Techlines Today

Fourth Amendment is Overrated at US Borders

By Adam Myers ⋅ May 2, 2008 ⋅ Tags: civil liberties union, customs and border protection, eff, encryption, government, privacy

As you may or may not know, the US customs agents have free reign over all your electronic devices – now the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Business Travel Coalition have sent an open letter to Congress to ask, basically, what the hell?

The letter comes 10 days after a US appeals court ruled Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents have the right to rummage through electronic devices even if they have no reason to suspect the hardware holds illegal contents. Not only are they free to view the files during passage; they are also permitted to copy the entire contents of a device. There are no stated policies about what can and can’t be done with the data.

“The Fourth Amendment protects us all against unreasonable government intrusions,” the letter, which was also signed by the Center for Democracy and Technology and security expert Bruce Schneier, states. “But this guarantee means nothing if CBP can arbitrarily search and seize our digital information at the border and indefinitely store and reuse it.”

How can you keep your privacy currently? Unfortunately not much other than bending over, as the US Government has yet to reveal any information surrounding border searches. Full drive encryption is an option, but more than likely we result in denied entry into the US, because, as you know, only terrorists have a reason to use encryption.

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