DHS Watchdog OKs ‘Suspicionless’ Seizure of Electronic Devices Along Border | Hacker News Reader

DHS Watchdog OKs ‘Suspicionless’ Seizure of Electronic Devices Along Border

wired.com

107 pointseplanit135 comments

So, remember a few months ago, when people like me were saying that the third parties are the only hope in America's democracy? Then a bunch of people said that Obama was worlds different from Romney, and that comparing Obama to Bush was lunacy.

I have to wonder what happens when those Obama supporters with left-wing sentiments read an article like this.

F is better than F-

Is it really? The result is the same, either way you fail, the only difference is how you feel about yourself afterwards.

If D and R are interchangeable what makes you think a third party would be any different?

I'm not american but Ron Paul had his own libertarian party back in the days and he was "R" only because he had to chose a camp.

Ron Paul made it pretty clear during nearly its entire life that he was for less state and more individual liberties.

That makes me think that things would have been way different should he have been elected president.

Neither are interchangeable, they're just equally bad for global citizens who want to make a better world.

The problem with two parties is that they collect votes based on ideology not actions. Technically three isn't enough to avoid this but in general use it implies many third parties, such that governing is no longer one painful voice pushed on everyone, but a consensus of the governed.

>Obama was worlds different from Romney, and that comparing Obama to Bush was lunacy

Amazingly there is a middle ground. Yes, Obama is taking after Bush in scary ways. It makes me sick and it's why I voted third party in the re-election. That having been said, it's terribly reductionist to say that "Romney and Obama are the same" and anyone who is a woman or gay will almost surely agree with me.

>I have to wonder what happens when those Obama supporters with left-wing sentiments read an article like this.

We're pissed off and still terrified at how much worse it would be with Romney. Or, we, like you, wish that third party candidates were viable, that people would be educated enough that it would MATTER that people like Gary Johnson exist, etc.

"anyone who is a woman or gay will almost surely agree with me."

Only because politicians pander to their perceived voting blocks. Is there any evidence, out side of statements made during the campaign, that Romney actually holds views towards gays and women that are substantially different than Obama's?

So at the time of voting, ignoring for a moment third party candidates... I can vote for someone who claims that they will make my life better (but might not), or someone who campaigned on and is a member of a party who's platform is decidedly against making my life better (but... he might be on my side anyway secretly?). Isn't it obvious who I'd vote for? (keeping in mind that I didn't actually vote for either of the two)

But yes, Romney signed the NOM pledge, funded NOM heavily, said that same-sex hospital visitation rights was a "privilege" and needed no guarantee or legal backing, and was against ENDA; additionally, Paul Ryan voted against the DADT repeal and against the Matthew Shepard act and said something along the lines of "LGBT issues don't matter".

edit, for what it's worth, I think you're right in many ways and I'm sorry to see you downvoted. Romney's record was vastly different before he became a GOP puppet, particularly in MA and him having expressed interest years ago in progressing gay rights. Unfortunately, I also liked McCain before he (was) turned in a GOP prick as well.

All those things listed for Romney were actions taken in relation to his campaigning for president it isn't surprising that he would do those things in that context because a segment of the Republican base supports those positions. Surely if he were anti-gay or a closet misogynist there would be evidence of that in his record of actions taken as a governor.

Take the example of the "mandatory insurance provided birth-control" issue that arose during the election. That's like a $9 per month benefit so if you voted for or against someone because of that and ignored things like heinous civil liberties policies you would essentially be saying you could be bought off for 9 bucks a month. That seems insane to me.

edit: point being that the common reason for not voting for the third party candidate is fear that the other guy wins. I'm suggesting that that's a stupid reason if the difference is $9 + campaign rhetoric.

edit: This article sites generics as costing $9 per month http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/real-cost-birth...

Everyone has different priorities. Among my priorities are civil liberties issues. Again, I see no reason to think that Romney would have been better on any front and for the very reasons that you imply (heinous civil rights violations) I chose not to vote for Obama.

I'm not sure what you're advocating I suppose. I don't think people said that the $9 a month was important to them (I kinda doubt that figure for people w/o insurance but I don't know) but were instead saying "I'm not going to vote for some rich white dude that wants to tell me what I can do with my vagina".

>point being that the common reason for not voting for the third party candidate is fear that the other guy wins. I'm suggesting that that's a stupid reason if the difference is $9 + campaign rhetoric.

I'm kinda flabbergasted. I genuinely believe that Romney/Paul would have been a significant setback for LGBT rights in America. At the same time, I can point to numerous things that were accomplished in the Obama administration that have made my life better. I agree that voting defensively is not the best, but I certainly understand why people do it to protect their self interests.

Also, ironically, that article points out that contraception often costs far more than $9, implies that many of the low-cost alternatives are provided by organizations that Romney and Paul both expressed interest in defunding, or via insurance that the most-in-need-of-family-planning have no access to, etc.

