Your rights when crossing the US border: None

Why?
I stated twice that I think the policy is fucked up. But Juan isn’t American (like me, which perhaps explains the very funny loose/lose thing), so he can’t do much about your paranoid but ultimately useless and delusional security measures.

But he can let the fear of losing his laptop - which by the accounts in this thread haven’t happened to anybody yet - make the allready unpleasant business of long haul flight even less pleasant.

If you leave your laptop at home then the terror… Homeland Security have allready won!

So while Juan plays the odds and visits my nice free country with his laptop, then you guys can go about electing sane people to office and get ridiculous stuff like that changed. Remember, it’s also your fault, that I can’t bring a bottle of water aboard even a local flight

We posted at the same time.
It was more than two anecdotes and my anecdotes is just as good data as your guess and trying to remember something you might have heard somewhere.
Dig up some real numbers please.

If the risk of actually losing his laptop is >5% I wouldn’t bring one either. But if that number is pulled from someones ass or just the risk of a short period before he has the laptop back, then I’d still play the odds.

I have a lot of friends working for large multinationals and we all travel to the US as part of business - if 5% of laptops were lost upon entering the US, then I’m quite sure that these companies would have some sort of policy in place since it could mean the loss of important data or somebody being unable to do the work they were sent abroad to do, which could cost millions to some of the companies in question.

I’m not defending the stupid seizures, just questioning the numbers.

Yes, but are your friends suspicious-looking, or are they Caucasian?

We’re all tall blondes here obviously.

It doesn’t have to make sense. In a similar vein the US government still treats “strong encryption” as a “munition” subject to export control (despite the 9th circuit ruling to the contrary) – even though this has zero effect.

I’m not sure how thumb drives are affected by this. Ostensibly, they’re subject to this to, but seem unlikely to be found (or do they set off metal detectors?) Of course, if you deny having one, and then they find one…

I haven’t seen discussion of the effect of checked luggage. I’d guess you’re probably more likely to have it seized then, as sending a laptop in the cargo hold is pretty unusual. Maybe it works like a loophole, but I’d be surprised.

Why is that, exactly?

No, this is happening to people, which is how the practice was discovered. It is not, as you suggest, false fear.

When did you last travel to the US, anyway?

I was considering this, and it seems to be like it’s a relative situation. If you check your laptop in your bags, then it’ll go through security screening unescorted when you go to board a flight. Otherwise, you’ll have to pull it out at the TSA checkpoint, where you ‘looking suspicious’ might have an effect.

When arriving to the U.S., you’re dealing with another system. The guy who checks your passport labels you for a search or not, and that includes your checked and carry-on bags. Everything gets X-ray’d, some of it might get hand-searched. So, the net effect of checking your laptop when arriving to the U.S. is nil. Rather, it’s whether you get marked for an inspection or not that puts you at risk.

If you don’t quite understand the recent Dominican immigrant checking your passport, he -will- label you for further inspection. If you have a beard, you -will- be searched. If you have an odd name, you -will- be searched. If they mistake you for someone else, ask you to confirm the other person’s itinerary and deny being said person, you -will- be searched.

Whether that leads to having your laptop seized, well, that’s another matter entirely.

The water thing came out of the UK originally.

The “relax and enjoy it” attitude is one of the most dangerous of all. You may have to bring your laptop across the border, but the idea that “there’s nothing you can do about it so don’t worry about it” is exactly what this program is about. There is no accountability or recourse for the actions being taken by the government here, and that’s straight out of the 1984 playbook.

It’s a terrifying development, and I think it’s well worth worrying about.

IMHO we’ve been getting this shit because the government encourages it from the top-down; Bush hasn’t seen a civil liberty he wants to keep since 2001. When the culture of your government thinks it’s fine and dandy to do whatever you want because there’s some theory that doing X will have some miniscule chance of stopping terrorists, then that’s what you get. If you get to stomp around like petty-ante dictators of your little area, all the better! Never mind that it’s a ludicrous waste of resources that could be better spent elsewhere.

I’d be really, really surprised if Obama is going to approve of arbitrary government search and seizure like this, by contrast.

Perhaps; depends on when you last traveled to the US. Have you been within the last year?

If the risk of actually losing his laptop is >5% I wouldn’t bring one either. But if that number is pulled from someones ass or just the risk of a short period before he has the laptop back, then I’d still play the odds.

Hmmm. So, basically, you’re not sure. If you were flying, would you so blithely assume nothing is going on?

