DHS Reveals Some Data On Border Laptop Searches

from the was-that-so-tough? dept

The Department of Homeland Security has pushed hard for the past few years to make sure it retains the right to search your laptop at the border with no real limitations. It is, indeed, (as defenders of this policy always like to point out) established law that the border is not in the country, so Constitutional 4th Amendment rights do not apply. That still doesn't make it right. I, like many others, would not have a problem with searches due to probable cause. Nor do we have any real problem with searches of physical luggage at the border. But a blank slate, seems like a bit much -- for a few reasons. First, the purpose of a border search is to see what you're bringing into the country. But, when it comes to digital data, no one's bringing it across the border to get it into the country. You could just send it over any number of internet protocols to get it into the country without using a laptop. So, the very rationale doesn't make sense. Second, when people travel, they specifically pick and choose what physical goods to put into their luggage. With a computer, the situation is the opposite. You automatically bring everything (including, potentially access to remote drives).

Still, DHS has insisted it wants to keep this right, even as some politicians have looked to protect against laptop searches at the border. Earlier this year, DHS put out slightly clearer rules, but which still allowed for no probable cause in doing a search.

One big question hanging over all of this, however, was how often such searches took place. Thomas O'Toole alerts us to a new DHS report that finally reveals the numbers -- and, it's at least marginally good news: these sorts of searches happen very rarely. That's a good thing and suggests that the policy isn't widely abused:

Of the more than 144 million travelers that arrived at U.S. ports of entry between Oct. 1, 2008 and May 5, 2009, searches of electronic media were conducted on 1,947 of them, the DHS said.

Of this number, 696 searches were performed on laptop computers, the DHS said. Even here, not all of the laptops received an "in-depth" search of the device, the report states. A search sometimes may have been as simple as turning on a device to ensure that it was what it purported to be. U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents conducted "in-depth" searches on 40 laptops, but the report did not describe what an in-depth search entailed.

I'm certainly happy to see that such a policy is used so rarely, but I still question why it should be used at all.

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DHS: Laptop Border Searches Are Bad... Except When We Do It

from the that-may-change-soon dept

The Department of Homeland Security has been actively (though with really weak arguments) defending its policy of searching laptops at the border, even without probable cause. Yet, at the very same time that it was staunchly defending the policy and refusing to testify in front of Congress over it, it was also issuing a report warning international travelers not to take laptops, since foreign governments often search them. You see, when foreign governments do it, it's evil espionage. But when we do it, it's for our own security:

"Foreign governments routinely target the computers and other electronic devices and media carried by U.S. corporate and government personnel traveling abroad to gather economic, military, and political information."

Either way, it looks like DHS's own freedom to search laptops without probable cause may soon get curtailed. The Senate has been making noise for a while about introducing a bill to reign in the laptop searches, and Rep. Loretta Sanchez introduced some legislation in the House last week that would establish clear rules, compared to the anything goes policy currently in existence. Kind of sad that we need special legislation to make it clear that the 4th Amendment should apply at the border, but such is life these days.

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EFF Asks Congress To Look Into Border Searches Of Laptops

from the some-rules-would-be-nice dept

Last month yet another court ruled that border patrol guards could search the data on mobile phones and laptops without any probable cause. This was troubling for a variety of reasons, since it basically gives them access to all sorts of things that one would have a normal expectation of privacy over. It's quite different than, say, a stack of papers you have brought with you while traveling overseas. In those cases, you made the proactive decision to take those files with you. Yet, since your computer stores everything, you're exposing much more, and doing it without making the proactive decision to bring those files with you. It's also not clear how this applies to network drives. For example, I store some files on a network drive that appears as just another drive off of my laptop, even though it's not in the laptop itself. Can a customs agent start searching that drive as well? This raises some serious concerns, and the EFF is now demanding some Congressional oversight concerning how these laptop and mobile device searches take place, even suggesting that laws be put in place to prevent the abuse of power by customs agents.

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