I flew into SFO (San Francisco) from Asia in May 2006.

I went straight to the customs agent as I had no luggage.

The agent asked to go through my only bag.

I gave him my bag.

The agent took out my laptop and turned it on.

He then asked for my password

He said that he wanted to verify that I had no illegal content on my hard drive...

While operating my laptop he said that we was tasked with preventing illegal pornographic material from entering the United States

Travis Kalanick
Red Swoosh, Inc.
Founder, CEO

These things usually make me angry. This just makes me sad. The difference is that I don't think there is anything that can be done to stop this. I think this means we've already lost. I beleive that the fact that these searches occur at an international border does not make them per say reasonable. The world is much smaller then it used to be. These searches have nothing to do with protecting national security. They are a dragnet setup in a Constitutional loophole that millions pass through every day. Furthermore, the contents of one's laptop are the closest physical thing to the contents of one's head. And the police are rifling through them at random. And there isn't a damn thing that can be done about it. We learned these lessons of history the hard way, and now we've forgotten and we're going to learn them the hard way again, and there is no stopping it. Communism may have lost, but Authoritarianism has won.

Yes they ARE doing random laptop searches at borders

Customs and Border Patrol agents can grab your laptop, BlackBerry, or external hard drive without needing so much as a reason, but a new bill introduced last week to Congress would at least put some limits on how border searches could be done.

"I was deeply concerned to learn about the lack of protections individuals' have when their electronic equipment is randomly seized," said Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-CA), who introduced the bill. "With the passage of the Border Search Accountability Act of 2008, Americans will be able to travel with more peace of mind knowing that their data will be further protected and that there are stringent accountability measures in place for safeguarding their personal information."

Note what her bill will not do—make searches more difficult.

This isn't what we really want, as it doesn't attempt to set any limits on searches. It does add more transparency to the process, and that is a good thing. It should be supported.

Sanchez's bill would bring more routine to the search process. The bill requires the government to draft additional rules regarding information security, the number of days a device can be retained, receipts that must be issued when devices are taken, ways to report abuses, and it requires the completion of both a privacy impact study and a civil liberties impact study. Travelers would also have the explicit right to watch as the search is conducted.

Sanchez also wants data about the searches, which would have to be turned over to Congress once per quarter. Specifically, she wants to know how many searches are being done, where they take place, and the race and nationality of those being searched.

The Department of Homeland Security actually issued search rules over the summer; while they were the first rules made public on the process, which had started to look quite ad-hoc, they still came in for criticism from groups like the Association of Corporate Travel Executives. ACTE, which doesn't like have executive laptops pinched whenever someone travels overseas, complained in early August that devices could basically be kept indefinitely, the data could be shared with foreign governments, and no data destruction procedures were spelled out.

This is unlikely to make it out of committee in any form before the end of the current congress. The situation is getting much needed attention though.

New bill would tighten rules for DHS border laptop searches

Frustrated by MemeStreams? Sick of our bad UI design? Tired of all these stupid people and their insipid political ideas and boring personal interests? Why start a flame war when you can take out your frustrations like a man... with firearms! Send an email to tom@memestreams.net with your mailing address and I'll mail you some MemeStreams sitckers! Stick them to your car. Stick them to your laptop. Stick them to your little sister. Or better yet, take them down to the range...

MemeStreams Stickers!

The cool thing about eBay's support system is it will always answer your question; unfortunately, that answer will always be a form letter on how to reset your password, as Timothy discovered when he tried to figure out how to sell his laptop to someone who wasn't a Nigerian scammer. Timothy has discovered the awful truth behind today's eBay—something many readers here already know—which is that it's become virtually impossible to sell any sort of medium-to-high end electronics there anymore.

Nigerian Scammers: It's Now Completely Impossible To Sell A Laptop On Ebay

Acidus gives Elonka a run for the money. Way to go Acidus!

How scary. And how refreshing.

Make, a new quarterly put out by O'Reilly Media, is a throwback to an earlier time, before personal computers, to the prehistory of geekiness - the age of how-to manuals for clever boys, from the 1920's to the 50's.

The technology has changed, but not the creative impulse. Make's first issue, out in February, explained how to take aerial photographs with a kite, a disposable camera and a rig of Popsicle sticks, rubber bands and Silly Putty. It also showed how to build a video-camera stabilizer - a Steadicam, basically - with $14 worth of steel pipes, bolts and washers; how to boost a laptop computer's Wi-Fi signal with foil from an Indian take-out restaurant; and how to read credit card magnetic stripes with a device made with mail-order parts and a glue gun.

Congratulations to Acidus on being the first MemeStreams user to make the New York Times op-ed page. And on a Sunday, no less! (14:59, 14:58, 14:57, ...)

A New Magazine's Rebellious Credo: Void the Warranty!

UPDATE: There are some very interesting posts flying around about this guy being an ebay scam artist:

http://www.boingboing.net/2004/07/26/stargate_fansite_ope.html

People he has screwed are all over the place talking about it in the context of this story. Kind of brings his credibility into question.