I have a lot of friends working for large multinationals and we all travel to the US as part of business - if 5% of laptops were lost upon entering the US, then I’m quite sure that these companies would have some sort of policy in place since it could mean the loss of important data or somebody being unable to do the work they were sent abroad to do, which could cost millions to some of the companies in question.

Except that the pattern of this abuse has only emerged in the last month or so, and we already do have companies having policies to deal with – go reread Karen’s post upthread.

I’m not defending the stupid seizures, just questioning the numbers.

Fair enough; I’m not particularly concerned about convincing you of their accuracy though. I’ve already seen enough to convince myself, and I bet anyone who actually cares will do their own research, anyway.

Moreover, the nature of such secret information is that there won’t be hard numbers to “prove” anything; such Hard-Facts-Only skepticism is great for science, but breaks down when it comes to the secret details of police state policies.

Exactly! Nicely put Andrew.

Incidentally, the no water policy, while annoying, doesn’t bother me. They’re worried about liquids that might be used to make bombs, you’ve got water waiting for you on the plane, and having your water bottle emptied out before you board is of small consequence.

That’s an example of a simple policy that probably does provide security, and at minimal inconvenience.

As much as I dislike this policy and it’s implications, per the original article the policy (or, at least, it’s fundamental aspects) has already been examined and upheld by the Court of Appeals.

Security theater works best against conceptual threats.

The original group arrested had an idea, but no real plan, and even in the most ardently supportive screeds there’s really nothing more here than “maybe they could have actually done it!”

I’m not saying it’s impossible, but it doesn’t seem to be simple, and the response doesn’t seem to be based on much actual information.

I really want to believe stuff like this will change if Obama is elected, but I doubt it. We may not get as many new asinine policies put in place but the old ones will probably not be taken away. My dream of course would be for Obama to get elected and dismantle DHS, but I can’t see that happening.

Unfortunately, I think you’re going to be disappointed on this issue if Obama wins the presidency. He’s made border security a lynchpin of his immigration policy (partnering with Kennedy, McCain, et al in the Senate last year), and I doubt he’d risk trashing his efforts at immigration reform by providing an opening for the GOP to attack him by weakening (in appearance) customs.

Let’s also not forget that the destruction of the Fourth Amendment, while certainly launched in its modern form by Nixon’s declaration of war against drugs, was actually accelerated under President Clinton. Democrats, for all their talk, don’t have much of a track record to stand on when it comes to individual rights over the past thirty years or so, and certainly have made little if any effort to roll back programs enacted by the opposition.

Except that’s not what I’m advocating.
People should be up in arms. The press should uncover these facts and people should act on it - but not bringing your laptop with you on a trip is not acting. That’s reacting.

How will not bringing your laptop send any kind of message to those in charge of this stupid policy?
And exactly what change to US policy does a non-US citizen not bringing his laptop on a holiday in Copenhagen bring about? That was the post I reacted to.

But it’s probably a bigger problem. As Andrew said it’s security theater build to protect us against a purely hypothetical and extremely unlikely threat. And that pretend protection comes at a price. It’s costly in manpower and delays, it’s taking personel away from protecting us against real threats (or more interesting pretend threats… like Yetis) and it’s costly to individual travellers as well as another added annoyance. And this actually targets every traveller not just some unknown percentage of travellers travelling with a laptop.

And while hard numbers might be hard to come by, I’m sure large companies with many people travelling would notice if 5% of their laptops went missing and we would have heard about it earlier.

Originally Posted by bago View Post
Makes cloud storage kind of relevant, no?

To begin with I was replying to this. I was saying back it up on the internet, and he says, no, you can back it up on the internet. Uhm…

Secondly, my point was also, encrypt the data on your machine, get it confiscated and possibly never see it again. Encrypt the data on a server and at least your machine will make it through (well, more likely).

By advocating stupid, non-productive anti-terrorism activities that don’t work? There’s no election mileage in this thing at all.

Let’s also not forget that the destruction of the Fourth Amendment, while certainly launched in its modern form by Nixon’s declaration of war against drugs, was actually accelerated under President Clinton. Democrats, for all their talk, don’t have much of a track record to stand on when it comes to individual rights over the past thirty years or so, and certainly have made little if any effort to roll back programs enacted by the opposition.

On drugs everyone sucks, yes, but not everything is drugs. You didn’t see Democrats pushing to torture everyone, to pick a certain example.