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US Border Patrol says they can create central repository of traveler emails
- dannyw 6y agoI hope someone challenges this in court.
- TedDoesntTalk 6y agoEFF or ACLU, I hope.
- aokiji 6y agoACLU is too busy making anti-Trump propaganda and receiving financing to flame racial tensions to actually do something as useful as that.
- oa335 6y agohttps://www.aclu.org/cases/aclu-v-cbp-foia-case-cbp-and-ice-records-related-use-cell-site-simulator-technology https://www.aclu.org/cases/aclu-v-cbp-foia-case-cbp-and-ice-... I know ACLU has challenged border patrol with other issues also.
- dagmx 6y agoThe ACLU doesn't generate propaganda or take single sided political stances on matters. They defend all sides of the spectrum equally as it pertains to their rights. If you consider it to be anti Trump propaganda, then in all likelihood it means Trump is violating rights. The ACLU is perhaps one of the most non-partisan organizations.
- aokiji 6y agoSorry but we'll have to agree to disagree. Anti-antifa symbols are considered general hate symbols by ACLU: https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/anti-antifa-images https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/anti-a... Fact: Antifa is a para-military terrorist organization, active in places where destruction took place, such as Portland. Symbols to oppose terrorist organizations like Antifa that act like fascists and destroy livelihoods of hard-working people are not hate. ACLU is biased. ACLU is propaganda.
- sthnblllII 6y agoThe sitting president was elected as a Republican on the promise of deporting foreign nationals living illegally in the United States. Wether you agree or strongly disagree with that policy, how is suing to let them stay “non-partisan”? https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/aclu-sues-over-us-border-policy-of-expelling-migrant-children/ar-BB17YNse https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/aclu-sues-over-us-border-p... EDIT: I’m not arguing about this policy. The fact that 43% of Americans oppose the admittance of central american migrates seeking to claim refugee status makes it a partisan issue. https://news.gallup.com/poll/245624/support-central-american-refugees-exceeds-norm.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/245624/support-central-american...
- SippinLean 6y agoWhy did you oversimplify "unprecedented policy of expelling migrant children from the U.S. southern border without giving them an opportunity to seek humanitarian refuge" to "deporting foreign nationals living illegally?" Because the former is clearly less partisan.
- dagmx 6y agoOut of curiosity, what is your understanding of the rights afforded to individuals within the United States regardless of their legality? Especially with regards to applying for humanitarian refuge legally? The perceived partisanship of this is directly related to what you consider the rights of the people versus what is written in law etc...
- stjohnswarts 6y agoI personally believe that everyone in the USA should be protected via their Constitutionally mandated personal rights. That said there is nothing in the Constitution about giving asylum and that is the mandate of Congress. I personally believe that a well thought out quota system is needed. We can't take everyone in the world who wants to seek asylum here. That's simply not possible. No one who isn't a US citizen has a right to live here, it is strictly up to the US government to say how many in what time span.
- stjohnswarts 6y agoMostly true, but they don't like gun owners in the past decade or so. In for a penny in for a pound you can pick and choose amendments.
- dagmx 6y agoThe ACLU has defended gun owners in the recent past though so I'd like to see cases where they've explicitly chosen to not support gun owners rights https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/new-york-state-cant-be-allowed-stifle-nras-political-speech https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/new-york-state-cant-be... They have a fairly nuanced and IMHO fair take on civil liberties regarding gun rights. I'm sure many second amendment supporters may take issue with their stance, but in my reading, it's quite fair and non partisan. In fact they encourage people on both sides to work together and vote towards clear law on the matter. The ACLU focuses on rights violations not advocacy for extension of rights beyond what is decreed in law. https://www.aclu.org/blog/civil-liberties/mobilization/aclus-position-gun-control https://www.aclu.org/blog/civil-liberties/mobilization/aclus...
- stjohnswarts 6y agoI don't believe they support the individual's right to own a gun beyond what a state or the Federal government allows. The Feds could outlaw individuals rights to own a gun tomorrow and the ACLU wouldn't bat an eye. Check out their position on it. They flat out state it's only for militias and anything beyond that for individuals is not supported Constitutionally (aka left up to state/federal laws to dictate) https://www.aclu.org/other/second-amendment https://www.aclu.org/other/second-amendment. I think this article reasonable says what I'm trying to say much better. https://reason.com/2019/04/12/the-aclu-defends-the-rights-of-gun-owner/ https://reason.com/2019/04/12/the-aclu-defends-the-rights-of...
