Last month a US court ruled that border agents can search your laptop, or any other electronic device, when you’re entering the country. They can take your computer and download its entire contents, or keep it for several days. Customs and Border Patrol has not published any rules regarding this practice, and I and others have written a letter to Congress urging it to investigate and regulate this practice.
Federal agents may take a traveler’s laptop computer 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.
Basically, they can take any electronic or other device capable of storing data for as long as they want, for no reason at all. Yes, I said “other device”. From the Washington Post article cited above:
The policies cover “any device capable of storing information in digital or analog form,” including hard drives, flash drives, cellphones, iPods, pagers, beepers, and video and audio tapes. They also cover “all papers and other written documentation,” including books, pamphlets and “written materials commonly referred to as ‘pocket trash’ or ‘pocket litter.’ “
Think about that for just a moment. They have to right to take anything of yours which could contain data, and keep it for as long as they think they need it. Furthermore, they can share it with others as they see fit. Will the data be secure? Will it be destroyed if not needed? Will your laptop (etc) be returned to you unmolested and intact, or will it have some spyware installed to record your keystrokes? (This last item plays a pivotal plot point in Communion of Dreams, so I tend to think of such things).
What to do?
Accept that the authorities will do this, and not worry about it? Don’t cross the boarder? Try and hide your data? Simply don’t take any such devices with you?
We’re going to Patagonia in about 10 weeks. My wife has been considering taking her laptop, since she is part of the organizing team for the tour we’ll be on. I told her that I don’t recommend it. But it’s her call. At the very least, I hope that she – and anyone else who has to do this – will take the time to consider Schneier’s advice on how to do so safely. Here’s a bit:
So your best defence is to clean up your laptop. A customs agent can’t read what you don’t have. You don’t need five years’ worth of email and client data. You don’t need your old love letters and those photos (you know the ones I’m talking about). Delete everything you don’t absolutely need. And use a secure file erasure program to do it. While you’re at it, delete your browser’s cookies, cache and browsing history. It’s nobody’s business what websites you’ve visited. And turn your computer off – don’t just put it to sleep – before you go through customs; that deletes other things. Think of all this as the last thing to do before you stow your electronic devices for landing. Some companies now give their employees forensically clean laptops for travel, and have them download any sensitive data over a virtual private network once they’ve entered the country. They send any work back the same way, and delete everything again before crossing the border to go home. This is a good idea if you can do it.
If you can’t, consider putting your sensitive data on a USB drive or even a camera memory card: even 16GB cards are reasonably priced these days. Encrypt it, of course, because it’s easy to lose something that small. Slip it in your pocket, and it’s likely to remain unnoticed even if the customs agent pokes through your laptop. If someone does discover it, you can try saying: “I don’t know what’s on there. My boss told me to give it to the head of the New York office.” If you’ve chosen a strong encryption password, you won’t care if he confiscates it.
There’s also advice (and links) in that essay on how to partition your hard drive to include hidden material, how to encrypt your data safely, and so forth. Use according to how valuable your data is. But keep in mind that showing up at the boarder (or Customs) with such encryption evident is a sure way to attract attention and make your day more difficult. Not fun.
What I find astonishing, and extremely insightful, is this quote from that WaPo piece:
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff wrote in an opinion piece published last month in USA Today that “the most dangerous contraband is often contained in laptop computers or other electronic devices.” Searches have uncovered “violent jihadist materials” as well as images of child pornography, he wrote.
With about 400 million travelers entering the country each year, “as a practical matter, travelers only go to secondary [for a more thorough examination] when there is some level of suspicion,” Chertoff wrote. “Yet legislation locking in a particular standard for searches would have a dangerous, chilling effect as officers’ often split-second assessments are second-guessed.”
A “chilling effect”, Mr. Chertoff? Funny, that term is more commonly used and understood in how government can infringe on the civil rights of law-abiding Americans. To make the claim that the government’s agents are the ones suffering such an infringement in their duties is to turn the entire notion of governmental authority coming *from* the people on its head, and says rather that those public employees are something more akin to our rulers than servants.
But I suppose that this is hardly surprising in this day and age.
