weighed in, defending the lower court ruling.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the government, finding that the so-called border exception to the Fourth Amendment's prohibition on unreasonable searches applied not just to suitcases and papers, but also to electronics.

The ruling (.pdf) came in a case where customs agents searched the laptop of Michael Arnold who was returning from the Philippines. They found images they believed to be child pornography, seized the laptop and later arrested him. While the lower court ruling excluded from trial the pictures of young boys the government says it found on the hard drive, they now can be used again.

The panel chose to follow the reasoning of a similar case from the 4th Circuit, known as Ickes (.pdf), which held that the government did not need any reason to search a vehicle crossing the border.

The 9th's ruling did not, however, clarify whether a traveler has to help the government search his computer, by providing the login information, or what would happen when the government decided to search a laptop with encrypted data on the drive. The defendant in the case can appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the Court is unlikely to take up an issue that two separate appeals courts have agreed upon.

In the meantime, travelers should be aware that anything on their mobile devices can be searched by government agents, who may also seize the devices and keep them for weeks or months. When in doubt, think about whether online storage or encryption might be tools you should use to prevent the feds from rummaging through your journal, your company's confidential business plans or naked pictures of you and your-of-age partner in adult fun.

The case is Arnold vs. USA.

Congratufuckinglations you Bushies..

[Aslanna]

If you're not doing anything wrong you have nothing to worry about amirite???

[Winnow]

TrueCrypt!

[Siji]

If you're not doing anything wrong you have nothing to worry about amirite???

What about corporate private information? It's not always convenient or possible to store everything on the company LAN if you're heading out to a customer site for a presentation.. as an example.

[Canoe]

If you're not doing anything wrong you have nothing to worry about amirite???

Until they confiscate your laptop for a month trying to figure out if you are doing something wrong.

that's the problem I have with this, they have the ability to take your laptop / cell phone / PDA for as long as they "need" too. Which means you are shit out of luck if they decide for whatever reason that you are suspicious.

Which is complete and utter crap imho.

[Winnow]

What bothers me is wondering if I should be worried about a hacked iTouch or something as simple as that.

If they find mp3's on your HD will they ask for verification that you own them? Who knows now. With a laptop you can use TrueCrypt on the entire drive but you can't do that with an iPod/MP3 player.

MP3's could be disguised seekrit docs. Easy to change extensions. I'm curious how far this will go. Digital camers have 16GB HCSD cards in them now. Anything digital these days might be carrying massive amounts of data.