] However, instead of thanking Adam for his promotion of
] their product, officials at MGM and the MPAA have chosen
] to pressure the FBI into pursuing criminal charges. Adam
] was first tipped off about the investigation when the FBI
] raided his and his fiancee's apartment in May of 2002 and
] seized thousands of dollars worth of computer equipment.
] Adam later received a copy of the affidavit filed in
] support of the search warrant, and was shocked to
] discover that this document, prepared by the FBI,
] contained significant amounts of erroneous and misleading
] information. For example, two social security numbers
] were listed for Adam, one of which is not his. References
] were made to a cease and desist letter sent by the MPAA
] to an email address that did not exist. His online
] friendship with other Stargate fans across the globe was
] portrayed as an international conspiracy against the
] MPAA. And perhaps most disturbing of all, it was later
] revealed that the FBI invoked a provision of the USA
] Patriot Act to obtain financial records from his ISP. The
] FBI's abuse of its powers did not stop there. When they
] seized Adam's computer equipment, he was given written
] documentation stating that it would be returned within 60
] days. The equipment that they did return did not arrive
] until more than 8 months later, and only then after much
] prodding from his lawyer. Much of it was damaged beyond
] repair - one laptop had a shattered LCD screen, an empty
] tape backup drive was ripped apart for no apparent
] reason, his fiancee's iBook was badly damaged when it was
] pried apart with a screwdriver.

1. Welcome to the new world of criminal copyright prosecutions. This reminds me of operation Sun Devil. The FBI is usually far more professional then this. Apparently they've assigned a bunch of idiots to their copyright sqaud, which is reasonable at first glance in that its not very important, but ultimately a mistake because this issue is too controversial and too visible to be handled by thugs. These guys aren't going to stop behaving this way until a judge throws the book at them (as occured to the Chicago Secret Service agents who raided Steve Jackson Games). Therefore, I suggesting holding on to your seats. There will be a bunch more stories where this came from, and as the net is a hell of a lot louder then it was in 1991 you can expect the FBI to feel some very serious pressure over the issue as the horrors mount up.

... [ Read More (0.1k in body) ]

Stargate Information Archive - Federal Charges Filed Against SG-1 Archive

From: Peter Swire [peter@peterswire.net]
Sent: Wednesday, August 06, 2008 11:57 AM
To: David Farber
Subject: DHS responds on laptop searches; direct action campaigns

Dave:

Public concern about laptop searches seems to be getting the attention of senior officials at DHS.

Yesterday, they posted “Answering Questions about Laptop Searches” by Jayson Ahern, Deputy Commissioner, U.S. Customs and Border Protection: http://www.dhs.gov/journal/leadership/

It links to his June 30 post on “CBP Laptop Searches”: http://www.dhs.gov/journal/leadership/2008/06/cbp-laptop-searches.html. Readers may wish to add their comments to the blog post.

Their basic point remains the same – customs has checked people’s items at the border for 200 years, so they can check your laptop.

Meanwhile, this issue has hit the front page of DailyKos, http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/8/4/141837/1015, and Dave Farber’s list gets mentioned in the Salon article, http://machinist.salon.com/blog/2008/08/04/encryption/index.html.

Two direct action campaigns are underway:

(1) “Hands Off My Laptop,” from Center for American Progress Action Fund: http://www2.americanprogress.org/t/288/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=6239

(2) Electronic Frontier Foundation action site: https://secure.eff.org/site/Advocacy?alertId=373&pg=makeACall.

Peter

Prof. Peter P. Swire
C. William O'Neil Professor of Law
Moritz College of Law
The Ohio State University
Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress
(240) 994-4142, www.peterswire.net

Arnold has failed to distinguish how the search of his laptop and its electronic contents is logically any different from the suspicionless border searches of travelers’ luggage that the Supreme Court and we have allowed.

Its clear that there is a difference. The court may decide that the difference is not constitutionally significant, but it is not helpful for the court to pretend that no difference exists. This is a sort of ignorance that allows the court to reach a comfortable decision without addressing the substantive question...

My rant on today's decision.

Re: The Volokh Conspiracy - Ninth Circuit Allows Suspicionless Computer Searches at the Border:

You know that dream where you are standing in front of a large group of people. You are giving a lecture. And you look down and you realize you aren't wearing pants. And then you look at the screen and you don't understand what you are supposed to be presenting on.

Yeah. That kind of sums up my Summercon experience.

Only I was wearing pants. I think. Yeah, I most likely had pants.

And I knew what I was supposed to talk about. How well I articulated is another matter.

But I don't fully remember giving the presentation. Something about source code mutation? Anyone? Bueller?

...

I don't drink beer. Why does my laptop smell like beer?

...

I vaguely recall something about screwing with spammers by throttling SMTP transactions, but it seems that talk was mixed with a detailed discussion of Scotch, and why Whisky doesn't have an "e"

Decius wrote:
Furthermore, the contents of one's laptop are the closest physical thing to the contents of one's head.

All my research notes, thoughts, and ideas are in my laptop. I encrypt it now for good reason. If I lost it at BH, that would be very very bad. But I shouldn't have to hide it as well.

As soon as you have to start hiding things because the government shouldn't have the right to look at them instead of the government simply respecting and understanding that they shouldn't have to look at them, we have lost something fundamental. And thats just so fucking sad.

RE: Yes they ARE doing random laptop searches at borders