- Yc4win 6y agoThe ACLU is a complete joke to most people and the least thing from moderate possible. They also can't stand normal people having guns.
- wffurr 6y agoToo bad neither party shows any signs of reigning in this kind of overreach by CBP. Doesn't seem like this can be fixed by voting.
- slg 6y agoNeither party might go as far as you want, but it is also a mistake to think both parties are completely identical in their views of this sort of behavior.
- sthnblllII 6y agoHow could two organizations of thousands of people ever be completely 100% identical, and why does that matter at all if neither party has rolled back these massively unpopular policies, even when controlling both houses of Congress and the executive?
- tartuffe78 6y agoMassively unpopular? I doubt most people are aware of them, and many would be in favor for protecting us from terrorism/drugs.
- sthnblllII 6y agoYes, massively unpopular. Pew research found that 66% of americans opposed government data collection. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/11/15/key-takeaways-on-americans-views-about-privacy-surveillance-and-data-sharing/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/11/15/key-takeawa...
- slg 6y agoWe do have to keep context in mind. If you ask a question in general about data collection, will you get different answers than if you asked specifically about collecting data at the border?
- RyJones 6y agoIf this is the case, I’ll leave the country with basically naked devices which I’ll restore on the other side of the checkpoint.
- curiousgal 6y agoThey'll just consider that suspicious and confiscate the devices ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- Scoundreller 6y agoDunno about CBP, but I know the Canadian border agents are restricted to searching the phone only. So anything in the cloud (e.g. webmail) is off limits unless you download to your phone.
- snazz 6y agoDo they put it in airplane mode to enforce that?
- Scoundreller 6y agoI think officially that’s supposed to be step 1. Makes sense so you can’t remote wipe it. Legally they are only allowed to inspect what you are bringing into the country, so stuff in the cloud is out-of-scope. It’s an open question about whether they can compel you to decrypt anything or get you to unlock. They could always seize to inspect later though.
- deeter72 6y agoWorse they might flag and track you meticulously.
- teddyh 6y agoEven if this works for now, for you, you have only solved the problem for yourself. But the problem of privacy is a collective problem in society, so unless most people have privacy, you don’t have it, either. This would be like commenting on censorship/non-free speech laws that you’d solve it for yourself by using Tor or some other anonymizing method. That would not solve the problem of a society which will lack free speech, and if a society did not have free speech, you would have problems, even if you’d manage to somehow get free speech for yourself.
- HenryKissinger 6y agoImagine the private letters of people in 1945 being of any use to a border agency in 2020.
- fierarul 6y agoYou mean the letters of some publicly unknown sympathisers of unsavoury policies back in 1945? They would be of much use to state agencies.
- rudiv 6y agoI'd love to see your private correspondence, Mr. Kissinger. Preferably as part of the legal process of discovery. (Sorry, it's off topic but I couldn't resist)
- ip26 6y agoSounds like a call to start crossing the border more frequently- with a suitcase full of "suspicious" drives. How many petabytes of mirroring before the whole operation becomes too expensive to justify?
- smnrchrds 6y agoI imagine they would seize the drives and give you a receipt. And then, a year or two later, they give you a call to tell you they are releasing the drives and you can pick them up. Isn't that what happens to computers that are seized as a part of a police investigation?
- dagmx 6y agoIf they have an auto extraction script, could also put a zip bomb in there
- ceejayoz 6y agoI don’t have enough faith in the legal system to try that one.
- Shared404 6y agoI mean, some hypothetical nasty terrorist could do a drop somewhere along the border, where they presumably don't have camera's. I'm sure that the diligent border patrol protecting us would find it eventually.
- luiperd 6y agoWhat's a reasonable way to protect yourself here? Other than wiping and restoring. Are there any encryption tools, or ways to keep your emails and other data on your device safe? Can CBP make you unlock your own phone?
- kortex 6y agoFrom all I've read, they will certainly try, even if they don't technically have the authority (I don't know if they do or do not, but CBP has broad authority). Encryption also incurs their ire. You need to either wipe the phone or have stegnograpic volumes. It's a sad state of affairs.