I think you perhaps overestimate the setback that might have occurred. For example, things like repealing DADT would have happened regardless because a lawsuit had already been won ruling DADT unconstitutional a year prior to Obama doing away with the policy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Log_Cabin_Republicans#Log_Cabin...

The Wikipedia article on Mitt Romney

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governorship_of_Mitt_Romney#Sam...

even suggests he supported equal rights and benefits for LGBT couples as a governor though he apposed the use of the word "marriage" to describe said couples.

It seems like few people actually bother to look up a politicians actions and instead just take other politicians and partisans word for it when it comes to the "radical" positions of their opponents. I'd attribute the progress more to the changing attitudes of the country as a whole than the election of any one person.

I can't believe you're chastising me or trying to correct me, or whatever, for judging Romney based on the actions that he PLEDGED to carry out during his term if he were elected.

To be honest, I judged Romney by what he actually did when he was governor. Which was basically, "Whatever might get him votes next time."

On the other hand, when I looked at Obama's actions as president...well, I just could not bring myself to vote for him. To push the beloved healthcare bill through (remember, the bill that failed the deliver the one thing everyone really wanted, the public option?), he promised the pharmaceutical industry a stronger crackdown on illegal drugs, and he absolutely followed through on that promises: more paramilitary raids on medical marijuana facilities during just his first two years in office than in all eight Bush years combined. The administration's push for strong copyright, trademark, patent, and trade secret laws and trade agreements seem to have been equally motivated by ties to industry. His approach to reforming the student loan system was to focus on interest rates and offer indentured servitude for people who cannot repay their loans.

What candidates say during an election is worthless, even when they pledge to do something. Politicians lie to get votes. Look to their actions, not their words, and look to their ties to industry (at least if you are voting for a major party, which amounts to choosing which set of businesses will get special treatment by the government).

Is there any evidence, out side of statements made during the campaign, that Romney actually holds views towards gays and women that are substantially different than Obama's?

As governor, Romney spoke out against same-sex marriage and tied to get an amendment passed to ban same-sex marriage:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governorship_of_Mitt_Romney#Sam...

That's an over simplification of what is in the Wikipedia article. It also says, "He also opposed an amendment, then before the General Court, that would have banned same-sex marriage and outlawed all domestic partnership benefits for gay couples."

It sounds like he supported equal rights and benefits but opposed the use of the term "marriage" being applied to gay couples. Still seems like a superficial difference to me.

I'm guessing you're neither gay nor female. Romney said a thousand different things over the years: what matters is what he would have implemented, which would have been the program of his then-owners: the hard-right.

The amount of damage another Alito or Scalia would have done to the rights of women and sexual minorities by itself blows the idea that their difference was just "superficial" out of the water.

"The amount of damage another Alito or Scalia would have done to the rights of women and sexual minorities by itself blows the idea that their difference was just "superficial" out of the water."

Hm...the damage done to minorities...

Barack Obama ramped up a US government program that has devastated African American communities across America. The War on Drugs has had a vastly disproportionate effect on black people in America, and the Obama administration is a big fan (as part of a deal to bring pharmaceutical companies on board with the healthcare bill).

So while you sit there terrified that one group of right-wing politicians might push against gay marriage or try to repeal Row v. Wade, you seem to have failed to notice that behind the curtain there is another minority that is hard-hit by the administration's right-wing approach and its ties to powerful industries.

You seem unclear on the point. It doesn't really matter that much what Romney's own views are. It matters that he's a Republican, and would appoint right-wing judges and a right-wing cabinet and would sign Republican legislation.

These judges and legislation would, of course, be substantially different from those resulting from an Obama Administration.

I would urge you to look a lot deeper than putting people, judges and legislation in Republican=bad and Democrat=good buckets.

"These judges and legislation would, of course, be substantially different from those resulting from an Obama Administration."

Is there some reason to believe that? Obama kept or accelerated a large number of rights-killing policies from the Bush administration...

Re. Gary Johnson, this makes depressing but necessary reading: https://www.nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/gary-johnson-swindle

We are all victims of Bernaysian manipulation of public opinion.

Fortunately for us, there are real journalists who see through the thin veil of Republican & Democrat propaganda. Like the specific and unnamed NYTimes columnist who regurgitates lobbyist talking points almost line for line, many "journalists" and political commentators simply regurgitate the bullshit that is being feed to them. What is embarrassing is that the segment of the population that counts as educated are the ones gobbling it up.

Change will happen through radical transparency. Imagine watching a debate interrupted any time a candidates says something false. Or perhaps a Presidential address rebuffed on demand with clips of things that individual said while campaigning that directly opposed what they are saying now. Accountability does not have to be an option or a convenience.

Is anyone really surprised on Obama's stance on civil liberties? His track record as a Senator was atrocious, why would he be any different as President? FISA flip-flop anyone?

Obama is the same as Bush, just with better marketing.

They both had great marketing. Both got elected with slogans. Bush: "you are for us, or against us". Obama: "Yes, we can". There was nothing behind this marketing, but these simple empty phrases got them elected. Reality TV has reduced elections into catchphrases.

The ones that did not have good marketing where those that lost to them in the election.

