U.S. border agents have power to seize electronics

This is so wrong I don’t even know where to begin. I think the part that infuriates me the most is that they don’t even need to suspect you of any wrong doing to seize any of the devices in question. So if a border guard is having a bad day, so is anyone else trying to come in and out of the country with their new i-phone.

Not sure what I’m talking about, check this article out:

U.S. border agents given power to seize travellers’ laptops, cellphones

U.S. authorities now have the power to seize and detain travellers’ electronic devices, including laptops and cellphones, and make copies of their contents at an off-site location, under newly disclosed customs policies.

The policy gives border agents at any point of entry into the United States the authority to also take documents, books, pamphlets and hard drives. The items can be seized from anyone crossing the border and may then be copied and shared with other government agencies, according to Department of Homeland Security documents dated July 16.

“Officers may detain documents and electronic devices, or copies thereof, for a reasonable period of time to perform a thorough border search,” the policy says. “The search may take place on-site or at an off-site location.”

U.S. Senator Russ Feingold told the Washington Post he finds the new policies “alarming” and said he plans to introduce legislation that would make grounds for border searches more rigorous.

Greg Nojeim, senior counsel at the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Democracy and Technology, said the new policies allow authorities to conduct searches without suspicion of wrongdoing.

“They’re saying they can rifle through all the information in a traveller’s laptop without having a smidgen of evidence that the traveller is breaking the law,” he told the Post.

If the authorities find there is not probable cause to hold the seized items, copies must be destroyed, according to the policy. The policy does not outline a timeframe in which materials must be returned.

“These examinations are part of … long-standing practice and are essential to uncovering vital law-enforcement information,” the policy says, noting examinations help authorities detect possible instances of terrorism, narcotics smuggling, child pornography and violations of copyright and trademark laws.

Reprinted from CBC.ca

Now how scary is that?

This is a very concerning policy. Did anyone really think of the legal implications before even considering this?

– Consider a scientist with sensitive proprietary materials belonging to his/her employer having a laptop or documents siezed. Is Homeland Security now responsible for safeguarding these sensitive materials? If patents are involved are they going to accept liability if they are lost or stolen?

– How about a lawyer or doctor who has his/her case files. Does Homeland Security now have the authority to break the law of priviledge?

– If connections are missed due to their inspections, do they pay for the replacement flights?

– If devices or data is damaged or corrupted while detained, what is their liability? Will they pay for the repairs?

As usual, bad policy decisions by a bad department of the American government run by a sleezy secretary answering to the worst president in the country’s history.

Here’s the fun part, I have no doubt this is going to be heard by the Supremes. Just take your pick from the examples above, they are all grounds to challenge this outrageous violation of not only personal privacy, but corporate privacy. Do you honesty think any companies in North American are going to let the company laptop leave the building now that this policy is in place? If I was the CEO, I sure as hell wouldn’t… and would have them all confined to the building and home and that’s it. No border crossings to prevent sentive material from being stolen or lost.

As if Bush & Co. really needed to pass over the other side a good campaign issue on a silver platter. If I was Obama, I would opppose this measure, call for regulations (especially for guards to have grounds or suspecion of activity to search) and fight the policy to prevent people from losing their materials for no apparent reason either than for a snoopy government to spy on them by downloading all their information from their laptops and cell phones or MP3 players.

This not only hands the demcorats a good issue to stick to the GOP, since voters do care about their i-phones and don’t want to lose them for days (or weeks) on end… but this ammo can be used on my side of the border as well. There is already rumors of an election that might be called very soon (as soon as October here) and this issue will upset a lot of people and the NDP and Liberals could use it to fire people up and kick the PC’s out of office for not standing up for our rights at the border. Last time I checked we did have a free trade agreement with the US, and you’d think there’d be something in there that would protect the laptops of company men as they crossed the borders. I’m going to fire a letter to my member of parliment about this as well as to the leader of my party to inform them about what I think is a gross violation of our border policies, and our free trade agreement. I doubt they’re going to be too impressed about this, especially the part about no suspicion needed to take things away.

So what do you think, just being cautious or big time abuse of power and breach of privacy?

Peter