Quote:
Originally Posted by DianNC
There's case law that covers this. If you look up the exceptions to the 4th Amendment you can check it out. As I recall, a man near the Canadian border had his laptop seized and, according to him, he was 'forced' to reveal his password.
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What if this is a work laptop?
Quote:
Originally Posted by DianNC
I'm going to guess that our intelligence community has figured all this out. Guess it depends on their suspicions and what they're looking for, but I'm pretty sure they can keep whatever devices they seize for as long as they want.
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You didn't get my point. It is easy to put files on an SD card, which is very small, and easy to hide in something as big as a car. Would they search for SD cards?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lutraa
Despite this thread's title, DHS's own Office of Civil Rights is not a "watchdog" in any conventional meaning of the term. Its relationship to the Dept. of Homeland Security is akin to the Inquisition's relationship to the Holy See. Thus its policy, which that it's OK for CBP to seize any electronic gadget being carried into the US by any traveller, citizen or not, and keep it for an indeterminate "reasonable" amount of time, should not be assumed to be the final word on the 4th Amendment.
For your reading pleasure, here is a guide for travelers entering the US who are interested in retaining electronic privacy: https://www.eff.org/sites/default/fi...r-search_2.pdf Note that the border guards cannot force you to divulge device passwords. A court could order you to provide the passwords, assuming you weren't successful in arguing your 5th Amendment self-incrimination right, but the penalty for refusing this order would be prison, not the rack (at least in theory, we haven't yet stooped to waterboarding civilian citizens).
[Note my alternating use of traveler/traveller -- I was educated in the US, Australia and Canada and spell as my mood suits me.] |
The guide is dated December 2011.