Study the Reagan campaign, before reality TV. And he wasn't really the first.

One thing can be worlds different from another, even while you hate both. Hating two things does not make them the same or even similar.

The executive's party or position on civil rights has very little to do with the stance of a bureaucracy the size of DHS.

Such entities likely cannot change course even in the length of a full presidential term. They configure and operate themselves for self preservation and growth of scope and power, with deep defense mechanisms against political whims.

They are often incompetent at their charter, while obscenely effective at self aggrandizement.

There weren't any good third party candidates.

Not even Gary Johnson?

I'm pretty much a stereotypical progressive these days. I'm not very excited by libertarian's plans to cut entitlements. More importantly, I'm rather dismayed that they seem to focus on that before civil rights.

> I have to wonder what happens when those Obama supporters with left-wing sentiments read an article like this.

Most liberals I know just shrug. It's why the far left has so much contempt for liberals in general.

Every time I criticize Obama, I have to go out of my way to qualify that I'm _not_ a Republican, either.

Maybe what you're uncovering here has less to do with the mentality of Obama supports and more to do with the superficiality of terms like "liberal" and "conservative". There are vegan liberals who want to outlaw the consumption of meat. To them, most of us are posers too.

Agreed. The 'liberal/conservative' dichotomy is incredibly unhelpful. Honestly, I don't even find left/right to be that great, as I personally consider liberals to be right of center.

When I say 'liberal,' I personally generally mean 'neoliberal,' which has a pretty large overlap with the Democratic party and the popular conception of 'liberal.'

Strangely, I feel the same way about the far left. Just because they hold an extreme position doesn't make their opinions any more valid; frankly I find far-left and far-right thinkers to be alarmingly similar, and am appalled by by their inflexible and unreasoning ideological approaches.

I can certainly see how you'd think that, and in the interest of keeping this civil, will just let it be.

Sure, Obama just signed the NDAA allowing indefinite detention of US citizens without a trial, and then said "Don't worry, I won't use it"

Right, he said he won't use it, so lets not worry! Good thing the courts have currently put the brakes on it!

I voted for Ron Paul last election (primary) and Gary Johnson in the final election, not because I agree with his (Ron Paul's) religious sentiments, or even his economic ideas. I had to vote for him because he was the only viable candidate that would guarantee our civil liberties.

That's an extreme oversimplification of what the 2012 NDAA said. In fact, the 2012 NDAA limited executive authority over US detainees; it did not expand it.

I'm sorry, but you're wrong. If you were right, this lawsuit wouldn't have been filed:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Authorization_...

>A lawsuit was filed January 13, 2012 against the Obama Administration and Members of the U.S. Congress by a group including former New York Times reporter Christopher Hedges challenging the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012[62] The plaintiffs contend that Section 1021(b)(2) of the law allows for __detention of citizens and permanent residents taken into custody in the U.S.__ on “suspicion of providing substantial support to groups engaged in hostilities against the U.S. such as al-Qaeda and the Taliban.[62]

I'm probably not wrong. The 2002-2003 AUMF resolutions provided more or less open-ended detention capabilities to the executive. The NDAA limited those to settings in which Al Qaeda was directly implicated. It's not my claim that the Obama administration lacks indefinite detention capability (every "wartime" administration has that); it's my claim that the NDAA is a bad example of overreach on the part of the executive.

Put differently: the opposition party in Congress at the time the 2012 NDAA was proposed was lobbying for a much broader capability. The administration had to spend political capital to limit the degrees of freedom they had.

An article like what?

I voted or and contibuted to Obama because I felt he would fight for public schools and against nationwide voucher programs, and because he supported meaningful health care reform.

I had absolutely zero expectation that Obama would waste political capital revamping CBP.

The TSA is a far bigger problem for ordinary Americans than CBP is, and a more constitutionally offensive one. I think we can all quickly agree that electronic strip searches of all American citizens are an affront to the word "reasonable".

And yet it never crossed my mind not to vote for Obama because his DHS supported the TSA. Why? Because something like 70% of Americans support the TSA, and, simultaneously, game theory more or less demands that any administration support all counterterrorism measures. There was no possibility that any winning candidate was going to eliminate the TSA. The problem wasn't Obama or Romney; it's the American people.

Sometimes, when faced with a terrible set of game theory circumstances, the only winning move is not to play.

I guess I don't think this was one of those situations, given that eliminating the TSA was not the only issue at stake.

A wonderful quip, but what is its explanatory power here? What is it here "not to play"?

I'm as much Fuck the Man as the next person, but let's try to dig a bit deeper.

Obviously, you're supposed to not vote for anyone, then go online and tell everybody about how you're fighting the system.

What I chose to do is a touch more difficult than simply doing nothing.

I suppose not playing could be to just accept that you're going to get fucked regardless, and so don't spend any time or energy on politics as it'd be a waste compared to doing anything else.

The idea that that could be the least-bad strategy is pretty depressing, but I guess it's not impossible.

