Nabila Mango, a therapist and a U.S. citizen who has lived in the country since 1965, had just flown in from Jordan last December when, she said, she was detained at customs and her cellphone was taken from her purse. Her daughter, waiting outside San Francisco International Airport, tried repeatedly to call her during the hour and a half she was questioned. But after her phone was returned, Mango saw that records of her daughter's calls had been erased.
A few months earlier in the same airport, a tech engineer returning from a business trip to London objected when a federal agent asked him to type his password into his laptop computer. "This laptop doesn't belong to me," he remembers protesting. "It belongs to my company." Eventually, he agreed to log on and stood by as the officer copied the Web sites he had visited, said the engineer, a U.S. citizen who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of calling attention to himself.
Here's a thought: Tell these border agents "No". If they protest, tell them about the right to be free from "Unlawful search and seizure". Hand them a copy of the Constitution. Paranoid? Get yourself a copy of Truecrypt. It now supports whole disk encryption. It's free and open source. I've used previous versions and it's AWESOME! Then tell them that they will be violating the Fourth Amendment as well as the Fifth Amendment (you don't want them to know that you're carrying around your mp3 collection do you?)
You are NOT required to give up your encryption key. A recent court case upheld that you cannot be required to give up your encryption key.
You have the right to privacy, and if someone is trying to STEAL your laptop or get the information off of it, they are violating your Constitution rights. Sue them into oblivion for it.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Jerome Niedermeier ruled that a man charged with transporting child pornography on his laptop across the Canadian border has a Fifth Amendment right not to turn over the passphrase to prosecutors. The Fifth Amendment protects the right to avoid self-incrimination.
I think I don't need to tell you that I think child pornographers are the lowest form of life on this planet, but they have Constitutional rights just like you and me. If he's not required to give up his encryption key, you aren't either.
Now, they may confiscate your computer, to which you sue them as well for that. If you aren't suspected of a crime, that's theft. Stand up for your rights as an American citizen.
Travis
No comments:
Post a Comment