

Travellers' mobile phone data seized by police at border - thex86
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/10177765/Travellers-mobile-phone-data-seized-by-police-at-border.html

======
panarky
"David House, a former MIT researcher who cofounded an organization to raise
money for Bradley Manning, accused the Department of Homeland Security of
violating his civil rights when he passed through a Chicago airport in
November 2010."

"Homeland Security agents did not have a warrant when they seized House’s
­laptop, camera, and a flash drive, then asked him questions about his
­relationship with Manning."

"The Department of Justice had tried to have the lawsuit thrown out, asserting
that the government has the authority to conduct routine searches at a US
border."

[http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/05/30/supporter-
leak-s...](http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/05/30/supporter-leak-suspect-
bradley-manning-settles-with-over-laptop-
seizure/EOG2iCb3aSbwBQeEHq7tiO/story.html)

------
DanBC
London (and other) police ofrces have been doing similar for a while.

([http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/may/17/met-
softwar...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/may/17/met-software-
mobile-phones))

([http://www.publicservice.co.uk/news_story.asp?id=19807](http://www.publicservice.co.uk/news_story.asp?id=19807))

([http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news/met-police-acquires-
mob...](http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news/met-police-acquires-mobile-phone-
monitoring-kit-44303))

Police grab as much data as they can, and keep it for as long as they can. So
it's a problem if they can cheaply and easily slurp cell-phone data because we
know that they probably will.

See, for example, the length of time they keep DNA data.

------
gst
Due to the UK's key disclosure laws
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law#United_Kingd...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law#United_Kingdom))
encryption doesn't help. If you don't provide your key to the government they
can put you in jail for up to two years.

~~~
homeomorphic
If you hadn't provided a link I would have assumed you were joking. What
happens under this law with people who carry USB sticks with truly random
noise files on them?

~~~
reeses
They do not have a sense of humor. This would be a cute way of writing a blog
post about your day(s) spent in detention before being sent back to your
country of origin/citizenship.

~~~
homeomorphic
This is disgusting. White noise is all around us - how is possessing a
recording of it in any way a crime?

I'm sorry I sound so naive, but I'm still incredibly flabbergasted by this.

~~~
greenyoda
The police might think that the white noise file is an encrypted document,
demand that you provide the (non-existent) decryption key, and imprison you
for "refusing" to provide it.

~~~
reeses
Two things here.

1) These are not the police. Police are trained law enforcement officers.
These are customs and immigration employees. They get training, but it's more
important that they can get a security clearance.

2) Can you think of a reason for having a file of white noise that you could
explain to this person that they would understand and believe?

You really don't have many rights outside immigration/customs. "Probable
cause" is "he acted weird." Cars have been destructively disassembled for
less.

~~~
rdouble
I don't know about the UK, but the average customs and immigration employee in
the USA does not have a security clearance.

~~~
reeses
You may be confounding ICE, CIS, and CBP, which is completely understandable
(never mind EOIR, which is over in the DOJ and muddying the waters even more).
The majority of CBP are federal "law enforcement" and are required to obtain
clearance in addition to the suitability investigation(which is the equivalent
of a lifestyle + polygraph background check for s/ts clearance).

If they look at a computer based on information provided by a person entering
the country, they have to have clearance. Uncleared or precleared people will
often hang out over the shoulder of someone with clearance, so it's not really
that "secure", but it ensures that queries are handled by cleared personnel.

------
coldcode
What will they do when someday our phones are chips in our brains? "Please
sir, I need to cut your head off for a bit". Eventually technology will make
it almost impossible to do a real border search.

~~~
brokenparser
"For reasons I'm not permitted to disclose, I need to stick this wire up your
nose."