Small problem – the ‘he’ was a 16 year old kid who had fallen from a highway overpass and had broken his back. So, naturally, since he didn’t respond to the authoritah of the cops on the scene, the cops had to Taser him. 19 times.
See, kids, never make the mistake of not instantly jumping up to comply with instructions given by a cop. Just because you’re severely injured is no excuse.
And of course, the multiple “rides” on the Taser didn’t help his injuries. I’m sure there was the usual spasmodic response that happens when about 50,000 volts of juice hit you. And it also delayed surgery to correct the damage of the initial fall:
His dad says the use of the stun gun delayed what would have been immediate surgery by two days.
“The ‘Tasering’ increased his white blood cell count and caused him to have a temperature so they could not go into the operation.”
I smell lawsuit.
But that’s not the only such incident from down this way. Just last week we had a very similar thing happen in my hometown:
A man injured in a Taser-related fall from the Providence Road pedestrian bridge over Interstate 70 remained in critical condition last night at University Hospital as Columbia police sought to defend their use of force in the incident that began with a man threatening to jump from the overpass.
Phillip McDuffy, 45, suffered two broken arms, a fractured skull and possibly a broken jaw in the fall, Columbia police Capt. Zim Schwartze said yesterday. Police estimate McDuffy fell about 15 feet onto a concrete embankment beside I-70, landing on his right side after the 1½-hour standoff.
Yeah, they didn’t want him to hurt himself, so they Tased him. Gee, too bad that he fell and broke all those bones. Who would have expected *that* to happen?
The police use of Tasers is just simply out of control in this country. Seriously. My dad was a cop, and a lot of my family’s friends growing up were cops. They’ve got a tough job. I know that the use of Tasers have protected the lives of officers. But this is insane. It is no longer just the odd asshole who happens to make the Greatest Hits of Police Abuse on YouTube. It has now become commonplace for the police to grab their Taser anytime someone doesn’t immediately do what they’re told. Time to get rid of the things, nationwide.
“A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves.”
– Bertrand de Jouvenal –
I’ve frequently talked about guns, and several times explicitly mentioned that my basically liberal/libertarian political philosophy is completely comfortable with understanding the 2nd Amendment of the US Constitution as being an individual right. Part of this is in realizing that the world is a dangerous place and that you have to make reasonable preparations to take care of yourself. And part of it is understanding that one check on the abuse of governmental power is a population which is armed and prepared to defend its civil liberties.
No, I have no illusions that I, with a few pistols and shotguns (or my flintlock), am any kind of a challenge to a modern police force, let alone an actual army. And that is the way it should be – no individual should be outside the law. But collectively, a populace armed with tens of millions of such weapons presents a real check on tyranny. The calculus of trying to use military-level force against the population of the US would have to take this into account; either overwhelming mass destruction (and I’m not saying it would have to include WMDs) would have to be employed, or such a military force would have to be willing to suffer significant casualties. This is a substantial disincentive to anyone who might be willing to attempt such a thing.
Not that I can’t imagine possible scenarios where this may come to pass. In fact, one such is part of the ‘history’ of Communion of Dreams, following the initial Fire Flu of the backstory. I may get around to writing some of that one of these days, though there is already a fair amount of literature with that setting available.
Anyway, this rumination was prompted by my friend’s quote, and on a nice post that I came across on MeFi that linked to a cool animation of assembling an M1911 .45:
If you would like to see an even better animation of how a 1911 functions, which allows you to hide or show various components as it operates, then go check out this site. I had shot a fairly standard 1911 a good deal when I was young, but was never particularly enamored of that style of gun, preferring more ‘modern’ semi-auto pistols. Until I was gifted with a very nice one from a friend’s collection early this year – a modification on the standard design which provides for the additional safety of a double-action trigger. It is perhaps the sweetest-shooting pistol I have, even while being one of the most powerful ones. There is a lot to be said for the venerable design of the 1911, a gun said to be designed by a genius for use by morons, with ballistic performance suitable for service in four wars . Works for me.
Well, as I’ve said before, I know a lot of people don’t want a gun in their home. Fine, don’t have one. But if you are going to have one, learn to use it and store it safely. And if you’re going to have one, you certainly could do a lot worse than have a 1911 model .45 of some variation.