- traceroute66 6y agoOne word. Jurisdiction. What is on the device in their hands, on US soil, is subject to their stupidities, whatever those stupidities may be on the day their grubby hands get hold of your phone. What is located remotely, in a privacy conscious jurisdiction, say Switzerland, is outside of their remit. I know US courts like to think they have power over the world, but they don't. US courts and US law power stops at US borders. The trick is to make sure nothing gets cached on your local device (including authentication credentials, obviously). A bit like the old Thin Client computing really. If you want to go one step further, don't travel with working credentials. Rely on someone outside of US jurisdiction to provide you the last piece of the jigsaw in a secure manner once you are in a safe location.
- aneutron 6y agoWell, in theory, yes. In practice, there have been recorded instances where the US Government has asked people to disclose their social media [1] and in other ones (I failed to find the source) refused access to people who refused to log into their accounts. Also, if you're a non-american traveler, all the constitutional rights you're afforded as an American don't apply. So they can pretty much ask whatever and refuse you access for any reason. It's like the US is becoming more and more like China. But it's a worlwide trend, really, with old men screaming "We're gonna be in the dark !" ... It's thoroughly depressing. Edit: As written down in the comments, the part about foreigners' rights is wrong. See comment for correction. [1]: https://www.theverge.com/2016/12/22/14066082/us-customs-border-patrol-social-media-account-facebook-twitter https://www.theverge.com/2016/12/22/14066082/us-customs-bord...
- ff7c11 6y agoSo do I just need to fill my computer with porn? Or use stenography to put all my files inside porn.
- orblivion 6y agoOnly the most legal, unpleasant porn.
- sleavey 6y agoThat bit I don't get. Why are they happy to upload arbitrary data to their servers unless it's porn?
- arkanciscan 6y ago"US tax dollars paying to store petabytes of porn, news at eleven"
- greggyb 6y agoMake sure you have legally obtained copies of porn if you do this. Unfortunately, it does not seem unreasonable to me that doubly illicit images (copyright-violating porn) could lead to a cause of action against the holder of the hard drive.
- SippinLean 6y agoThere are a handful of state courts in the US that find passwords testimonial, and therefore the Fifth Amendment prevents compelled production of passwords. [1] Could that apply here? 1 https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20191124/09372943445/pennsylvania-supreme-court-says-compelled-password-production-violates-fifth-amendment.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20191124/09372943445/penns...
- tenuousemphasis 6y agoBorders are constitution-free zones, didn't you know?
- SippinLean 6y agoMost of those cases have been related to the 4th, not the 5th right?
- Hnrobert42 6y agoActually, the First Congress okayed border searches. Given that many of them were authors of the Constitution, it stands to reason that border searches were always intended to be allowed under the Constitution, even if not stated explicitly. https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-4/border-searches https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-4/b...
- ceejayoz 6y agoDid they expect the definition of “border” to get quite so mangled, though? https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-zone https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-zone I also suspect they did not anticipate it being both feasible and normal to have one’s entire private writings on one’s person at all times like modern phones permit.
- jarym 6y agoReally, the US system of manually extracting data from peoples physical devices seems so much more old-fashioned compared to the Great Firewall of China. There really isn't much difference conceptually between the two systems.
- karaterobot 6y agoThat's an overstatement. The conceptual difference is that the U.S. system is limited to specific, known, legally prescribed situations, while the Chinese system is constant and ubiquitous. The U.S. system is far from perfect when you get down to specifics, but I'd definitely take it over the Chinese system.
- jarym 6y ago> limited to specific, known, legally prescribed situations Not sure crossing the US border in either direction or being within 100 miles of it (the 'extended border area') is particularly 'limited'?
- karaterobot 6y agoIt sounds like you're saying the limit infringes on constitutional or human rights, and should be reduced, which I agree with. Your original comment said there wasn't much conceptual difference between the two systems, which I disagree with. Neither system is acceptable, but that doesn't mean they are the same.
- Hnrobert42 6y ago30,000 device searches annually is WAY too many, but it is far more limited than than the system in China. Are you really trying to argue that border searches, no matter how much overreach, is the same as the Chinese Firewall?
- tempodox 6y agoWhat the NSA does is just as constant and ubiquitous as what China does.
- dvduval 6y agoUninstall everything before crossing the border? The 100 miles thing is the weirdest though, especially if enforceable on someone who has not recently/ever crossed the border.
- progfix 6y agoCan't they just ask the NSA for the Emails?
- coronadisaster 6y agoThey probably don't even have to ask because they have a direct pipe.
