I iz in ur laptop, steelin ur thoughtz
06.08.2008 @ 12:36pm
filed under: Teh Interwebz
Apparently in the US Federal agents have the power to take your laptop when you enter the country – even when there is nothing to indicate you’ve done something illegal. They can take it off-site for an unspecified period of time and even share copies of the laptop’s contents with other agencies and private entities.
This applies to anyone entering the US – citizens and non-citizens alike.
What do they do with the laptop? Why, they “review and analyze information”, according to the policy. And this isn’t just limited to laptops. Mobile phones, iPods, digital cameras – all are subject to the same policy.
You also must provide the government with your passwords and any encryption keys so they can read the files in your computer. Refuse and that’s reason enough to be denied entry in the US.
They do it, of course, in the name of security. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff wrote that “the most dangerous contraband is often contained in laptop computers or other electronic devices”.
Mmmmm. Yes. Thoughts. Ideas. Dangerous stuff. The fact that they’re doing this makes me more than a little bit ill. You might as well strip me naked and walk me through O’Hare ... I’d probably be more comfortable with that. The government is telling me that if I want to go into the US, I have to give them the right to access my private thoughts and personal information well beyond that which has ever been required for entry before. Well beyond that which I think they have a right to in any situation where I haven’t apparently broken the law.
In fact there is no right to privacy explicity mentioned in the US Constitution. The Bill of Rights does however protect specific aspects of privacy, including the privacy of beliefs (First Amendment), the privacy of a person and their possessions as against unreasonable searches (Fourth Amendment), and the right against self-incrimination (FIfth Amendment), which provides protection for the privacy of personal information (Source: Exploring Constitutional Conflicts, ‘The Right of Privacy’). Now I’m no constitutional scholar or even a lawyer, but I would have imagined that such searches would have been covered under the Fourth Amendment. Sadly the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals doesn’t agree and in June they ruled that such laptop searches were indeed legal – much like searching your suitcase or your handbag is when you enter the country.
II don’t know if I can just blame it on the Bush Administration, which is the easy and fun thing to do, or if it’s symptomatic of an America that’s becoming increasingly paranoid and controlling. There are Americans fighting the good fight against it: Peter Swire, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund who testified before Congress about the dangers of this policy, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who filed an amicus brief with the Ninth Circuit Court asking them to reconsider their decision.
And there are the hundreds of individual voices – including some US Senators – out there saying that this is just plain wrong.
Me? I just got myself so worked up I joined the EFF. Because I hate not doing anything.