US Customs and Illegal Action

[TotallyOz]

Coming back from travel on NWA, I my point of first destination was Detroit. I have been stopped when I come back from Thailand or Asia on every occasion bur never from Europe. I always plan time for them to search my bags and everything I own. I did the same this time. However, this time I asked for a supervisor and he came over. I asked if I was on a list and he said, I have no idea. I said why wouldn’t you tell me if I am on a list. He said, “You know the answer to that question.” I said, “No, I actually don’t.” He walked away.

After 40 min of checking my luggage and my computers, they took my computers from the open area behind into a secure invisible room I was not able to see what the did. I asked that they not remove them from my site and they kept going. I asked why they were being taken and they did not respond.

When they returned, they said I could repack my things and go. I again asked for a supervisor. He came over and I asked him for his card. He said he did not have one. I asked for him name. He gave it to me but it was of French origin and could not spell it and asked that he spell it for me. He refused and left. I asked 3 other agents for him to spell the name and they all refused.

When I got back home, I found 2 things. One, they had put spy ware on my computer when I logged in the first time. I will now have to reformat my entire computer. Second, they deleted my entire photo library. It was filled with scans I had made of my Aunt’s family albums. It had over 4500 photos in it. None were porn. None were questionable. None were inappropriate.

I did have other porn on the computer, as I own porn websites that is legal age porn. With those photo sets in another area of my computer, they each had a proper ID that would fulfill the new 2257 requirements.

They checked my documents, read my e-mail and made a backup of my computer hard drive and another drive I use for ITunes.

Is this legal? What recourses do I have?

[Lucky]

The LA Times recently presented an article on this subject:

Laptop seizure raises concerns over firms' data

Travel managers worry about what can happen to proprietary information at customs.

By James Gilden, Special to The Times

November 4, 2006

It may surprise many air travelers, but your laptop and its contents are far from secret at the nation's international airports. Increasingly, this is prompting new privacy concerns for business travelers.

Customs and Border Protection agents have the authority to search and seize laptop computers belonging to travelers entering the United States, those of U.S. citizens and foreigners alike. And they use it.

But just how far these officers can go in inspecting the contents of an overseas traveler's laptop is being tested in federal court.

In July 2005, Michael Timothy Arnold, then 43, of San Juan Capistrano arrived at Los Angeles International Airport after a nearly 20-hour flight from the Philippines, according to court documents.

After retrieving his luggage from baggage claim, he proceeded to the customs checkpoint. An agent selected him for additional screening because she was targeting single males between 20 and 59 who were returning from Asia.

After some secondary questioning, the agent inspected Arnold's luggage, including his laptop computer. She instructed Arnold to turn on the computer.

When the computer booted up, its desktop displayed the usual assortment of icons and folders, including two folders titled "Kodak Pictures" and "Kodak Memories." The agent and a colleague clicked on the folders and looked at photographs on the computer, including one of two nude women.

Special agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement were called in to question Arnold about the contents of his computer.

He was detained for several hours while they examined the computer, and they found numerous images depicting what they believed to be child pornography.

The agents confiscated the computer as well as a hard drive, some CDs and a flash drive and released Arnold. He was later arrested, jailed, held without bail until this week, and charged with transporting and possessing child pornography and attempting to engage in illicit conduct in a foreign place.

It is cases like Arnold's that have corporate travel managers up in arms — but not because of the pornography connection. Their concern is with what happens to the proprietary data that business travelers often carry on their laptops.

"That U.S. government officials have the right to examine, download or even seize business travelers' laptops came as a surprise to the majority of our members," said Susan Gurley, executive director of the Assn. of Corporate Travel Executives, an Alexandria, Va.-based trade group.

Eighty-six percent of members surveyed said that court decisions allowing government agents to seize computers at the borders were cause to limit the kind of proprietary information typically carried on executives' laptops. Two out of 155 members surveyed said they had an employee who had had a laptop seized.

The politics and the law behind the seizures are complicated, according to attorneys and court documents. The 4th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects citizens against unreasonable search and seizure. But the courts have given government agents more leeway to conduct searches at the border than inside the country.

For example, the courts have found that it is acceptable for border agents to search through the belongings of someone entering the country for no reason other than that he or she is entering the country. But if the search becomes more invasive, such as a pat-down or a body cavity search, then agents have to have probable cause.

It is at this nexus that the courts are trying to decide what constitutes reasonable when it comes to a laptop computer. After all, it could contain personal information, confidential business information, blueprints for terrorist attacks or child pornography.

A ruling last month by U.S. District Judge Dean D. Pregerson of Los Angeles in the Arnold case may be the beginning of a shift in the courts.

In his opinion, the judge noted that "the information contained in a laptop and in electronic storage devices renders a search of their contents substantially more intrusive than a search of the contents of a lunchbox or other tangible object."

The court found that "a search of this type without reasonable suspicion goes well beyond the goals of the customs statutes and the reasonableness standard articulated in the 4th Amendment."

"While not physically intrusive as in the case of a strip or body cavity search, the search of one's private and valuable personal information stored on a hard drive or other electronic storage device can be just as much, if not more so, of an intrusion into the dignity and privacy interests of a person.

"This is because electronic storage devices function as an extension of our own memory. They are capable of storing our thoughts, ranging from the most whimsical to the most profound. Therefore government intrusion into the mind … are no less deserving of 4th Amendment scrutiny than intrusions that are physical in nature."

As a result, the judge threw out laptop-related evidence against Arnold retrieved during the search, which may hurt the government's case. The government is appealing the judge's ruling, said Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles.

Arnold still faces federal child pornography charges, but he was released from federal custody this week on $50,000 bail.

The association of travel executives is not concerned as much with the constitutional questions as it is with the practical implications for business travelers.

It has tried to get answers from Customs and Border Protection about its policies regarding the search and seizure of laptops and measures taken to protect sensitive business information on them but has not received an answer to its queries, Executive Director Gurley said.

The Times e-mailed the agency questions including what its policies are regarding the protection of sensitive corporate data.

The agency responded with a statement saying, in part, that "officers adhere to all requirements to protect privileged, personal and business confidential information."

Said Gurley, "Our issue is whether the proprietary business information on the hard drive can be taken. Is it returned? Is it destroyed? We have not received any word from [the agency], not even 'Thank you very much, we have your request.'

"What's so difficult about giving the public this information?"

*

[Lucky]

The lines through the bottom of the text were added by a secret government program designed to see if you read the complete post. In the event that you did, please contact a lawyer as you are now subject to scrutiny from scientists trying to discover a cure for ADD.

[KYTOP]

You might consider contacting the ACLU. They should have the lastest info on similar situations and what is being done, if anything, to challange computer searches.

[Guest Barry]

Slowly this Orwellian game is being revealed.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20061201/D8LNR7R81.html

[TampaYankee]

James Madison is spinning in his grave. But the he has been for a few years now. x(

I really want to be safe. I want my family and friends safe. And fellow citizens too.

I also want to be free to travel and associate with friends as long as we are not breaking the law or engaging in seditious acts.

However, I don't want my government presuming I am guilty enough of something to have my rights abridged without fair review by a dispassionate third party -- the courts. I expect to be informed why my rights are being abridged if they are. Where is Due Process?

[Lucky]

Nothing has improved re the laptop seizures. It makes you wonder what happened to the Bill of Rights:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...ml?hpid=topnews