- hamiltont 6y agoReally wish I could enter a fake password on my Android device to launch a fake persona
- zabana 6y agothis is a great idea actually. or simply manage fake social media accounts with a fake persona that you update semi frequently either by hand or through an automated script. Login to these accounts upon arrival, then switch back to your real ones when you're clear.
- StartupTree 6y agoThis would be a serious offence which would get you banned from the US for life, after serving a jail sentence.
- StartupTree 6y agoIt's a serious offence to present a fake identity to US Border Patrol.
- ianleeclark 6y agoThey're very clearly not meaning an entirely different identity, but instead some sandboxed, non-personal phone space.
- mercora 6y agoi do use multiple profiles on my android phone where the main one is not the one i actually use. I wonder if they would catch that as its kinda obvious if you know to look for this but actually somewhat hidden if not...
- baznp 6y agoI fail to understand how a country that (purportedly) has always been anti-communist establishes these measures. These searches are literally worse than what happened at the iron curtain borders. But if you are in favor of the original ideals as championed by the constitution, you are a bad libertarian or alt-right.
- tenuousemphasis 6y agoThis has literally nothing to do with communism. And plenty of people from the left are against these measures too so I'm not sure what you're talking about.
- jhardy54 6y agoAuthoritarianism != economics.
- Shared404 6y agoFor those interested in a better model than simple Left/Right: https://www.politicalcompass.org/ https://www.politicalcompass.org/
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- mlazos 6y agoHmm could you not just encrypt your data and leave the key at your house and throw one away before you reach the border. They can have all of the “data” that they want.
- kayodelycaon 6y agoAnd then they can deny you entry into the country. If you’re a citizen, I don’t know if they can seize property, but if they can, you won’t be able to cross the border with it.
- tenuousemphasis 6y agoThe article says this is for people both entering and leaving the country. And applies anywhere within 100 miles of a "border" (including coasts).
- sumanthvepa 6y agoI'm not a US citizen, and I used to travel to the US from India occasionally before the pandemic. In reality there is no data that I have with me on my laptop or mobile device, that isn't already accessible to a nation state like the US. There is really no point trying to play games with US customs and immigration. You'll just irritate them and it won't end well. The best strategy is to simply comply with all relevant US law and orders issued by officials at the border. And one should understand that at the border, a foreigner such as me will have very limited protections. In practice there are really no protections at all. People like me essentially rely on the goodwill of the US officials at the border. For the most part they are polite and business-like. Its best to keep all interactions with them on a cordial basis and cooperate immediately and completely when ordered.
- AsyncAwait 6y ago> The best strategy is to simply comply with all relevant US law and orders issued by officials at the border. The best strategy is not to travel to the US at all, if you can avoid it. It's not even about not handing over data that they could have if they really wanted it. It's about sending a message that this behavior isn't OK and that foreigners are human beings too. The US doesn't care about your privacy, but it does care about its economy and so voting with your wallet is still the most power you have. Continuing to degrade yourself at the border at their whims condones their abuses, however implicitly.
- samatman 6y agoEvery border on Earth already reserves the right to search your personal effects as thoroughly as they please, without any concept of probable cause being applicable. If they don't extend that into data located on devices you're carrying across the border, it isn't because they don't reserve the right, but merely because they lack the means or interest.
- AsyncAwait 6y ago> Every border on Earth already reserves the right to search your personal effects as thoroughly as they please You're correct, however this does not mean they all treat you like you should be the most thankful person of Earth for them letting you in and not harassing you endlessly. The U.S. even requires you to hand over social media passwords in some cases and a lot of personal information before you even get on the plane. The outright contempt for foreigners is not as common elsewhere. P.S. And of course, you have borders like between EU countries where you barely even notice you crossed a country border, (as an EU citizen).
- submeta 6y agoWhen I was a kid in the 80s, I had a US flag on my wall. What happened to the US in the past fourty years? It became a country that I don't really want to visit anymore. Every civilized nation behaves differently, at least towards citizens of allied nations. We are no enemies. Ain't no reason to treat us non-US citizens like people without any rights. - I am deeply saddened to see the US come this way, and I have no hopes that this will change in the forseeable future. Edit: Look at how non-US citizens exchange ideas for how to avoid handing over all their personal data at border-crossing. What a shame.
