Travelers' Laptops May Be Detained At Border; No Suspicion Required Under DHS Policies

Source: Washington Post

Friday, August 1, 2008; Page A01

Federal agents may take a traveler's laptop or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed.

Also, officials may share copies of the laptop's contents with other agencies and private entities for language translation, data decryption or other reasons, according to the policies, dated July 16 and issued by two DHS agencies, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

"The policies . . . are truly alarming," said Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), who is probing the government's border search practices. He said he intends to introduce legislation soon that would require reasonable suspicion for border searches, as well as prohibit profiling on race, religion or national origin.

... The policies cover "any device capable of storing information in digital or analog form," including hard drives, flash drives, cell phones, iPods, pagers, beepers, and video and audio tapes. They also cover "all papers and other written documentation," including books, pamphlets and "written materials commonly referred to as 'pocket trash' or 'pocket litter.' "

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/content/article/2008/08/01/laptops.html?hpid=topnews

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The Customs policy can be viewed at: http://www.cbp.gov/linkhandler/cgov/travel/admissability/search_authority.ctt/search_authority.pdf

During the early 80s French airport security engaged in the practice and our State Department under Ronald Reagen threatened sever sanctions against the French Gov. if they did not cease and desist.

The routinely searched and copied trade secrits and engineering data pertaining to micro-chip manufacturing

I back everything up on a 750 gig external hard drive.
My e-mail, my music, my pics.
They will want that too.

HEY!

I think we're not that far from...

"PAPERS PLEASE!"

The lawyer carrying it was selected for secondary screening and he didn't have the administrative password for his company laptop, so it was confiscated. At that point he demanded that the computer either be returned or that he be charged with something. At which point he was thrown out of the airport, technically without having cleared customs.

It was a bitch getting the laptop back, now before returning to the US we are supposed to run this on our laptops http://www.dban.org/ and we have a second CD that just loads a generic looking Windows XP on them.

The best feature is it is impossible to prove it exists (appears as random data)



http://www.truecrypt.org/hiddenvolume.php

It may happen that you are forced by somebody to reveal the password to an encrypted volume. There are many situations where you cannot refuse to reveal the password (for example, due to extortion). Using a so-called hidden volume allows you to solve such situations without revealing the password to your volume.

The principle is that a TrueCrypt volume is created within another TrueCrypt volume (within the free space on the volume). Even when the outer volume is mounted, it is impossible to prove whether there is a hidden volume within it or not*, because free space on any TrueCrypt volume is always filled with random data when the volume is created** and no part of the (dismounted) hidden volume can be distinguished from random data. Note that TrueCrypt does not modify the file system (information about free space, etc.) within the outer volume in any way.




Hidden Operating System

If your system partition or system drive is encrypted using TrueCrypt, you need to enter your pre-boot authentication password in the TrueCrypt Boot Loader screen after you turn on or restart your computer. It may happen that you are forced by somebody to decrypt the operating system or to reveal the pre-boot authentication password. There are many situations where you cannot refuse to do so (for example, due to extortion). TrueCrypt allows you to create a hidden operating system whose existence will be impossible to prove (provided that certain guidelines are followed — see below). Thus, you will not have to decrypt or reveal the password for the hidden operating system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TrueCrypt among others .. and that article hasn't been updated to include one of the latest attack vectors

Before we leave on our trips IT makes a full backup of our laptops, we go about our business saving our work to the corporate network and before the flight home we nuke the disk. First thing in the morning back in the office IT reloads the backup and we go on our way.

Our greatest fear is that a seized laptop would be disposed of by the federal government with the confidential data intact and god only knows where it would go from there. I don't even want to imagine the liability if the data on a confiscated laptop wound up in the hands of a clients competitor.

I'm going home to the US soon (but not bringing my computer with me). I feel bad for my dad as he needs to use his and he travels a lot too.

I think they're just going crazy now. Can't wait for Obama to come in... I hope he relaxes some of these things. I still think the pass through security at the airport is a good idea though.

This'll be the first time I MINIMIZE the amount of technology I bring with me.
I wanted to bring my new OLPC with me because of it's long battery life,
but there's no way I'm brining it now. I will probably buy a laptop in the state4s tho,
the dollar being so weak it'll be half what it costs here, even after taxes - which i'll get reimbursed at the airport ;)

The only thing I'm bringing are a PSP, and a ipod and that's IT!
No PDA (gonna miss that) no OLPC, nothing!

As an IT guy this is the most stripped down I have ever been!

I hate this bullshit with a passion, but coming from The Netherlands, my Wife (Dutch) and I are MORE likely to be searched, probulated, etc, than the usual Euro.

I also plan on having the Huston (our first port) UCLA number handy (we'll have one phone on hand out of necessity) to call teh MOMENT they give us any unreasonable bullshit!

