There is no reason anyone should search a phone, because anyone smuggling "illegal data" can just transfer it directly over the internet undetected.
This is horrible and ridiculous.
This is horrible and ridiculous.
I have no doubt at all that they routinely search through people's phones, laptops, tablets, and similar. And if you watch those Passport Patrol style shows where they film in immigration/customs, you can see it is common on there too.
In the scenario you seem to be proposing, some random border agents are not only privy to top-secret NSA projects, but also have access to the data collected by said top-secret projects, and not only that, but they know everybody who's going to drive across the border on a given day, and not only that, but they pre-screen all of those people's data to see who's planning to marry for a green card so that they can manually screen the people's devices and then pretend it was random search.
Basically, these people are not the NSA, so assuming that they have the capabilities of the NSA seems a bit far-fetched.
They don't even need to know that it's a tip-off: a computer could just spit out "selected for random phone search" and maybe "suspected immigration fraud" when that person reaches border control. The border agent needn't know how or why the selection was made, nor have access to any top-secret data. Just follow instructions.
With automated screening using access to a database of everybody's communications, I'm sure you could easily predict more than 80% of the people who cross country borders within 24-hours. For flights, that would be close to 100% accurate. With satnav, you'd probably catch a good portion of the rest who drive across.
If every government agency were dipping into the NSA's cookie jar of secrets so liberally, we'd most likely have known about all these not-so-secret programs years before Snowden ever worked there.
It's not impossible, but it's sufficiently implausible that you'd be crazy to bet on it.
I fly internationally on business and the Canadian border officials are the worst I've run across.
I'm serious. Any time you hear those terms and the discussion is not about speed limits in a school zone, red flags should be going up in your mind.
It's not about how many people they catch - even if they had a 100% success rate at nabbing every abuser that crossed the border, it's about civil liberties.
As for why they want to search for pedophiles at airports: the reason is presumably because there is a serious problem of child sex tourism in certain countries (Thailand for example).
You could use the same argument about guns or drugs -- why search people who they suspect are carrying guns or drugs? The reasoning is presumably that stopping these at the border prevents them from coming into the country.
To be honest I don't have a problem with being searched at airports. IMO the small inconvenience is outweighed by the benefit of putting the occasional pedophile in jail, preventing diseases from fruit/meat entering our country, and criminals bringing machine guns into the country, etc. I guess from the downvotes and comments that a lot of HN posters have a different opinion.
By the way, the real cap'n crunch would be ashamed of the attitude you have expressed, as I'm sure you know.
Interesting, thanks!
In Canada it isn't legal to arbitrarily search people even at the border. Reasonable cause is necessary:
http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-52.6/page-64.html#...
There is both plenty of incentive and no consequences for conducting unlawful searches.
Do you have any references for that?
From what I can see on programmes like Border Security, they do catch a lot of people this way, and they do always have reasonable grounds for the search.
Also, how does that law allow random searches at airports (which are presumably legal)? Is there another law which permits those?
I can't stand those shows, I have to change the channel, they literally make me angry. Thinking that there are people out there who actually fall for it makes it worse.
If HN sold gold stars I'd buy you one.
Sadly, the propaganda is effective and enough people agree with cpncrunch: Being treated without dignity, like a prisoner, is totally worth it if maybe it catches a few evil boogeymen.
Random searches are not legal in Canada. Border guards take advantage of the fact that nobody wants to look guilty by refusing to be searched. They exploit the public's ignorance of the law and use intimidation.
I don't think this would allow them to search your phone. However that may be permitted if they have reasonable suspicion.
When a Canadian enters Canada it's acceptable for the government to say, "Show me all of your apples." It can even say, "Give me the bill of sale for those apples." That's inspecting goods.
It's not acceptable for the government to say, "Show me all of your text messages, emails, pictures, and personal journals." That's a warrantless search.
It is illegal, and it should remain illegal regardless of what good deeds a government bureaucrat might be able to do with that information.
If the government wants to conduct a search like that, it needs to accuse you of a specific crime and set out the reasons why it believes getting those items will prove it. Any just government must assign different people who act at arms length from each other to make the request and to decide if the request is justified. (eg. Police, Prosecutor, and Judge) This is necessary in order to prevent any individual human agent acting with the power of the government from abusing that power.
Just governments do not search everyone because some of them might be guilty. Just governments don't say, "Show me your apples. OK, that's fine. Now give me your passwords because you might be a pedophile and I need to make sure I can't find any evidence that you are." Just governments don't say, "Show me your journals, emails, and pictures, then and then we'll see if we can charge you with a crime."
I wouldn't give up living under a just and fair government even if that meant we could catch all of the criminals... which of course we couldn't.
I agree with your other points.
That's what happened in this case. Customs demanded irrelevant information in order to go fishing, the returning Canadian declined, as is his right to do, and is being punished for it.
Take a look at the Nexus program. It asks travelers to waive their rights voluntary in exchange for being permitted to avoid being coerced into waiving them at each crossing. If more people were aware of the rules and pushed back there would be no need for such programs.
This is one of the main points of having civil liberties.