This blog printed on 100% recycled electrons.
...wherein Osama bin Laden scores another victory against global commerce and freedom...
If you're planning to blog your international vacation, you might want to plan on using the Internet cafés of Paris and Mumbai: Homeland Security has empowered U.S. Customs and Border Protection to seize, inspect, and keep your electronic devices at the border. No probable cause, no reasonable suspicion, just the whim of the lackey standing between you and your flight to Finland... or your permission to re-enter the U.S.A.
This is no new policy: Homeland Security has apparently been practicing this further breach of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments for years; they only just made it public in a July 16 document.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation offers some advice on keeping your data safe, but really, if you're traveling overseas, Uncle Sam can take your laptop, your iPhone, and your flash drive and never give them back. Better leave all your mission-critical data at home... just what every technoentrepreneur wants to hear.
R’ U’ Dandy?
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So happy about this film. I have been absolutely infatuated with this song
lately. And if any dolt can tell me what it is about, that would be helpful;
1 day ago
As I understand it, Web browsers installed on laptops can be considered something like military hardware. Anyhow, it is not too hard to understand why customs officials would want to keep a sharp eye on laptops coming into the U.S. along with humans ... We ain't in Dakota any more. An awful lot of data can be stored on one of those things.
ReplyDeleteIf I were going abroad, I'd leave my laptop at home anyway. It could be stolen by any bozo intent on committing identity theft. That would be a greater danger, in my opinion, than losing it to customs officials.
Public-access computers aren't safe if one wants to avoid identity theft. One Trojan on one innocent-looking kiosk machine and -- Poof! -- Your credit, and perhaps even your civil record, is a train wreck. Don't underestimate the intelligence of a kid sitting at the computer in your local library, much less a gal at an Internet Cafe in Paris.
Shoot, I'm even leery of the Wi-Fi in hotels.
Any savvy computer user has a backup scheme designed to survive reasonable misfortunes, including unxpected loss of a computer. My motto is, "Only back up the data that you don't want to lose." The enforcers of Murphy's Laws are worse than all hostile human and non-warp natural elements combined.
That said, it's sad that any innocent Americans should fear their own government. In that sense, our enemies have already won a key battle.