- throwbackThurs 6y agoSame. Growing up I was fascinated by the US but now I will avoid visiting there for as long as I can, mainly because it seems like such an insane, dangerous place
- myaltacct415 6y agoMy simple answer: we became afraid. 9/11 showed us we were not invincible. Technology to enable mass surveillance had quick answers for our collective fears. Stoking our fears is a profitable industry. Here we are today.
- submeta 6y agoI can totally understand the need to protect your citizens, but I rather think that this kind of behaviour damages the reputation of the US deeply. In the long run, you might have gotten your hands on someone's data that would like to harm the US (but are these guys so stupid to put their malicious plans on a handheld device they use at border crossing?) Actually after the Snowden revelations: aren't the three letter agencies able to access our data without us knowing it anyways? If we are on their radar, they can get whatever info they want from us anyway. That's my understanding. So why harrass the normal person crossing the border?
- owowow 6y agoCBP does not have good data sharing with the NSA, hence building their own silo of stolen data.
- aboringusername 6y agoThe easiest thing to do is to simply not take electronic devices with you anywhere in the world, otherwise there is a slight risk of someone wanting to understand the information contained within it. If you think there is a risk, and you take a device, obviously FDE is a requirement, although, that could be seen as "suspicious". The easiest thing to do is to fill up TB's of HDD's with useless information. Random pictures, documents, perhaps thousands of people's contact information downloaded from a public source. Store any "important" documents as random file names, perhaps inside archives or volumes that need decrypting. Or not at all, instead "in the cloud" but still encrypted so that you can travel without worrying about somebody accessing your information. Make deliberate "suspicious" file names, make them believe a file is encrypted (a 50GB file named "totally not a hidden volume.hiddenvolume") and maybe they will waste time trying to open the volume only to realize it contains thousands of pictures of naked molerats. Clearly you need to be smart about crossing borders with electronic information these days, and not having any with you seems to be the best course of action.
- stjohnswarts 6y agoThis why you keep the stuff you can't show people in the cloud encrypted with a password only you know. Once you get to the border you can't really argue any longer. That said, the US really needs a new amendment spelling out digital freedom and privacy rights. The old farts in Congress don't see information on devices as information portrayed in the constitution. Information is information and the Constitution laid out methods for handling it long ago that are far superior to what our current idiots in charge seem to be able to handle. About the only ones we have paritally on our side are judges who actually know the constitution rather than pay it lip service; those types are also becoming rare.
- ianleeclark 6y ago> The easiest thing to do is to simply not take electronic devices with you anywhere in the world, otherwise there is a slight risk of someone wanting to understand the information contained within it. I think people seriously misunderstand the range that the Border Patrol has--its far more than the US and Canadian borders. Portland Oregon, for example, is within their grasps due to the coast + 100 miles being considered part of the border. So, you could be never leave the country and be caught up in their web quite easily. I wouldn't be surprised if 70% of the population of the US lived within their range.
- sys_64738 6y agoSurely you'd need to be a person of interest to have them process your data. The data is likely encrypted so how do they decrypt it? They can socially engineer a way in but does that work? Do people break down and give up their passcode? Would they really process the data just because? It seems like a severe amount of data to process and evaluate. How much compute power is set aside for this and how much online storage is used? Do they use a cloud service for this? It'd be interesting to hear from somebody in the know about what is they real can do and what is heresy.
- aboringusername 6y agoTo be honest, if your decryption process is "just" a passcode you "know" then you've already failed. You could have a key and a passcode that relies on 10 steps (such as using a web service) that is reliable for you to know but not easy to "explain" how to obtain (and, as a bonus, easy enough to build in a dead man's switch, if I don't visit script.php within 24 hours the key is gone and even I can't decrypt now).
- LeifCarrotson 6y agoIn the past, a human was required for most policing operations. Economically, that meant you'd need to be a person of interest or at least incidentally connected to one to be subject to an investigation. It meant that judges and legislators could say stuff like "it's fine for the police to run arbitrarily license plates, that's public information" because running license plates meant there was a cop with a pad of paper walking through a parking lot, bringing the notes back to a clerk to manually tab through the registration files. Storing the data and processing it used to happen at human speed and cost on the order of $20/hr, assuming they weren't working overtime rates on nights, weekends, and holidays, now it runs at gigabits per second and costs $0.05/hr to run 24/7. I'm not in the know, but I know that all the email content I've ever written is trivial to fit on a $50 hard drive, and with that I can search through 20 years in under 20 seconds. It's not a question of "could they do it" but "would they do it", your answer to that question depends on social and political issues, not technology. It's why I prefer technical solutions like encryption to political problems like privacy.