After PATRIOT turned ten, I realized there was no hope for restoring the rule of law in the USA.

The only move, at that point, is to emigrate to somewhere without the authority to imprison you forever without trial, somewhere the phones aren't tapped.

It's not easy, but it is necessary.

It's better to vote for a third party that's somewhere toward your side of the political spectrum.

If you don't vote, that's just a smaller pool that each side will get approximately half of, and you've voted for a candidate that can't win: nobody. You haven't affected anything (not that you are required to affect anything).

If you vote for a third party, that's still someone that probably can't win, but you've moved the needle a bit away from the other two.

ack - nothing showed up, then three, and now I can't delete anything. Apologies.

Fight for public schools? Public schools are indoctrination centers where you graduate without any meaningful job skills. Why? So young people can't compete with adults in the job market, and are then forced to go into massive debt for college. You aren't taught logic or philosophy, which would lead people to invalidate the State and public school system.

Education needs major disruption, which we're beginning to see from some startups, but why would anyone fight for the embarrassment called public education?

Public schools are indoctrination centers where you graduate without any meaningful job skills.

At my public high school you could take classes in small engines, CAD, graphic design, business bookkeeping and general accounting, computer programming, welding and so forth. There was even a class where students would build an entire house and then auction it off. As far as I remember, nearly every other high school in the area had similar programs.

Try to stay on topic. Not only are your comments rheotircal rather than evidence-based, they have nothing to do with the subject of this thread.

tptacek was giving a reason for why he voted for Obama. I was arguing that it's a poor reason. It's a digression, I'll give you that.

I'm explaining why I voted for Obama, not why you should have. If you think we should outlaw corn chips, or annex Monaco, or subsidize free public sausage making classes, Obama wasn't your candidate. More power to you.

The reason my comment was relevant to the thread was that it was asserted elsewhere that Obama supporters were intellectually inconsistent for doing so despite Obama's manifest refusal to dial back Homeland Security.

I saw the "within 100 miles of a border" graphic in the following article (which is linked in the OP article), earlier today.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/10/aclu-assails-10/

I thought at the time and still wonder whether it must be wrong. It defines the entire shore of Lake Michigan as a border -- as drawn.

If that is indeed the case, it extends CBP authority over Chicago and the Chicagoland area (and Milwaukee, for that matter).

It's a bit stunning to consider all the major cities and population areas this applies to. That's a big chunk of the U.S.'s population and economic activity, where "the 4th Amendment can go hang".

This is undoubtedly a simplistic interpretation. Nonetheless, when I add the electronics searches to the license plate scanners (also a CBP initiative, for example in areas throughout upstate New York), the TSA moving into train and bus stations and vehicles, and sports venues, and...

It seems we are ever more at the mercy of policy and government self-restraint, rather than the protection of law, with regard to rights and freedoms many of us (although certainly not all, such as some "ethnic minorities" depending upon definition and timeframe) have long more or less taken for granted.

Neat trick, that: Using CBP to backdoor the Fourth Amendment.

Are they doing it? Probably in at least minimal fashion. How much, and under what cases? A lot of that seems to remain a "secret" that they "dare not divulge". Given recent history, I'm not optimistic about where this goes in the future.

P.S. I'm too tired to work it into what I've said in a better fashion, but, "Oh, also, domestic drones!"

It's wrong. It's an interpretation of the border search exception that has been explicitly rejected by SCOTUS.

Well, thanks for that clarification.

Do you happen to recall (I don't know) how it ended up before SCOTUS? (I'm assuming that someone was therefore pushing for that interpretation. And I wonder, to what end -- or what they expressed as their need and reasoning.)

P.S. Rereading, I'm a bit worried, so let me clarify in case the above reads wrong or so: I didn't intend any snark. Honest thanks and follow-up question.

Also, I guess I should enable and read through the Wired comments for that article, in case they address this.

P.P.S. Looking further, myself, the map in question appears to have originated with the ACLU. It's mentioned in a couple of their articles/posts on or around 10/22/2008.

http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty/homeland-sec...

http://www.aclu.org/technology-and-liberty/fact-sheet-us-con...

However, it also appears to be cited as an "interactive map" back on December 15, 2006.

http://www.aclu.org/national-security_technology-and-liberty...

I haven't found their explanation for including and ranging out from the shore of Lake Michigan.

This Slashdot article, for lack of anything better that I've found so far, provides various and differing explanations, or opinions, for the source and nature of the definition of this zone.

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/02/09/0054212/dhs-can-seize...

Amongst other things, this Wikipedia article is mentioned.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_search_exception

I've about reached the limit of what I can search/read/skim, for tonight.

I think ACLU was basically protesting the absurdity of DHS's claim.

Nothing in my case, because I was already aware of the fact that customs inspections are not subject to the 4th amendment and never have been. Random border inspections are a fact of life because borders create incentives for smuggling. Changing this is close to the bottom of my priority list.