------
jrockway
Probably best to mail it to yourself. If you carry something over the border,
it's fair game to deny you entry to the country until you cough up whatever
useless information they want. But if you mail it, then you're already in the
country and have some rights if the government feels like searching what
you've mailed.

~~~
malandrew
You don't even have to mail it. You just need to store it on a server abroad
and ssh into that server and copy your encrypted files.

------
josscrowcroft
This is pretty alarming but the article points out something often overlooked:
_" nowhere in Britain do you have less rights than at the border."_

~~~
reeses
This is the same in the USA and most countries. "The border" (really, any
ingress point where you haven't passed CBP) is effectively a rights-free zone.
It's important to remember that you should have _nothing_ that will cause you
difficulty if it is seized, copied, or damaged no matter how you enter the
country.

------
sogjis
Sounds like North Korea

~~~
MDCore
North Korea is known for many things but not, as far as I can tell,
traveller's having their data seized. If anything it sounds similar to the way
travellers to the US are treated. Care to elaborate on your comparison?

~~~
sogjis
They take away your phone, when you enter North Korea. There are no reports of
seized data, but you never what they are doing with your phone.

~~~
EliRivers
Whilst I'm only one data point, when I entered the DPRK everyone's phone
(except mine - left it at home) was put into a plastic bag which was then
sealed in such a way that opening it was irreversible. It was then entrusted
to our _British tour rep_ , who held onto the bag for the duration of the
trip. People got them back from the still sealed bag a week later at the hotel
on the last morning (for those flying out) and at the station (for those
getting the train to Dandong, which is well worth doing and an excellent way
to finish off the trip).

~~~
contingencies
I wonder how you consider visiting such a place in such a way that fosters
commercial gain for the establishment morally defensible? Particularly when
you can see enough across the Chinese portion of the border (particularly in
the east, near the town of _Chiangbaishan_ ) to understand the situation. Have
you no shame?

~~~
EliRivers
Well, firstly, I examined the opinions on the subject of a number of refugees
from the DPRK. _The consensus amongst them is that foreigners visiting is a
good thing_ ; not only do we provide hard currency to every ordinary citizen
we encounter, which is always welcome, but every interaction between a DPRK
citizen and a foreigner acts to combat the official government propaganda. We
talk to them, we show photographs, we demonstrate that we're not imperialist
aggressors seeking to occupy the country. When you grow up with that lie as
accepted truth, it's extraordinarily valuable to actually meet foreigners, or
even just see them wandering about smiling and waving.

It is certainly true that some of my hard currency went to the government.
Given that there are a few thousand tourists a year, this means that what they
got from me is a tiny, tiny fraction of what they get through their (limited)
trade and their black market dealings (they export opium, for example). Given
that all of life is a series of compromises, I judge that the income the
government got from my visit is far outweighed by the income a number of
ordinary citizens got from me, and also the exposure of those ordinary
citizens to foreigners. We wandered around in crowds on our own talking to
people, met some people in a pub, encountered people on their way to and from
work as we wandered around Pyongyang, all that sort of thing. Yes, our trip
was carefully organised and monitored, but it's simply not the case that
everyone we encountered was some kind of government actor.

" _Particularly when you can see enough across the Chinese portion of the
border (particularly in the east, near the town of Chiangbaishan) to
understand the situation._ "

How is that relevant? I didn't need to see the situation from China. I went to
Pyongyang and Kaesong and Nampho and a whole lot of other places.

Presumably you think that the correct way to go is for no foreigners to ever
visit, and for the DPRK population to live in ignorance of the outside world,
never encountering foreigners and never having the chance to realise that
actually their government is lying to them? What's your moral defence for
that? I went to the DPRK and I put hard currency in the hands of ordinary
citizens and I talked to them and I showed them bits of the outside world and
shared a pint with some and, on the whole, did more good than harm. The hard
currency I put into the hands of the government is regrettable, but
outweighed.

What have YOU done?

" _Have you no shame?_ "

The moral high ground and five dollars might just get you a cup of coffee.
Shame? I'd be ashamed of myself if I had your attitude, I can tell you that.
Shame? That's a product of local customs and folk-beliefs and other such
backwards crap. If you're going to travel more than a day's walk from your
village, dump it and make decisions based on something a bit more reliable.