- Shared404 6y ago
- mlthoughts2018 6y agoI wonder what implications this would have for business travel. Devices may be required to be encrypted and giving a business password may violate employment law in the home country for non US travelers. It could be illegal to grant US border agents access to the phone and also illegal not to. Even if you could grant access, businesses may very rightly feel the content shouldn’t be accessed by US border agents and if it’s stored by border agents, it means now some US government server could fall under the juris diction of GDPR or something (eg my work phone or laptop had a photo with sensitive customer data or something). On top of that, it’s increasingly mandatory to use your personal phone for business data, eg PagerDuty, Slack, company email, company social media tools. So while it may be your personal device, you may still run into crazy conflicting issues of whether you are allowed to unlock it. How are you going to comply with “delete my account” requests when some business data is on US government servers for 75 years? US agencies have deeply poor and incompetent information security, so how long before this is subject to a data breach, or a rogue employee exfiltrating and selling it? Will people be able to sue the US government for substantial per-person damages when that happens? The conflicting and incompatible privacy issues of this are bananas. What an arrogant and deeply stupid thing to do by the border agency.
- coronadisaster 6y agoBusinesses are first class citizens, unlike real people, so you should be ok.
- walterbell 6y agoSome businesses don't allow their corporate data to cross borders via devices, e.g. they can use VDI to keep all data under enterprise control except for pixel-level viewing.
- supernova87a 6y agoI guess the studios wanted to get their copyrights extended one way or the other.
- dbg31415 6y agoI'm going to start traveling with a 10 TB Encrypted NAS full of static. They can download that and save it if they want. What sucks is that I know this is probably being stored on AWS. Tech companies enable this kind of shit, and even push sale of larger and larger systems to governments. And they are massively rewarded for doing so. This isn't the government... this is a sales guy at AWS pushing them to store things for 75 years... he knows he gets a helluva commission check on that deal. Gross oversimplification, but not really. We, as technologists, have to take responsibility here.
- pseudosavant 6y agoRemind me to travel with terabytes of encrypted garbage data. Just to be a costly pain in the ass. I'd love to watch an incompetent CBP agent try to figure out how to move 10TB of disk images with USB thumbdrives.
- gruez 6y agoYour time is probably a bigger issue. Hard drives maybe average 200MB/s transfer speed, so a 10TB disk would take a little under 14 hours to image. I don't know about you, but I'm not too inclined to waste a day just to troll the CBP.
- kardos 6y agoBeing detained and missing your plane while they do that in a slow bumbling fashion will be less lovely
- swyx 6y ago> a federal judge in Boston ruled that forensic searches of cell phones require at least reasonable suspicion “that the devices contain contraband.” outside of illegal porn, what exactly constitutes digital contraband? is this defined anywhere? any well known example cases?
- klyrs 6y agoIf you hack somebody and steal their data, that'd probably count. If you've exfiltrated confidential data from your employer, that could count. For a time, exporting strong crypto was illegal; we might see a return to that.
- TrackerFF 6y agoindustrial and state espionage? Surely if you're traveling with illegally obtained classified information, that's seen as contraband.
- biddlesby 6y agoIs there a list online somewhere of all the crazy shit that can legally happen to you in the US? How long you can be detained for, what data can be extracted from you, and so on? Like if you had a really bad day and the authorities exercised all of the powers over you they legally have.
- tmpz22 6y agoThey can put a knee on your neck for seven minutes and 43 seconds until you are dead and be home watching TV The next day.
- StartupTree 6y agoI thought that cop was charged with murder? I must have got confused, thanks for updating me.
- greggturkington 6y agoI think they got him confused with the officers that unloaded 20 rounds in a no-knock warrant, killing an EMT not involved in the investigation, and resulting in no evidence
- gruez 6y agoOnly after public outcry. What do you think would have happened if there weren't anyone watching?
- standardUser 6y agoIn that rare instance charges were filed, but there is yet to be a conviction. There is a vast system in place to protect police officers in these situations, up to and including federal law.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- dTal 6y agoThe symbolic time is 8 minutes and 46 seconds. The actual time was 9 and a half minutes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_minutes_46_seconds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_minutes_46_seconds
- arkanciscan 6y agoMy takeaway; they have to search for porn first because they can't be amassing a huge porn collection, so store your sensitive info in your porn folder!
