The government cannot open mail - i.e. written letters; there was a court case many years ago about whether the IRS could photogrpah the faces of envelopes and build a database of who was getting mail from certain addresses and postage meters (especially those belonging to Swiss banks). I forget who won that case…
However, a package cosntitutes goods, as opposed to a letter. That is something customs can examine, whether it’s mailed or carried. They have the right to “examine goods” being brought into the country. How deeply they can examine things - well, that’s their discretion.
The problem with all this is that border guards (even not at a border, apparently) have a massive amount of discretion. The usual reaction of the bureaucracy is not to admit a mistake and apologize if they go to far, but to circle the wagons, claim they did nothing wrong, and do what they can to shoot the messenger.
As noted in a previous thread, in many borders in the EU there are not even security stops now. However, a guy with high school education can decide whether or not to let a Canadian visit the USA solely based on whether they are having a bad day or the breakfast burito does not agree with him. Once that happens, from what I understand, it’s a major operation to be re-authorized.
They can ask questions that are illegal in any job interview, like “have you ever been arrested?” (Not “have you ever been convicted?”). The laws are written so that almost any encounter with the law is grounds to deny someone entry to the USA, although it seems a lot of questionable people with money and friends have no problem. A co-worker many yeas ago was denied entry to the US on a business trip because he made the mistake of being drunk and mouthy to the customs people - dumb, but not a crime. They used the excuse that a 55-yo was not allowed in because hed had a juvenile record and “he resembled a wanted fugitive”.
(To be fair, I cross the border into the USA several times a year, and have had very very few negative experiences, even driving a motorcycle with long hair and a beard. Things have only gotten annoying since 9/11 when paranoia and arrogance seem to have been allowed for some guards.)
I really question the sanity of anyone who would keep incriminating data on a computer in the age of jump drives and memory cards. Really people, keep your hooker database on a jump drive.
This policy is why my company only allows us to take “disposable” laptops when travelling internationally. They’re locked down, requiring different passwords to boot, to log on, to access the data drive. If an official wants to examine or seize the laptop, they can, but we can’t provide the access codes. I guess the idea is that by the time they can get through the encryption, the proprietary information won’t be useful anymore.
It’s not a question of incriminating data. I was once given a mild grilling by a TSA-equivalent in the UK because I had several books written in Welsh. Welsh is an indigenous language of the UK, pretty much the only place such books are published. It uses the same alphabet as English. “What is this, Russian?” asked the English guard. “What are you doing carrying so many Russian books?” He was nice and it wasn’t more than two minutes of inconvenience, but the combination of his ignorance and his power scared me.
If an Englishman can think Welsh is Russian, what happens when an American border guard starts going through my email and sees all this stuff he can’t read? Then he finds my perfectly valid and legal second passport; anecdotally, I have heard a lot of stories from dual citizens who are ordered to surrender their second passport by American border guards. In my experience, the guards at Blaine WA are pretty nice and have never given me any trouble, but— well, I’d just like to know what rights I do and do not have in case I encounter a bad scenario.
ETA: In all the stories, the dual citizen refuses to hand over the passport. Multiple stories from different people with the same punchline usually means not true, anyway.
One thing I gather from reading all this is that IDs are now required if you travel anywhere (even walk down 5th Ave. in NY). In that case, they should issue national IDs and be done with it.
-I actually grew up in the Canton-Potsdam area, so I can tell you that Canton is basically a “last stop” before heading over the border crossing, even if it is 20 miles from the border.
-The bus passengers were not being asked to show ID- they are being asked to identify themselves as US citizens or not. I don’t see in either of the stories you posted where people are explicitly being asked to show their IDs.
Another thing that’s not clear from the story: is this a bus bound for Canada and this is an established checkpoint that everyone must go through on the way to Canada, or did they just randomly select this bus that was only going to travel domestically in the US?
I would think that they just want you to prove that your laptop is indeed, a functional, regular computer and not a fake one that’s really a bomb or used to smuggle drugs, etc…thus wanting to see it turned on, booted, Windows running, etc. Maybe they play with your touchpad, load a few programs, etc.
But as far as checking for espionage materials, good luck with that. That takes a serious nerd to just sit there and sift through tons of porn, proggies, data files, etc…all of this before your flight leaves? Hard drives can easily be in the TB’s. Imagine how much data is on one.
And cloak & dagger files will be well hidden, not some file named "spystuff.txt
They wouldn’t bother searching. They can confiscate it if they are at all suspicious. Then it would go into a lockup somewhere until someone could look at it. Chances are they’d throw it away five years later without ever doing any more investigation. Unless it was an iPad. Somebody would bring that puppy home fairly quickly.
Ahh…I misread what the OP meant. He said “boot” and I thought it meant turning it on to prove that it was a real computer. But he meant “boot” as in locking it up like a car being booted.
That would suck, to lose a computer like that. Hmm, I would then make sure that I had 2 hard drives. When about to cross the border, I would take the main one out and put in an old one, that’s still operable…and just take my chances that my main HD won’t get confiscated neither. Having no HD in may draw further suspicion to both HDs. At least I won’t lose my data, just the laptop.
I wonder why anyone would try to smuggle data this way? It’s easier to just put it in a micro SD card that’s like 1/5th the size of a Chicklet gum. But transferring data using free wifi hotspots is probably the easiest (while wearing a disguise to avoid surveillance cameras).
Are you saying that a customs agent can order you to reveal a password, with a penalty if you refuse (and by penalty, I mean something beyond confiscating the computer)? Or are you saying that a judge can order you to provide a password?
The applicable recent case, IIRC, the border guards saw porn (child porn?) on the computer, then it was shut down. When asked to boot it up again and show them the (encrypted?) files, the owner refused. Hence the border guards had a very very strong reason to want the password, beyond a mere fishing expedition. IIRC the court ordered the fellow to provide the password - I imagine the alternative, like refusing to testify, would be contempt charges. Plus, he’d already (accidentally?) done it for them once, so it’s hard to argue he could choose not to.
IANALawyer, but as I understand it, police agents going through your computer constitutes a search. Eventually it might turn out that they do not have proable cause to search you, and if they find something incriminating they can’t use it against you in court.
But at the moment it’s happening, you can’t stop the search. For instance, if you’re OJ and you know if they search you they’re going to find the bloody knife, submitting to the search is not self-incrimination even if the police find incriminating evidence.
But your point about having to provide a password is valid, and I asked basically the same thing in a post above. I’m pretty sure a can order you to give it up, I’m not so sure a border guard can do so.