WASHINGTON — NASA and Internet Archive, a non-profit digital library based in San Francisco, made available the most comprehensive compilation ever of NASA’s vast collection of photographs, historic film and video Thursday. Located at www.nasaimages.org, the Internet site combines for the first time 21 major NASA imagery collections into a single, searchable online resource. A link to the Web site will appear on the www.nasa.gov home page.
The Web site launch is the first step in a five-year partnership that will add millions of images and thousands of hours of video and audio content, with enhanced search and viewing capabilities, and new user features on a continuing basis. Over time, integration of www.nasaimages.org with www.nasa.gov will become more seamless and comprehensive.
“This partnership with Internet Archive enables NASA to provide the American public with access to its vast collection of imagery from one searchable source, unlocking a new treasure trove of discoveries for students, historians, enthusiasts and researchers,” said NASA Deputy Administrator Shana Dale. “This new resource also will enable the agency to digitize and preserve historical content now not available on the Internet for future generations.”
How many images are we talking about? Over 100,000 at present. Completely searchable. The homepage is broken down into several categories (Universe, Solar System, Earth, Astronauts) and contains an interactive timeline of the space program going back 50 years. Each search generates a page of thumbnail images – Titan calls up almost 1,500 – leading to photos, animations, audio files, and artist’s renderings.
Wow. Just wow.
Damn, and I have work I need to get done this afternoon . . .
A senior government official with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has expressed great interest in a so-called safety bracelet that would serve as a stun device, similar to that of a police Taser®. According to this promotional video found at the Lamperd Less Lethal, Inc. website, the bracelet would be worn by all airline passengers (video also shown below).
This bracelet would:
• Take the place of an airline boarding pass
• Contain personal information about the traveler
• Be able to monitor the whereabouts of each passenger and his/her luggage
• Shock the wearer on command, completely immobilizing him/her for several minutes
The Electronic ID Bracelet, as it’s referred to, would be worn by every traveler “until they disembark the flight at their destination.” Yes, you read that correctly. Every airline passenger would be tracked by a government-funded GPS, containing personal, private and confidential information, and would shock the customer worse than an electronic dog collar if the passenger got out of line.
“Just when you thought you’ve heard it all… ” indeed.
Now, I’m not a big fan of the Washington Times, so I checked the website mentioned in the article. Where I found this statement:
The bracelets remain inactive until a hijacking situation has been identified. At such time a designated crew member will activate the bracelets making them capable of delivering the punitive measure – but only to those that need to be restrained. We believe that all passengers will welcome deliverance from a hijacking, as will the families, carriers, insurance providers etc. The F-16 on the wingtip is not to reassure the passengers during a hijacking but rather to shoot them down. Besides activation using the grid screen, the steward / stewardess will have a laser activator that can activate any bracelet as needed by simply pointing the laser at the bracelet – that laser dot only needs to be within 10 inches of the bracelet to activate it.
Got that? “This is for your own good”.
Never mind that there are dozens of potential problems I can see how this technology could be abused, inadvertently misused, or accidentally triggered. Never mind that Tasers use a similar type of electro-muscular disruption technology and have been suspect in the deaths of perhaps hundreds. Never mind that it is likely that someone wanting to hijack a jet would figure out a way to disable such a bracelet (it’s activated by a laser pointer? Just wrap something around the bracelet when you move to act.) Consider solely what this does to you: makes you someone else’s pet or slaughter animal.
Airline travel is grim and degrading enough as it is, and most of the airlines are struggling to avoid bankruptcy. If they decide to go forward and implement the use of this kind of technology, a significant percentage of travelers will give up on flying altogether (it’s actually a shame that likely a majority would probably play along, thanks to the conditioning we’ve already received).
I know I sure as hell would give up flying under those conditions.
WASHINGTON – The Senate approved and sent to the White House a bill overhauling controversial rules on secret government eavesdropping Wednesday, bowing to President Bush’s demand to protect telecommunications companies from lawsuits complaining they helped the U.S. spy on Americans.