- est31 6y ago> Information is stored for 75 years although if it’s not related to any crime it may be deleted after 20 years. I wonder if you have your house burned down and you want your digital pictures back, can you ask them to give you a copy of their backups? That's the only thing that storing this data for this period of time is useful for, but I guess they won't hand it over.
- neltnerb 6y agoIt may still be useful to the endless parade of hackers that get access to the confidential documents "procured" by CBP in this way and stored in what I sincerely doubt will be some impenetrable database. Not to mention that given their track record regarding things like facial recognition software, individual unmonitored CBP agents will probably be able to just you know, steal all the private information taken on people they're stalking. The police have already been caught abusing these databases when they were minimal, increasing the amount of available stored is idiotic until we solve the problem of oversight and security.
- OminousWeapons 6y agoI believe someone awhile back tried to compel the NSA to release data collected in mass surveillance which he claimed could exonerate him. Unsurprisingly, this tactic did not work.
- monkin 6y agoAt least now I can be like Jason Bourne, and have lockers in different parts of the world with laptops and phones... ;)
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago> Before uploading it to their network they check to make sure there’s no porn on it What happens if there’s porn?
- coleifer 6y agoWhat are the use-cases, and when would such a policy have led to a drastically different outcome (in the case of a crime being committed, industrial espionage, or what-have-you)? If I have a laptop encrypted with luks or whatever, then what? What are the consequences of non-compliance?
- Shared404 6y agoNot sure why this got killed. I would like to have the answers to these questions myself.
- modzu 6y agodefund the border patrol. seriously
- sixhobbits 6y agoThe interesting thing about this is that it affects people who have never been to the US and never intend to go, or those who do but take 'precautions' to protect their privacy (secondary devices, double encryption etc) as most of the data in anyone's inbox is not generated by them. That's pretty scary.
- Joeri 6y agoIt also affects U.S. citizens who don’t even have a valid passport and no intention to leave the country. According to the CBP being in the extended border zone is enough to be crossing a border and therefore be subject to a warrantless search.
- icodestuff 6y ago> Before uploading it to their network they check to make sure there’s no porn on it (so they search your devices to find porn first). "Stenographically encode your important documents into your porn" is what I'm reading here.
- hansvm 6y agoIt sounds like a person needs a filesystem that generates a few exabytes of GPT-2 output on the fly.
- WarOnPrivacy 6y agoI hate the world in which my own Gov is the nation state I need to fear.
- WarOnPrivacy 6y agoWhat's super awesome is nearly every US voter (including the ones reading this) will vote for the jackwads that enable and fund bulk surveillance abuses like this. In and outside the US, non US citizens serve as a proving ground, for tech that US Gov will eventually deploy against it's own citizens. US Gov does this because it can, because news orgs are more interested in sportball, because both parties have successfully set citizens at each other throats for decades and because the public keeps gorging on whatever fear-filled plate of nonsense is put in front of us. Ten years from now, an entirely new regime of surveillance abuses will be added to those already deployed against us. More than any other reason, this will happen because we endlessly reelect the people who are ultimately responsible. We could do better.
- stallmanite 6y agoI 100% agree with you. What can a voter do until the EFF fields a candidate? There are copyright and surveillance maximalists running both parties apparently. The DMCA, the Patriot Act, and the all the other BS seems to the type of stuff that everyone in power agrees on and no candidate that I’m aware of is trying to do anything about it.
- hatenberg 6y agoCue the inevitable breach.
- Yc4win 6y agoMany of us already employ advanced anti-forensic kits, this will just make us step it up and release the tooling as something so simple anyone will be able to stop these sick tactics/agencies in their tracks. Everyday I feel like these agencies are just begging for us to snap and block off all government access to even our names.
- Havoc 6y agoHow long till burner devices are necessary for traveling to the US?
- Yc4win 6y agoI know they market this product for security researchers, and I've read all sorts of good reviews about the "anonymous" version. May everyone expand on this concept: https://usbkill.com https://usbkill.com
- yosito 6y agoIt would be interesting to have one of those built into a smartphone as an antitheft device. It could thwart someone who steals your phone or otherwise tries to get unauthorized access. Does anyone know the legal status of setting traps for intruders into private property?
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