Here are guidebooks from the EFF and BCCLA detailing your lack of rights at the border and practical steps you can take.

https://www.eff.org/wp/defending-privacy-us-border-guide-tra...

http://bccla.org/our_work/electronic-devices-pocket-guide/

Organizations like these and the ACLU do incredibly important work protecting your freedom on relatively small budgets. While a lot of people on the comments here are shocked to read this report, remember that even getting it released is the result of years of pressure from the ACLU. Those of us who benefit most from a free society, and technological progress have a special duty to make a donation and to get involved. It's a worthwhile investment in your future.

Don't forget to put a zip bomb on all your devices. :-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zip_bomb

That "watchdog" doesn't seem to be doing its job all that well.

Does the 100 miles apply to ocean borders too? If so, that puts entire cities like NYC, SF, LA, etc. right within this exclusion zone.

Yep: http://www.aclu.org/constitution-free-zone-map

It is worth knowing that this map is intended to illustrate the absurdity of a specific (old) statement from DHS. It is almost definitely not the case that living in NYC puts you at risk of arbitrary border searches; among other things, SCOTUS has specifically said it doesn't.

I guess it just applies to folks in the south west, hundreds of miles from the border.

I wonder if this is a CYA for TSA employees who steal stuff out of luggage. "It was a legitimate seizure!"

(Fortunately, my equipment can defend itself)

Didn't DHS also declare that 100 mile range from the border is basically Constitution-free? This is mighty convenient, as they can now search everyone like this within that 100 mile range.

I'm a Canadian and I was pulled over and questioned at a dhs check stop a few years ago, within this 100 mile zone. It all went fine, but the did ask what I was up to when I went through the same check the next day. (I was sightseeing).

DHS can say whatever it wants, but SCOTUS says that the search has to actually take place at the border. See for instance Almeida-Sanchez v. US.

"Constitution free" is obviously hyperbolic.

What good is what the Supreme Court said, if the DHS freely violates it?

Nothing personal, but you seem to pay more attention to what the law says then what actually ends up happening. This is a common issue in American politics

How does this mentality response to Japanese internment camps? Should we have given up on the whole enterprise after WW2?

For whatever it's worth to you, when you take a detour from your argument to point out what you think I believe, that is in fact a personal statement. I take no offense, but don't kid yourself about what you're doing.

Aren't they just going to lose this at court? The degree of suspicion required for different kinds of border searches is something that has already been tested before SCOTUS.

and a challenge will take many years to go through, meanwhile they are completely free to implement this abusive policy.

Most people don't know that the USCG has never needed a reason to board and search any boat within US waters, or any US flagged boat anywhere in the world.

This doesn't seem much different.

Dear DHS,

you are welcome to try and steal my stuff.

I will be sure to laugh at you when you fail. Further, I will be sure to put it on youtube to share the mirth.

Pretty sure this won't damage your credibility any...

Who needs credibility when you have unchecked power?

Ah, but they don't have unchecked power.

Only mostly unchecked. Bigger evils have falled (see Nazi Germany, Soviet Union, Assyrian empire, Chile, Argentina, Spain, etc).

How will you prevent them from stealing your stuff?

On this note, maybe someone want's to program an application that would select random unused portions of hdd and write random data to them? Something like a daemon/windows service that would take care of the data that hasn't been fully purged by os delete. I would do it myself, but I lack knowledge in low level api's

This application fits your needs on the Windows platform:

"Eraser is an advanced security tool for Windows which allows you to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns. Eraser is currently supported under Windows XP (with Service Pack 3), Windows Server 2003 (with Service Pack 2), Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2."

http://eraser.heidi.ie

Overwriting data to safely delete it is usually enough, most of the recommended additional overwriting is snake oil. Unfortunately, overwriting data still takes a lot of time.

Using system encryption is therefore easier: You delete the key and your data is as good as overwritten a million times … all modern operation systems offer system encryption by default.

Disk encryption wouldn't defeat an attacker that had access to your keys (either by compromising a running system or through a cold-boot attack[1]). If the keys are available, the contents of the disk are accessible. Overwriting deleted files would still have value in these cases.

[1] https://jhalderm.com/pub/papers/coldboot-sec08.pdf

Does this properly work on a modern journal-ed filesystem? My impression of the equivalent linux utilities is that while they appear to work on modern linux filesystems, they no longer provide as much security as you might think.

Sorry, I don't understand the underlying principles enough to answer that question. How would journalling interfere with the behaviour of a tool like Eraser?

(I do know that SSDs change the nature of the problem dramatically, as their internal storage allocation techniques tend to be opaque to the operating system. One cannot guarantee that an instruction to overwrite block X will be interpreted in the desired manner.)

I was just wondering: In the case that the confiscated electronic devices are encrypted, are you obliged to decrypt them or do you have the right to politely refuse ?

If not would claiming plausible deniability (I.e I don't know the password) be a viable alternative?

This is what TrueCrypt is for: giving you plausible deniability.

But it takes a lot of work and planning to let this look natural. i.e. switching the systems back and forth so the plausible deniable partition looks legit etc.

