

Dept. of Homeland Security: Laptops, Phones Can Be Searched Based on Hunches - emeraldd
http://washington.cbslocal.com/2013/06/05/dept-of-homeland-security-laptops-phones-can-be-searched-based-on-hunches/

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mindcrime
_We do not believe that this 1986 approach, or a reasonable suspicion
requirement in any other form, would improve current policy,”_

Well, yeah... the State would clearly prefer a "1984 approach".

We have always been at war with Oceania...

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emeraldd
To me, this means that any electronic device you carry across the border
should be considered, as much as possible, throw away.

Not that I cross the border all that often.

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cheald
Or have its contents encrypted with a password that you don't have in your
possession.

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lesserknowndan
I'm not sure how wise that would be. Would be somewhat like handcuffing
oneself with handcuffs and not having the key.

Official: What is the password? Person: I don't know Official: Why wouldn't
you know the password to your own laptop? Either you're lying, or you're
definitely up to something nefarious.

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Casseres
Think armored transports where the driver's don't have keys to the storage
area.

Person: "I'm just a glorified delivery boy, they don't trust me with the
company secrets."

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lesserknowndan
A similar example are couriers who travel handcuffed to a briefcase - having
keys for neither.

However, in both these examples there is a very important difference. A
thorough strip search would reveal that the person does not in fact have the
required/desired keys.

Also, usually such people have superiors who may be contacted in order to get
access (if they want to push it that far). I'm not sure if a person could use
such a defence if they are a normal traveller or their company does not carry
much weight.

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cheald
There's the rub. Law enforcement can't prove that you have the keys (unless
you volunteer them), and that's why being forced to unlock something is a
violation of the 5th amendment (since the ability to unlock the data is by
itself an admission of possession).

There was a case - I don't recall the specifics - of a guy that was caught
with child porn on his computer crossing the Canadian border. The courts
compelled him to unlock his encrypted partitions _because_ he had already
unlocked them once (when asked to by the border agent) thereby proving that he
had access to the keys. If he had never unlocked it in the first place, the
fifth would have protected him against being compelled to decrypt the data,
since the act of unlocking it would in effect be a coerced admission that the
data was his.

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joelrunyon
Are we even trying to pretend like we care about the constitution anymore or
do we really think that "terrorists" must be caught _at any price whatsoever_?

(serious question)

