

Israel airport security demands access to tourists' private email accounts - mxfh
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-airport-security-demands-access-to-tourists-private-email-accounts.premium-1.434509

======
davidf18
I'm an American who has been to Israel countless times and unless you've been
there you can't imagine the security situation. At the last moment _I_ was
saved from a terrorist attack
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem_BMW_attack> when I went into a corner
store to buy a candy bar hearing gunshots with girls running into the store
before I could make my purchase. I have eaten at several locations that were
later bombed by terrorists.

I have been in Israel where terrorist bombs have blown up buses or the open
market just a mile or so from where I was.

A major difference between America and Israel: In America they search your
bags on the way out of a store. In Israel they search your bags on the way in.

~~~
SODaniel
Still no justification to require overly invasive security measures such as
requiring access to personal communication etc.

Also completely useless for anything than purely 'selecting' who you let in
since I am going to assume a terrorist wouldn't exactly use
terrorist185@hotmail.com and then hand the email over when asked.

~~~
davidf18
I wouldn't second guess Israeli security measures...unlike TSA, these are
highly trained people who undoubtedly have military training since with few
exceptions (Arab or Orthodox Jewish) not only men but women are drafted for
military service.

If you don't like the security measures then don't go there.

~~~
marcf
> If you don't like the security measures then don't go there.

But what happens if you are Palestinian like the people in these stories and
as a politically aware Palestinian you become active in pro-Palestinian
activism because you care about the rights and freedoms of your people? Those
are the people that Israeli is targeting if you read these articles.

------
nyellin
Please do not make broad statements about Israel based on one article.

Israel allows civil unions, allows homosexuals to serve in the military
without restrictions, supports Muslim private schools, pays for Islamic
religious activities, and generally respects human rights. [1]

We also have our warts, like everyone country does. Israeli politicians have
attempted to pass our own _Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers
Act_. We have our equivalents of the TSA, FBI, and CIA - and for us they are
an existential necessity.

Keep in mind that many - probably most - Israelis will be equally disturbed by
this. Israel's Supreme Court has an excellent track record of ruling _against_
military and government action. Their decisions are binding - there is no one
above the law in Israel. Prime ministers, presidents, and intelligence
organizations alike have been prosecuted.

We're also only 60 years old, and have fought 7 major wars in that time, twice
in such dire situations that it was widely believed we would fight to the last
dead man _and lose_. Compare with other countries, or just MKULTRA, before you
judge us so quickly.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Israel>

Edit: This is almost a societal-version of the fundamental attribution error.
When your country does something wrong, you blame it on the politician or
individual. When you hear about the same thing happening in another country,
you wonder why that country is so backwards and evil.

~~~
makomk
What nyellin means by "Israel allows civil unions" is that, starting in 2011,
they actually allow a man and a woman who aren't religious and who can prove
this to the satisfaction of the religious authorities to get married. Prior to
that it was actually impossible for many heterosexual Israeli citizens to get
married within Israel because they were only considered Jewish by Israeli law
and not by the Jewish religious authorities. As far as I can tell civil unions
still don't extend to same-sex couples.

~~~
nyellin
No, I deliberately used the term "civil union", not "marriage" for that
reason. The distinction is hairy, so I'm just going to quote Wikipedia:

 _Israeli law recognizes same-sex marriages performed elsewhere... It does
not, however, allow same-sex couples to marry on Israeli soil. Civil marriage
doesn't exist in Israel for heterosexual couples, either, (except where both
spouses are non-Jewish) and therefore only a marriage sanctioned by religious
authorities can take place within Israel._

 _The State of Israel allows foreign partners of its homosexual citizenry to
receive residency permits. The Civil Service Commission extends spousal
benefits and pensions to the partners of homosexual employees. The Israeli
State Attorney's Office has extended the spousal exemption from property-
transfer taxes to same-sex couples. Israel's attorney general has granted
legal recognition to same-sex couples in financial and other business matters.
Attorney General Meni Mazuz said the couples will be treated the same as
common-law spouses, recognizing them as legal units for tax, real estate, and
financial purposes. Mazuz made his decision by refusing to appeal a district
court ruling in an inheritance case that recognized the legality of a same-sex
union, his office said in a statement. Mazuz did differentiate, however,
between recognizing same-sex unions for financial and practical purposes, as
he did, and changing the law to officially sanction the unions, which would be
a matter for parliament, according to the statement._

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Israel#Recogniti...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Israel#Recognition_of_same-
sex_relationships)