Use the decoy/plausible deniable system for your day to day mundane uses (facebook, netflix, or whatever other computer usage won't be private anyway.), and the 'real' system for your periodic private activities.

In the US, you are only required to decrypt devices as ordered by court via subpoena.

It's things like this that mean that I won't go back to America. I love Americans, and there's a great deal of the US I'd love to see but it's just not going to happen while stuff like this goes on.

My most vivid experience of traveling in Europe in 2000 was of having my bags searched on a train midway between Zurich to Prague. Not as a condition of getting on the train, but 30 minutes out from the last station we'd stopped at. Not on any individualized suspicion, but as one of several passengers to receive the same treatment. Not in order to protect the safety of passengers, but (evidently) as part of a drug interdiction program.

Beware the grass-is-greener trap. You may be right: it may be that there are fewer circumstances in which your electronics will be searched in Europe than in the US. But by and large European law operates under a regime that values communitarian values more highly than individual ones. You can certainly be searched without a warrant all throughout Europe.

"You can certainly be searched without a warrant all throughout Europe."

Never happened to me but I do believe you. However what did happen though is that a vehicle of mine equipped with a GPS got stolen in Europe and despite me telling the cops exactly behind which garage door the vehicle was located, they refused to open the garage without a warrant. Now so many days have passed by that it's likely that the thieves have moved the vehicle and that I'll never see it again.

"Police and thieves, in the street... Fighting the nation with their guns and ammunition"

I cannot say that I admire your 100% belief in the state that you've displayed in this thread.

But you're probably right: Europe sucks and the U.S. is the greatest place to live ever and certainly nothing is going wrong in the U.S. right now (zeppelin over Washington DC, en masse murdering using drones, illegal detention, justified torture, etc.).

I've got a bridge decorated with pink unicorn running in fairyland to sell you.

I'm not sure where you got that second quote. It's nowhere else in the thread, the article, or any of tptacek's comments on any other recent threads.

It's lyrics from a Clash song (technically a reggae song they covered, but most people associate it with them). It's about the police misusing their power.

Do the worm on Acropolis. Slam dance cosmopolis. Enlighten the populace.

It's one of HN's most charming quirks that a reluctance to subscribe to conspiracy theories makes one a stalwart supporter of the state.

> Beware the grass-is-greener trap.

Please don't confuse my views for a grass-is-greener view. I live in one of the most expansive surveillance states in the world (the UK) and generally what happens in the US tends to come over here eventually.

However, I do have the option to travel or not to travel to the US, and as long as the US Government treats visitors and it's own citizens in this way, I choose not to. For what it's worth, I also choose not to go to Israel and some other countries for a whole load of other reasons. I was simply stating my view on the USA's zany policies.

> You can certainly be searched without a warrant all throughout Europe.

I can't speak for all of Europe but we certainly have Section 44 (of the Terrorism Act 2000) Stop and Search in the UK which has been routinely abused.

Just remember to leave important data in the cloud and if you need to access them use a secure storage and protocol (e.g, Dropbox, VPN, etc).

If they can force you to login to your laptop could they not also force you to login to your Dropbox account?

If they can force you to login to your laptop, they usually don't have to force you to login to your Dropbox account: Most users are already logged in to Dropbox and all Dropbox data is available in the Dropbox folder by default anyway.

Yes that's true. I wonder about the case where the data is not present on the device. I've seen lots of people assert that the government would be powerless in that case. I think this assertion is often made on the basis that the alternative is too horrible to imagine. I hope there are more compelling reasons why this would not be legal but I am doubtful.

For example, I have heard of border agents taking phones and calling contacts on them. This is a way of getting data about you from another location. From there it seems like a small step for border agents having the right to get access to your data at the border if it is available to you when you are crossing the border regardless of its physical location.

What I find amazing is how people continue to push for political solutions like "term limits" while ultimately taking no action. Even as we lurch towards an obvious fiscal iceberg, undoubtedly responsible for the abrupt hike in tyrannical measures we've seen as of late, there are plenty of otherwise capable, intelligent people, and even hackers who are seemingly unable to abandon ship.

Whatever. History has shown the rich are always the first to leave. I suspect it's because they know more truths about human nature than some would like to believe.

Political action towards positive change is absolutely pointless. There's nothing any political party - not left, right nor libertarian - can do to stop America's path to inevitable fiscal crisis and subsequent self-destruction. Not with the political gridlock in Washington. Not with the bozo Ivy League clowns and TBTF banks running the show. Not with more and more people waking up every day to the corruption and lies spewing from the mouths of virtually everyone in Washington DC and all of their supporters and cronies. In short their shit just stinks too badly, and the average person has become too educated and capable to sit there and take all the abuse.

America is $16.5 trillion in debt and rising, and there's nothing you can do to make that debt disappear short of printing trillions more dollars to debase it and insodoing completely wipe out the average individual's savings, not to mention piss off other countries. All viable economic and political solutions are too little, too late. You'd better pray for our continued military might every night before you go to sleep, because that's the end game given the way things are going.

