Uh-huh. Come back and tell me about it after you’ve been asked to take your clothes off in front of a complete stranger. What a foolish statement.
Apparently my whooshing chip is malfunctioning.
Heh, sounds more like our’s were.
My reactions to these stories tend to be muted. Although I consider myself a strong privacy advocate, and am always ready to argue vehemently against such things as workplace rules that dictate off-the-clock behavior, I tend to say meh about things like surveillance cameras in public places, red light cameras, and that sort of thing. When I’m out in public I agree to certain conditions, like that I will obey the law. Surveillance of this kind can help to protect the law abiding, and I don’t have a problem with it, as long as the recorded data from the cameras is not provided to someone else so they can invade your privacy.
But this story of the OPs is really disturbing.
Yeah, we’re still better than China and North Korea, but I thought we weren’t supposed to be in the same league with them!
Yup… red light cameras, general security cameras, fine. Taking my laptop/camera/phone away for a few weeks without any probable cause for God knows what, not fine.
You might get a laugh (or others will laugh and you’ll just sigh, possibly) out of this.
I call bullshit on any sheep who doesn’t see this as a LONG slide down the slippery slope, and instead say “oh, it’s ok… they’re doing it to protect us from terrorists.”
Moving thread from IMHO to The BBQ Pit.
Insane quote from article:
Have these guys ever heard of the internet? If I wanted to get any dangerous contraband data into the US, I’d be ftp’ing an encrypted data file from some anonymous server. Not carrying it around on a laptop. This kind of surveillance doesn’t do crap except give the Feds a chance to paw through everybody’s closet without a warrant.
Look, the DHS is a mess. Two parties in the Congress and White House cooperated to make the hugest mess in history, and it desn’t do anything useful. Sorry. I’d stop it if I could.
. . . Well, that pretty much seals that. Next time our company’s going to the states, our files will be forwarded to an online backup before we go and wiped locally. There’s no way we’re going to expose our information to that level of beliggerent, haphazard, opaque and questionably motivated scrutiny - by morons, no less.
sigh
Maybe it’s time to start having meetings in Oslo again. (Hey, we do have an Hotel Cecil :))
Screenwriter here. I write for crime procedurals, where most of my writing is highly specialized (I do a lot of consulting) and involves the details of how to kill people and blow shit up for a living. My laptop contains a shitload of information on how to blow stuff up, on the arms trade, on terrorist activity, on Afghanistan, Iraq, the US Army, Marine Corps and the Navy. Oh, and for some reason, the Albanian mob. But that’s a long, funny story for another time. It also contains piles of scripts that aren’t allowed to leak anywhere.
I live in the US. I’m not a US Citizen.
I’m not sure I want to travel with my laptop o’er the border when I go to Canada anymore…
(Thinking about Harold and Kumar… I really don’t WANT to eat cock sandwich…)
I like this one:
Really? Really? If taking every single scrap of digital and analog (i.e. anything printed on paper, recorded on VHS, photos, microfiche, whatever) information a person is carrying, and doing so without any cause at all, doesn’t infringe on people’s privacy, then what does?
Stories like these and the domestic spying is how I know we already lost the “War on Terror” and can only hope to return from this defeat.
We have sold our soul when it comes to rights and freedom. He have put on the black hat when it comes to issues of torture. We are going through a very dark period and we need to come out of it.
On the other hand, the US has had other dark periods and did recover from them, so I hold out hope as I always do that our freedoms will be regained. It seems like we run in cycles in this country and this is a dark one.
Plus, the USA demanded that airlines provide all sort of personal data about passengers, and of course the EU and the European governments caved in and allowed the airlines to disclose said informations.
This explains Hal Briston’s interest in this thread.
Sailboat
Another shameful step in the abrogation of individual rights on the altar of the perception of safety.
Time to rattle my US reps again about how wrong I think all this shit is. Not that Hillary, nor Chuck, ever listen.
Ah. Chuck “Michael Mukasey will make a FINE Attorney General” Shumer. I’m sorry.
It was affirmed in the 9th circuit under US v Arnold [PDF]. I think the argument is that at border crossings (counting airports as a border) particularized suspicion isn’t required for search and seizure, regardless of citizenship.
Ah, terrorism and pedophilia, contemporary America’s two favorite manias to curtail civil liberties. I mean, if you’re against customs keeping your laptop, then you *must *be for pedophiles and terrorism, right? Why do you hate children and America?
Well, George Orwell sorta did, kinda. The totalitarian state of Oceania in the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four was the product of American expansion. The Soviet equivalent resulted in the rival state of Eurasia.
As a even more minor additional note, Part I, Chapter 6 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms covers “Mobility Rights”, with paragraph (1) being “Every citizen of Canada has the right to enter, remain in and leave Canada.” It’s not directly relevant (our customs agents can be mini-Hitler jerks, too, and border law can get Kafka-esque without warning), but I find the paragraph a bit comforting.
Even minorer, I’d strongly consider making internet backups for the simple reason than when travelling, there’s always a chance your laptop could get stolen as well as grabbed by ham-fisted and slug-brained customs agents.