~~~
marcf
Your posts which highlight LGBT rights while completely ignoring the elephant
in the room (the 40+ year occupation affecting millions) fits well with what
is described in this New York Times editorial as Pinkwashing:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/23/opinion/pinkwashing-and-
is...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/23/opinion/pinkwashing-and-israels-use-
of-gays-as-a-messaging-tool.html)

~~~
nyellin
I replied to you above. Lets keep the discussion in one place.

------
alt_
No real content in the article for non-subscribers.

Reddit comment[0] has (a) full story[1].

[0]
[http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/ulvaj/israel_airp...](http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/ulvaj/israel_airport_security_demands_access_to/c4wiiyv)

[1] [http://mondoweiss.net/2012/06/do-you-feel-more-arab-or-
more-...](http://mondoweiss.net/2012/06/do-you-feel-more-arab-or-more-
american-two-arab-american-womens-story-of-being-detained-and-interrogated-at-
ben-gurion.html)

~~~
JumpCrisscross
We may need a HN Guideline about paywalls

~~~
mxfh
The paywall wasn't up when it was posted.

~~~
js2
The Reddit link has no paywall apparently due to the query string:

[http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-
airport...](http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-airport-
security-demands-access-to-tourists-private-email-
accounts-1.434509?localLinksEnabled=false)

------
tnash
Before any kind of Israel bashing starts, I want to say that unless you have
lived under constant threat to your life like nearly all Israelis have during
some point of their life, you cannot really grasp the lengths you will go to
to preserve your life and the lives of your family.

Nonetheless, this does seem a little overboard. From having personally been
grilled by Israeli airport security, I can say that they are very thorough. I
doubt they really need this intrusion to determine if someone is a threat, as
it is easier for them to just not grant access, but I suppose if someone
really needed to get into the country they could be willing to divulge the
information.

Security, in any form, is annoying. Implement two-factor on your gmail
account, and it will occasionally annoy you when you have to dig out your
phone for the code, and that's just to protect your email from prying eyes!
What if you had to legitimately protect your life and the lives of your
family? What kind of inconvenience would you accept for that protection?

(Edit) Why is this downvoted? What did I say that did not add to the
conversation? Just because you disagree with me? That's rather childish. I
think my point is rather poignant, that security is a necessary evil, and that
for some it is more necessary than others.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Unless you're a grossly incompetent terrorist, searching through your email
isn't going to help you determine how much of a threat you are.

Israel can continue what they're doing, but without any US policy or financial
support if they continue to do so towards US citizens/legal residents.

~~~
makomk
It's not going to help them determine how much of a threat someone is in terms
of killing people. It's a very good way of determining how much of a threat
someone's likely to be in terms of drawing attentions to the less savoury
aspects of Israel's treatment of its Arab population.

Edit: Good guess apparently. Look at the search keywords here:
[http://mondoweiss.net/2012/06/do-you-feel-more-arab-or-
more-...](http://mondoweiss.net/2012/06/do-you-feel-more-arab-or-more-
american-two-arab-american-womens-story-of-being-detained-and-interrogated-at-
ben-gurion.html)

~~~
marcf
It's weird that you were down voted for being factually correct.

------
AJ007
This just sounds like an attempt to keep individuals of certain backgrounds
out of a country. Ask a lot of invasive information and then refuse them
entry. Entry information such as this should be aggregated in to travel
warnings given about a particular country to minimize wasting a citizen time &
money.

Stories on how foreign countries treat privacy are important. American
companies, in some part, have turned places like China in to zero-privacy
zones that would have left George Orwell's head spinning.

The post-FB generation of start ups should take very hard lines on privacy and
build tools that employ obfuscation & client side decryption. For example,
when logging in from an unverified sources (or foreign IP), the email account
could reveal only commercial email.

Sadly that isn't what is happening. Just today I got a pop up for Dropbox
containing a _pre-checked_ box to "Automatically import when removable devices
are connected." Import what? All photos. Sorry if I don't want to store
pictures of my girlfriends naked in my Dropbox account.