The only viable move for the U.S. elite is to sink America like Enron, and pray they can keep things under control. Thus the advent of tyrannical control measures.

Let the elite continue to have their follies with the savings of average Americans and others who are too blind to see the storm brewing, or too proud to abandon ship. Let them have their gold, their silver, and their perceived political capital aka giant circle jerk. Let them have their warplanes and battleships. Let them continue to send our young to die in their places in exchange for worthless paper green rectangles.

The only viable move for the individual is to evacuate the USD before their savings are wiped out. Everyone on HN has the capacity and the short-lived opportunity to move their economic and political activities into the cryptographic realm, where any and all central planning efforts are rendered irrelevant. Therein lies the only remaining true safe haven for economic activity.

Love it or hate it, you have no other option but to embrace strong encryption and Bitcoin before your nation, and perhaps the entire global economy descends into a fiscal default scenario right out of your worst nightmares. If you fail to see this risk and the danger it entails, I implore you to utilize public transportation extensively.

"Truthfully I do not expect much to change. Practically speaking, history has demonstrated the ability of sovereign nations to justify themselves, and postpone the moment of crisis. This will be even more true for the United States as the largest economy by far with the strongest central bank. As a result, over the course of your lives, you will experience withering but stealthy attacks on your quality of life, as government attempts to manage its faltering finances. You will see declines in the quality of healthcare, the quality of education, the quality of public safety, and the quality of our currency. Of course this is a false prophecy. I am simply describing what is already happening."

- Dr. Michael J. Burry [1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CLhqjOzoyE

>“We also conclude that imposing a requirement that officers have reasonable suspicion in order to conduct a border search of an electronic device would be operationally harmful without concomitant civil rights/civil liberties benefits,”

Well frankly, in that case, I don't give a shit what you conclude, because you're mentally incompetent.

"We also conclude that following the Constitution for Americans reentering the country would put us in a bind for looking at whatever we want, so we're going to say that you don't need that right to privacy."

The Constitution does not forbid the government from conducting searches without warrants at the border. The word "reasonable" is in the 4th Amendment in order to defer judgement about what searches are and aren't constitutional to the the courts. Unfortunately for your argument, SCOTUS has for many many decades held that border searches are, subject to some limitations, reasonable.

I think that, aside from disagreeing with most of that principle, it is futile to search the contents of electronic devices at the border. I could ship an encrypted device through mail, I could use steganography and encryption to upload a file to a personal server and have someone immediately unplug said server... there are lots of ways to transport digital files that don't involve the physical device at the border.

My response to this is complicated (but I'll keep it short):

* I agree with you that anyone who wants to avoid being effectively searched at a border can and there's little the government can ever do about it.

* I think most of the people carrying (say) child pornography into the country aren't too bright to begin with, so maybe that doesn't matter.

* I remember being very upset about the border search exception when I learned about it 10 years ago. It still bugs me.

* If the principal you're disagreeing with is that the state's interests in a secure border outweigh the individual's right to be free from casual, minimally invasive searches, you should know that you're disagreeing with something like 10+ SCOTUS opinions going back to at least the early '70s.

* If the principal you're disagreeing with is that the 4th Amendment allows judges to fill in the blanks on what "reasonable" means, and that "reasonable" overrides "warrant", know that you're disagreeing with something like 175 years of jurisprudence.

* I definitely agree that electronic searches are nonminimal and highly invasive.

This event, described at the end of the article, does not sound like a "casual, minimally invasive search" to me:

"At an Amtrak inspection point, Pascal Abidor showed his U.S. passport to a federal agent. He was ordered to move to the cafe car, where they removed his laptop from his luggage and “ordered Mr. Abidor to enter his password,” according to the lawsuit.

Agents asked him about pictures they found on his laptop, which included Hamas and Hezbollah rallies. He explained that he was earning a doctoral degree at a Canadian university on the topic of the modern history of Shiites in Lebanon.

He was handcuffed and then jailed for three hours while the authorities looked through his computer while numerous agents questioned him, according to the suit, which is pending in New York federal court."

I definitely agree that electronic searches are nonminimal and highly invasive.

it is futile to search the contents of electronic devices at the border.

Just because you wouldn't store anything incriminating/contraband doesn't mean that nobody else will. Quite a few searches of laptops and digital cameras have led to discovery of child pron, sob obviously not everyone shares your understanding of data security.

The word "reasonable" is not in the 4th Amendment, nor does it contain text granting the power to search without a warrant.

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.

I do find it interesting that many people consider probable cause sufficient grounds to conduct a warrantless search. Probable cause is one of the requirements to get a warrant, thus such thinking leads to the absurd situation where warrantless searches have a lower bar than warranted searches (which have additional requirements).

You're right. I should have said "the concept of reasonableness" instead of "the word reasonable". Either way: unless you think James Madison was incompetent, the subjective word "unreasonable" appears in the amendment alongside the objective word "warrant" entirely in order to give the courts leeway to make case-by-case decisions about authorizing searches. The word "unreasonable" was no clearer in the 1780s than it is now.

