
No Warrant Necessary to Seize Your Laptop - wglb
http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/appel/no-warrant-necessary-seize-your-laptop
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idlewords
Bruce Schneier has talked about how to securely get your laptop across the
border on his blog:

[http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/07/laptop_securit...](http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/07/laptop_security.html)

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DougBTX
If I travel to the US again, I imagine I'd buy myself a cheap netbook, and
take that with me instead. Although I'm happy enough with the security of my
key chain while I have physical control of my machine, I imagine it isn't too
much work to break out my remembered passwords from an offline copy of my hard
disk.

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coderdude
Are you saying that you would get a netbook to get around them being able to
seize your laptop? If so, I doubt any law enforcement will split those hairs
for you.

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coderdude
Since everyone is pouncing on this with the same response, I'll just respond
to myself and say Ok, I understand what he was trying to say now. Also, why is
my question (followed by an if-so) being downmodded? I wasn't even being rude.

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ggchappell
> Also, why is my question (followed by an if-so) being downmodded? I wasn't
> even being rude.

Good question. Downmodding of questions is a phenomenon that I've seen on
other sites (less so on HN, but here it is, happening). And I always wonder
why.

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billswift
I didn't downmod this time, but I have in the past - generally because the
question shows the poster didn't even read the post he was questioning (or was
really stupid), because it was clearly answered in the original post.

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anamax
No warrant is necessary to seize your papers at the border either, so why
would anyone think that laptops would be different?

And no, flash drives aren't legally exempt either. They're just less likely to
be noticed, at least for now.

And encryption doesn't change things.

One legal response to "I can't show you the content, hah hah" in your best
Nelson voice is "that's okay, you can't take it into the US".

Technology isn't the issue and it can't be the solution.

