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Strategies for international travellers regarding new US Customs seizure policy

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kartal:
Some people like to compare confiscation of laptop to confiscation of luggages. This to me is a flawed logic because one cannot clone your items in your luggage. They can search your luggage right there which would not take more than half an hour. And if they cannot find any suspicious item material they will need to let you go . On the other hand confiscating your laptop is stickier. First they take it then they download or copy the whole content. At this step your whole data is cloned already. They can probably give your laptop back since they do not need it anymore. But then again what if they inject new data into the content and use it against you? How would you know if the data is erased if they cannot find anything important. Digital data can be copied million times, one would never know really. 

40hz:
The question someone raised about how often confiscation actually occurs really is relevant (to me at least).-mouser (August 04, 2008, 05:14 PM)
--- End quote ---
 
.. but if this is one of those rules that border guards use when they get in a bad mood that's something else entirely.

--- End quote ---

This goes directly back to what I was saying earlier about the issue being more about convenience than civil rights for many people. Oh well. At least Mouser's being honest about it. ;D

40hz:
Some people like to compare confiscation of laptop to confiscation of luggages. This to me is a flawed logic because one cannot clone your items in your luggage. They can search your luggage right there which would not take more than half an hour. And if they cannot find any suspicious item material they will need to let you go .
-kartal (August 04, 2008, 05:36 PM)
--- End quote ---

Not necessarily so.

What constitutes "suspicious" is in the eyes of a beholder.

I had a business acquaintance get detained because his luggage got stolen from his hotel and he attempted to board a flight out of Denver, CO without it.

When he explained what happened, and a call to the hotel couldn't get anyone there to acknowledge that the theft had occurred, he made the fatal mistake of demanding to talk to a manager.

According to airport security, this "incident"  had the following "threat factors":

   1. Subject is a "young man" (actually he's in his early 30s)
   2. Attempting to board transcontinental flight without luggage (it was stolen)
   3. Aggressive demeanor (i.e. got pissed about how he was being
      treated, demanded an explaination)
   4. Uncorroborated explaination of missing luggage (i.e.suspicion of
      lying to TSA agents)

He missed his flight and lost most of the day before his "story" could be verified. When they let him go about 20 hours later, rather than offer anything like an apology for the misunderstanding, it was suggested he be "more careful" next time.

Now if this can happen to a US citizen on a domestic flight, how hard can it be to confiscate a laptop entering the USA?

kartal:
weird, how did they know that he was supposed to have a luggage? Is this implying that anyone who gets on a plane needs to carry a luggage? :)


I had a business acquaintance get detained because his luggage got stolen from his hotel and he attempted to board a flight out of Denver, CO without it.
-40hz (August 05, 2008, 03:07 PM)
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cranioscopical:
I hate all this stuff and the potential for abuse of the system (virtually guaranteed).
It's almost certain to inconvenience me personally sooner or later. The existing strictures have done so before.

That said, as far as I know nobody is doing his utmost to bomb my home town out of existence.
Nobody's forcing me to enter the U.S. and if I do I guess I'll have to abide by the rules.

Anybody feel that taking digital data into China or Russia is a secure thing to do?

We're between a rock and a hard place now.

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