Dear sweet lord this is becoming so horrible, i will NOT return after this trip for some time I fear.

And I miss California so much too!

From the article


If you write someone's phone number on a napkin these fascists think they're entitled to it.

I wonder if I encrypt my HD and use the pass phrase "Fuck you I won't do what you tell me" if that would get me into trouble.

Regards

in the next 90 days.

is nothing short of unreasonable and illegal... But of course, the Constition-hating RWer Court we have has decided otherwise... Fucking Christ! I fucking guarantee that were the 5 morally corrupt fuckwads on the Court in the early 1800s, We would NOT have ANY such thing as Judicial Review...



EVERYONE PLEASE ENCRYPT YOUR HARD DRIVES. IT HAS BEEN RULED THAT THE GOVERNMENT MAY NOT EVER REQUIRE YOU TO GIVE UP PASSWORDS (WITHOUT A LEGITIMATE COURT ORDER0, AS THEY ARE TRULY AN EXTENSIVE OF YOUR MIND, AND MAY BE SELF-INCRIMINATING.

Might you do this as an OP? I appreciate the information, and will encrypt mine. To ask a favor - do you happen to have a link to the ruling? Thanks!

protects us from having to divulge self incriminating evidence. You can just claim your 5th amendment rights, and such claims may not be used as a showing of guilt.

It would probably be completely and utterly wrong to back up your laptop's hard drive to two sets of DVDs (just in case one goes bad), pull the hard drive and overnight both to your home.

You of course know that if they seize your laptop, any damage they do to it will not be their fault--so if you bring a MacBook through customs and a Mac-hating inspector "accidentally" drops it on the floor after failing to find anything good enough to charge you with, well...shit happens.

Leave nothing on the laptop. Tranfer all pertinent files to a teeny tiny micro SD disk....let them try to find it.

DHS is full of outdated amateurs.

I never really thought about it before, but my phone is a good example of how to do it. I bought an 8Gb micro SDHC card for my cellphone a while back and found that it will only read 4GB. The solution? Drop a 4GB dummy file onto the card to get the free space under the 4GB limit. Words perfectly, and my phone cannot detect that the 4GB file is even there. The only way to read the file would be to take the phone apart and remove the card (which requires removing the battery and SIM card first), plug the microSD card into a scanner, and do a filesystem dump on it. I doubt DHS agents have the time to grab and do that to every cellphone entering the country.

Even without that, MicroSD cards are so tiny they'd be almost undetectable anyway. I can't imagine that concealing something half the size of a dime would be difficult.

"Federal agents may take a traveler's laptop or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed."

Now that, to me, sounds pretty freakin' unconstitutional. The DHS is an un-American abomination that should be removed from our government.

Don't look in the folder named "Constitutional Rights", it will really piss you off.

Welcome to DU! :)

I'm sure that's what the TSA (Thieves Standing Around) goons will do after seizing laptops. Sell them in the airport parking lot.

All they need is probable cause...

"Hmm, seems you've downloaded a lot of Keith Olberman and John Stewart clips. What's this? Stephen Colbert clips???? Hmm - interesting terrorist-type bookemarks you have here - MoveOn, ACLU, ah, and PBS. And what, no, can't be - a picture of Bill O'Reilly in a lime green woman's bathing suit holding falafel???? TERRORIST ALERT IN LINE FIVE! TERRORIST ALERT IN LINE FIVE!"

Of course, a Republican has reason to worry as well. One hit to CNN in the web browser and the TSA agents will have reason to seize days worth of porn to harvest off of that laptop. Then there is the TSA prayer - "Lord, please let Larry Craig come through the holy gates of inspection with his laptop or at least a scrap of toilet paper with a dirty lymric scribbled on it".

After that, anything else it THEIR fault.

when we go to Australia. We are, however, taking our digital cameras and a portable hard drive to store them on.

however I travel with material that would be valuable. PGP makes a whole disk encryption product if you really think someone is going to get your data.

The encryption is non reversible without the key.

Different rules apply at the border for citizens and non citizens alike.

Is to image or clone your hard drive, keep the original at home in a secure location, and ship the other drive to yourself by FEDX or UPS Air. If there's no drive in the laptop, then there's no data for them to inspect.

This year, my company decided it would "reward" us by holding our annual management meeting in Mexico. (Side note: I personally consider that to be punishment, but I may be in the minority.)

I hate travelling to begin with... but this fall? Just before the elections? They want me to go to freakin' MEXICO ???

Don't like it. Now I like it even less. :tinfoilhat:

"FASCISM WILL LOOSE, MOTHERFUCKERS"
That way you get to insult them if they seize your laptop, and they cannot prosecute you.