There are times on HN when I am probably on very shaky ground arguing about con law concepts, but this is not one of them. Every modern Supreme court from Lochner through New Deal through Warren through Rehnquist has validated the idea that the 4th Amendment does not include a rigid requirement for every search to be accompanied by a warrant.

(Before reading Ely's _Democracy and Distrust_ this week, which, fantastic book, I'd have said "every Supreme Court ever", but now I'm not so sure since Ely cites a floor speech supporting the 14th Amendment that implies the 4th Amendment was interpreted differently in the mid-1800s.)

the subjective word "unreasonable" appears in the amendment alongside the objective word "warrant" entirely in order to give the courts leeway to make case-by-case decisions about authorizing searches.

This looks like it agrees with my point: the warrant process is the objective mechanism by which the subjective reasonable/unreasonable decision is carried out. This says nothing about the permissibility of searches where the warrant process is skipped.

Of course, one can choose to assume there exists some unwritten permission for searches other than via the warrant process, but then we're no longer discussing the rule of law.

This looks like it agrees with my point: the warrant process is the objective mechanism by which the subjective reasonable/unreasonable decision is carried out.

No, the warrant process is an objective mechanism by which the subjective decision is carried out. You have no textual grounds for saying it's the exclusive method, and there's no precedential support for it either. If we were to posit it as the only reasonable mechanism, then a police officer who observed you stuffing a dead body into the trunk of your car would be powerless to delay you absent a warrant, which is clearly a ridiculous position.

The role of the warrant is to allow the police to barge/kick in your door on the basis of available information rather than having to stake you out in hopes that you'll expose your criminal activity to them, which would allow them to conduct a regular search. It's not a prerequisite to a search and never has been AFAIK.

You need a better understanding of common law and civil law. We're a common law country, and the Constitution is an instrument of common law. If you try to interpret it as the entire operating manual for the country, you'll end up in crazyland.

They should make supreme court justices try to drive across the Mexico border once per year.

Here "the border" is a 100 mile wide buffer zone near the border. This is just ridiculous.

Again: that is something crazy the DHS said, and it's something SCOTUS has refuted. The idea of a 100 mile border search zone is obviously absurd.

Reference, please? If this has been challenged in court, I'd love to see some evidence so I can stop worrying about it.

Ameida-Sanchez v. US

    But the search of the petitioner's automobile by a roving patrol, on a
    California road that lies at all points at least 20 miles north of the
    Mexican border,[5] was of a wholly different sort. In the absence of
    probable cause or consent, that search violated the petitioner's
    Fourth Amendment right to be free of "unreasonable searches and
    seizures."

Sweet, thanks. :)

Look, when you're at the border you're not technically in the country, you're at the frontier. You don't get constitutional protections when you're not within the borders of the US. Obviously this border is a legal fiction, insofar as you take a step of only 2 feet and suddely you're subject a wholly different legal regime, but that's how things are and that's how every nation on earth handles it, to my knowledge.

In the anecdote in the article, the guy who had his laptop searched was asked for a password. As far as I know, there is no legal basis for compelling a password at the border. He could've just said no. The price would probably be losing the laptop.

I've very curious about the legality of password compulsion in the US. With so much moving to cloud storage, the feds are going to lose their picking rights if that don't have that one.

The price would probably be losing the laptop.

… probably after spending hours of uncertaintity in some DHS waiting areas, interrupted only by DHS officers shouting at you from time to time – in case of an American national. For a foreigner, the result could be even more unpleasant.

The first part of my just-written paraphrah by the way is standard for the so-called DHS secondary check if you enter the US and some system (or some officer) does not like you for some reason.

Regarding cloud storage, most data in the cloud is not encrypted, and if encrypted, only with a provider and not with a user key. Dropbox is a well-known example, i.e., authorities can always ask such providers for data access and they will usually get it.

..if they know the username of the account.

Beyond that, I don't think there is any legal basis to compel a password. Do you know of one? I'm curious about it. In the UK, apparently, there is but only for criminal investigations.

What's a watchdog? A lap dog you can wear like a watch? I suggest to call it "watch dog" then, just so it doesn't get confused with http://www.google.com/search?q=watchdog&tbm=isch

Are you making some kind of joke I don't understand? Also the image results it's giving me are all dogs that keep watch.

Just trying to say that some watchdogs do seem to behave more like a lap dog, including this one.

Making up "watch dog" as opposed to "watchdog" is only funny to me I guess, you have to conjure mental images of little people in suits being worn and flaunted like watches by slightly bigger people in suits for this to work :P If you squint just right it's hilarious, because it's accurate.

"watchdog" is slangy terminology for a consumer rights organization or an industry regulator. It's, like, a metaphor, man.

I don't know about the US but the term is commonly used in the UK.

(I suppose "watch dog" would be a dog that watches, or something that watches dogs, or, as you suggest, a dog that's somehow got something to do with wrist-mounted timepieces.)

It's used in the US as well (quite a bit in the media for the purpose you defined) so not sure what the OP is getting at really.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com