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The CBP's job is to control the movement of people and physical objects across the border. They have neither the charter nor the capability to control informat

The CBP's job is to control the movement of people and physical objects across the border. They have neither the charter nor the capability to control information flow across the border. All they are accomplishing by trying to do the latter is to harrass travelers, the vast majority of whom are innocent. So if they want to verify that an object that appears to be a laptop is not actually filled with cocaine -- great, have at it. But if they want to log in to it and poke around the filesystem -- no dice. (Forgive me if I belabor the obvious here. But it seems the distinction needs emphasizing.)

imglorp 10y ago
I think the overt intention is to identify undesirable travelers and exclude them from entry. In reality it's much more of a "papers please" situation acclimatizing everyone to control of their movements. Things are progressing quickly towards the totalitarian state.
- koenigdavidmj 10y ago
  We're talking about US citizens here, whom they are required to allow to return to the US.
- ScottBurson 10y ago
  > I think the overt intention is to identify undesirable travelers and exclude them from entry. Well, okay. Ideally, in the case of non-citizens, we would figure out the ones we wanted to exclude before issuing them visas, but that process can't be perfect, and a case can be made for allowing CBP agents to take a closer look at them and exercise their discretion. Two points about that. First, as koenigdavidmj points out, this can't apply to citizens. The only possible reason for examining information carried by citizens is to make the CBP an extension of the police, and once you've done that, Fourth Amendment protections have to apply. (Obviously this is my personal opinion only, not something the courts have said; but the argument seems very straightforward to me.) And secondly, there are reasons to think this is not going to be a very effective filter, to the point that it's probably not even worth doing. Once word gets out among America's enemies, as it surely has long ago, of the need not to carry incriminating information across the border, sophisticated adversaries simply won't do it. You might catch some low-level criminals, but really, what do you think the false negative rate is? By their own admission, the CBP are searching a small fraction of electronic devices, so the chance of them catching even a stupid miscreant seems under 10%; for the smart ones it's probably under 1%. This is particularly true if all they profile for is dark-skinned men with strange names -- like Sidd Bikkannavar.

imglorp 10y ago

I think the overt intention is to identify undesirable travelers and exclude them from entry. In reality it's much more of a "papers please" situation acclimatizing everyone to control of their movements. Things are progressing quickly towards the totalitarian state.

koenigdavidmj 10y ago
We're talking about US citizens here, whom they are required to allow to return to the US.
ScottBurson 10y ago
> I think the overt intention is to identify undesirable travelers and exclude them from entry. Well, okay. Ideally, in the case of non-citizens, we would figure out the ones we wanted to exclude before issuing them visas, but that process can't be perfect, and a case can be made for allowing CBP agents to take a closer look at them and exercise their discretion. Two points about that. First, as koenigdavidmj points out, this can't apply to citizens. The only possible reason for examining information carried by citizens is to make the CBP an extension of the police, and once you've done that, Fourth Amendment protections have to apply. (Obviously this is my personal opinion only, not something the courts have said; but the argument seems very straightforward to me.) And secondly, there are reasons to think this is not going to be a very effective filter, to the point that it's probably not even worth doing. Once word gets out among America's enemies, as it surely has long ago, of the need not to carry incriminating information across the border, sophisticated adversaries simply won't do it. You might catch some low-level criminals, but really, what do you think the false negative rate is? By their own admission, the CBP are searching a small fraction of electronic devices, so the chance of them catching even a stupid miscreant seems under 10%; for the smart ones it's probably under 1%. This is particularly true if all they profile for is dark-skinned men with strange names -- like Sidd Bikkannavar.