By the way, what country is known for harassing Americans at their border:
Canada. I'd rather travel to Mexico in the middle of a drug war.

~~~
pyre

       By the way, what country is known for harassing Americans at 
       their border: Canada. I'd rather travel to Mexico in the
       middle of a drug war.
    

I've had the opposite experience. As an American citizen, I've gotten a worse
experience going Canada => US than vice-versa. I've personally only been
harassed once by Canadian border patrol, and at one point I was crossing the
border every day for work (note: This is without any sort of 'special'
clearance like the Nexus Pass).

That said, I went to Tijuana once when there was apparently a 3-day riot at
some high-security prison nearby and it took _4 hours_ in a 2-mile long line
to get back across the border. I'd imagine that a drug war would be even
worse.

~~~
Canada
It's a disgrace in both directions. Neither Americans or Canadians should
tolerate the rude and invasive treatment we suffer at our borders.

------
koide
They may have more and better reasons than most to be obnoxious in airport
security, but this measure is nothing more than security theater (or worse,)
yet again.

Now that this measure is public, any terrorist worth his salt will prepare a
plausible and innocent looking email account.

------
antr
couldn't you just give a bogus email account, like an old hotmail account? It
has my real name, and probably plenty of spam waiting to be opened, but that
is about it. If airport security says anything against it I can simply say
that I do not use email that often.

Am I being too naive?

~~~
pavel_lishin
Well, the penalty for disallowing access seems to be a refusal to allow you
into the country. I imagine that giving access to a legitimate but old and
useless e-mail address would be taken as a refusal, and you'd just get back on
your plane and go home.

~~~
toomuchtodo
It appears that even giving them your real email account will get you refused
from the country.

As a US citizen, I'm disappointed in Israel, and would prefer even less of my
tax dollars are used to support them after this.

~~~
nyellin
Israel has an excellent Supreme Court which has stopped behavior like this in
the past. From wikipedia:

 _The Court has ruled on numerous issues relating to the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, the rights of Arab citizens of Israel, and on discrimination between
Jewish groups in Israel. It is unique in that its rulings can intervene in
Israel Defense Forces military operations._

Most Israelis are equally ashamed of this. This isn't what your tax dollars
support.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_Israel>

~~~
pavel_lishin
So my tax dollars support only the good things they do?

------
jancurn
I've had also quite strange experience when departing from the Ben Gurion
airport in Tel Aviv two months ago. Neglecting the fact I got a very thorough
security check for no apparent reason, have been asked questions like "Did you
like it in Syria?", and got my pants wiped with a bomb detectors, the most
humiliating thing that happened was that they asked me to unlock my iPhone and
then walked away with it for a good few minutes.

I have no idea what did they do with the phone, did they read my emails? check
my photos? installed some spyware? I have no idea, but I'm sure if I rejected
to unlock it, I would be missed my flight. I felt like crap after that.

Interestingly, they didn't care about my second phone, an old Nokia, probably
iPhone is more popular.

------
getpost
How long before every government requires this kind of disclosure? What other
types of invasive personal disclosure (e.g., cell phone records, health
records) will be required, now that it's possible because the data is online?

Requiring this disclosure at an international border is just a convenient
pretext in the emerging dystopia. Human and civil rights need to be updated in
light of emerging technologies.

Unfortunately, that seems unlikely given, for example, the US government
doesn't honor even its own outdated Bill of Rights in the most basic ways
(i.e., by asserting its authority to kill US citizens on the President's
word).

------
nivertech
She probably lied about the purpose of her visit. If somebody read the linked
articles, it's clear that this has noting to do with her ethnic background,
but with her anti-Israeli political and economical activities. Not a
terrorist, but still we have full right not letting her in.

~~~
marcf
Israel does prevent those with sympathy to the Palestinians from entering
Israel.

I posted this quote/article in response to another comment but it is pertinent
here:

"The agent, suspecting Tamari was involved in pro-Palestinian activism, wanted
to inspect her private email account for incriminating evidence. The 42-year-
old American of Palestinian descent refused and was swiftly expelled from the
country."

[http://www.timesofisrael.com/pro-palestinian-activist-
says-s...](http://www.timesofisrael.com/pro-palestinian-activist-says-she-was-
expelled-for-refusing-to-log-in-to-her-email-at-the-airport/)

------
getpost
On another note, this gives me an idea for a product. Auto-delete all email in
your main account after some designated period or other rule(s), but keep
separate encrypted backup.