The relatively one-sided vote, 69-28, came only after a lengthy and bitter debate that pitted privacy and civil liberties concerns against the desire to prevent terrorist attacks. It ended almost a year of wrangling over surveillance rules and the president’s warrantless wiretapping program that was initiated after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The House passed the same bill last month, and President Bush is expected to sign it soon. He scheduled a 4 p.m. EDT White House statement to praise the passage.
(I was busy with the Heinlein Centennial last year for the Fourth, and didn’t post anything. I thought this year I would post something I wrote two years ago, and I hope you enjoy it.
One birthday, when I was nine or ten, I woke with anticipation of the presents I would receive. Still in my pajamas I rushed into the kitchen where my parents were having coffee, expecting to get the loot which was rightfully mine. My father happily handed over a small, wrapped box. I opened it eagerly, to find a little American flag on a wooden stick. My father said that since my birthday was July 4th, he thought I would appreciate the gift.
Horror-struck first at not getting anything better, then a moment later at my own greed, I guiltily told my parents that I thought it was a fine gift.
After a moment, of course, my folks brought out my real presents, and there was a fair amount of good-natured teasing and laughing about the little trick they had played on me.
That was almost 40 years ago, and I can no longer tell you what presents I received that day. But the lesson in expectations and perspective my dad taught me that morning always remained with me. My dad had been a Marine, fought in Korea, and was a deeply patriotic cop who was killed while on duty a couple of years after that birthday. I have no idea what happened to that little flag on a stick, but I do still have the flag taken from my father’s coffin, carefully and perfectly folded at the graveside when we buried him.
I’ve never looked at the American flag without remembering what a fine gift it really is and, as so many others have written, what it represents in terms of sacrifice. I love my country, as any Firecracker Baby is probably destined to do. You just can’t ignore all that early training of patriotism, fireworks, and presents all tied up together.
But that doesn’t mean that I am blinded by patriotism. As I’ve matured and gained life experience, I’ve learned many other lessons. Lessons about tempering expectations, living with occasional disappointment, accepting that things don’t always work out the way you plan no matter how hard you work, how good your intentions, or how deserving you are. Still, you learn, grow, and do the best you can. This, it seems, is also the story of America. I believe we are an exceptional people, holding great potential, with our best years still to come. But nothing is guaranteed. We must honestly, and sometimes painfully, confront our failures, learn from them, and move on. The original founders of our country were brilliant, but flawed as all humans are flawed. Some of their errors led directly to the Civil War, that great bloody second revolution of the human spirit. That they made mistakes does not negate their greatness; rather, it shows us our potential even though we are not perfect. They knew, as we should know, that only we are responsible for our self-determination. Not a king, not a God, not a ruling political class. Us.
Today we’ve been gifted with a small box with a flag inside. A token of our history. Let us not take it for granted. Let us not think that the thing itself is more important than what it represents. Let us look on it and declare our own responsibility, our own self-determination.
Here in the Midwest there is a real and significant problem with meth – to the point of paranoia on the part of both the population and government. This has led to laws restricting access to certain precursor drugs and chemicals, reports of environmental damage (meth labs tend to produce some really nasty chemical contamination), and the development of special task forces of local, state and federal police agencies to target meth production and distribution. It is the War on (Some) Drugs on steroids.
So it is fairly easy to see how something like this can happen:
GERALD, Mo. — Like so many rural communities in the country’s middle, this tiny town had wrestled for years with the woes of methamphetamine. Then, several months ago, a federal agent showed up.
Busts began. Houses were ransacked. People, in handcuffs on their front lawns, named names. To some, like Mayor Otis Schulte, who considers the county around Gerald, population 1,171, “a meth capital of the United States,” the drug scourge seemed to be fading at last.
* * *
But after a reporter for the local weekly newspaper made a few calls about that claim, Gerald’s anti-drug campaign abruptly unraveled after less than five months. Sergeant Bill, it turned out, was no federal agent, but Bill A. Jakob, an unemployed former trucking company owner, a former security guard, a former wedding-performing minister, a former small-town cop from 23 miles down the road.
Ah, yes, that is a bit of a problem.
