The Washington Post reports: Federal agents may take a traveler’s laptop or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed.
Also, officials may share copies of the laptop’s contents with other agencies and private entities for language translation, data decryption, or other reasons, according to the policies, dated July 16 and issued by two DHS agencies, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The DHS claims it’s protecting against terrorist, drug smugglers, people sneaking kiddie porn into the country, and people violating copyright and trademark laws. Questions: Is this behavior by bad guys common? Common enough to warrant the expenditure of work, tax dollars, and infringement on people’s privacy that these measures call for? And how are the border guards going to recognize trademark and copyright infringement when they see it? How are they going to distinguish a stash of legally ripped MP3s from pirated music? What kind of training do the border guards get in intellectual property law?
In the name of protecting America, the TSA has demonstrated a lack of respect for the privacy, property, and dignity of Americans, with recent behavior including taking out nipple rings, pantsing amputees, and confiscating a homemade battery that looked like a bomb – then bragging about it. The DHS simply cannot be trusted with the authority to confiscate electronics anywhere, at any time, for any reason, at any border crossing in America.
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