by AMagill
Electronic Search and Seziure at the Border:
[Via Group News Blog]
So, any laptop entering the US can be confiscated, held for several weeks, and completely copied, all because a Customs Agent wants to. I would figure a lot of businesses are going to be very unhappy with this approach. As GNB says:
As of April, Customs can take every electronic device you have.
Returning from a vacation to Germany in February, freelance journalist Bill Hogan was selected for additional screening by customs officials at Dulles International Airport outside Washington. Agents searched his luggage, he said, “then they told me that they were impounding my laptop.”
Shaken by the encounter, Hogan examined his bags and found the agents had also inspected the memory card from his camera. “It was fortunate that I didn’t use [the laptop] for work,” he said, “or I would have had to call up all my sources and tell them that the government had just seized their information.” When customs offered to return the computer nearly two weeks later, Hogan had it shipped to his lawyer.
How common Hogan’s experience is remains unclear. But an April ruling by the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found that the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Customs and Border Protection, does have full authority to search any electronic devices without suspicion in the same way that it can inspect briefcases.
But congressional investigators say that copies of drives are sometimes made, meaning customs could be duplicating corporate secrets, legal and financial data, personal E-mails and photographs, along with stored passwords for accounts with companies ranging from Netflix to Bank of America.
The practice of storing and duplicating material might be something that both opponents and supporters of seizure could agree to regulate, says Kansas Republican Sen. Sam Brownback, an otherwise staunch supporter of customs’ authority. Larry Cunningham, an assistant district attorney from New York, told the hearing: “I am aware of no authority that would permit the government, without probable cause to believe it contains contraband, to keep a person’s laptop or to copy the contents of its files.”
Customs insists that terrorism and child pornography are sufficient justification for electronics searches. And even civil libertarians agree it makes sense for customs to search luggage, which could pose immediate dangers to aircraft and passengers. But, says Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, “customs officials do not go through briefcases to review and copy paper business records or personal diaries, which is apparently what they are now doing in digital form. These pda’s don’t have bombs in them.”
Customs doesn’t make copies of the files in your briefcase. For them to copy the files on your computer is to turn over one’s life to the government.
How are you supposed to get any work done? And can Customs hold your briefcase for a couple of weeks and copy everything in it? This seems like way beyond unreasonable search and seizure. It also seems really open to abuse. Corporate espionage got a lot more interesting, I guess. I would expect businessman to be a little worried about this.
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