Read the whole piece, and you’ll likely be astonished that this guy was able to pull off this con job for so long. He had no documentation. He claimed that he didn’t need a warrant to enter people’s homes and businesses. He got by on cop-like swagger, a black T-shirt that said “POLICE”, a cop-wannabe car, and a short haircut.
Oh, and on the fact that the local police and government wanted him to succeed for their own purposes.
See, this is the thing. Pesky things like due process and respecting the civil rights of people slows down drug investigations. Or terror investigations. This can frustrate cops at about every level, who see a problem and honestly want to fix it. Along comes someone who says that he has the solution, and it is easy to believe him.
This is what the Wars on Drugs and Terror have brought: a willingness to trust authority at the cost of civil liberties. A willingness to cut corners to ‘meet the threat’. A perception that we’re in a crisis, and only by extraordinary means can we survive.
It starts by recognizing a problem. Then, because identifying and targeting a problem brings with it increased budget and power for the agency/department tasked with dealing with the problem, there is a tendency to inflate the problem, convince the public that the problem is growing, or deeper than initially thought. Things spiral, slowly at first, then with increasing speed. Unchecked, this positive-feedback loop takes on a life of its own, until it culminates in stupidity and horror.
Think that I am over simplying? Here’s what Bill Jakob’s attorney, one Joel Schwartz, said about how his client got into this mess:
“It was an innocent evolution, where he helped with one minor thing, then one more on top of that, and all of the sudden, everyone thought he was a federal agent,” Mr. Schwartz said. “I’m not saying this was legal or lawful. But look, they were very, very effective while he was present. I don’t think Gerald is having the drug problem they were having. I’ve heard from some residents who were thrilled that he was there.”
That right there explains why and how these things happen. The way to stop them is well known: legal protection and due process. Those mechanisms were developed slowly over the centuries, with notable culminations in Magna Carta, our own Constitution, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We ignore those protections at our peril.
Have you ever been a tourist, and taken pictures of your trip? Have an interest in architecture or large engineering projects? Perhaps like to draw or paint plein air? Or maybe you’re a writer wanting to make notes about a particular location you want to use in a book or story?
Hundreds of police, firefighters, paramedics and even utility workers have been trained and recently dispatched as “Terrorism Liaison Officers” in Colorado and a handful of other states to hunt for “suspicious activity” — and are reporting their findings into secret government databases.
It’s a tactic intended to feed better data into terrorism early-warning systems and uncover intelligence that could help fight anti-U.S. forces. But the vague nature of the TLOs’ mission, and their focus on reporting both legal and illegal activity, has generated objections from privacy advocates and civil libertarians.
* * *
Here are examples of specific behaviors that terrorism liaison officers deployed in Colorado and a handful of other states are told to watch for and report.
• Engages in suspected pre-operational surveillance (uses binoculars or cameras, takes measurements, draws diagrams, etc.)
• Appears to engage in counter-surveillance efforts (doubles back, changes appearance, drives evasively, etc.)
• Engages security personnel in questions focusing on sensitive subjects (security information, hours of operation, shift changes, what security cameras film, etc.)
• Takes pictures or video footage (with no apparent aesthetic value, for example, camera angles, security equipment, security personnel, traffic lights, building entrances, etc.)
• Draws diagrams or takes notes (building plans, location of security cameras or security personnel, security shift changes, notes of weak security points, etc.)
Depending on how someone wanted to perceive it, either my wife or I have done every single thing on that list on our vacations in this country and abroad. Yeah, even the ‘counter-surveillance efforts’ – in trying to find a given location in unfamiliar territory, we’ve often taken wrong turns or had to double back to a missed road. I’ll talk to watchmen or cops, because they usually know the most about a particular location. My wife is an architect, so is interested in structures. I like big engineering projects. We use binoculars. I’ll often make notes about places I think might fit in good with a story idea.
If I’m not already, I’ll probably wind up on someone’s terror watch list. Not because I am the slightest bit of a threat. Not because I am doing anything in the least bit illegal. Because of stupid, pointless paranoia.
Man, I can’t wait for Friday to get here so we can celebrate living in the land of the free.
Communion Of Dreams 