A council has admitted spying on a family using laws to track criminals and terrorists to find out if they were really living in a school catchment.
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.
But the US is not alone. British customs agents search laptops for pornography. And there are reports on the internet of this sort of thing happening at other borders, too. You might not like it, but it's a fact.
In one sense it makes me almost want to encrypt my entire computer and refuse to share the password, but on the other hand I'm almost afraid to in order to avoid raising suspicions.-Deozaan (May 18, 2008, 04:30 PM)
Now that they have behaviour cops at the airports anything is possible.-kartal (May 18, 2008, 04:51 PM)
"And heaven forbid that a sovereign country would have the nerve to control what crosses it's own borders right?" tell me the same thing next time someone detains an american citizen in another country ok?They do detain American citizens in other countries.-kartal (May 18, 2008, 07:10 PM)
They do detain American citizens in other countries.
Hyperbole.They do detain American citizens in other countries.
Do you mean that you are fine with some country unlawfully(without a search warrant and evidence) detaining an american citizen, confisacting their computer and downloading whole content of her/his laptop to their system at their border ?-kartal (May 18, 2008, 08:14 PM)
But the US is not alone. British customs agents search laptops for pornography. And there are reports on the internet of this sort of thing happening at other borders, too. You might not like it, but it's a fact. So how do you protect yourself?
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/05/crossing_border.html
Being soverign nations they also have a right to determine who and what comes into their country.-Cpilot (May 18, 2008, 07:29 PM)
There is no innate human right to take anything you please anywhere in the world.
It sounds like mankind has just wasted last 300 years of path to democracy. It is also sad to see that some people would be blindly happy to bring middle ages back in the name of freedom and soverign nation concept.Geez-kartal (May 18, 2008, 08:50 PM)
Btw we are not talking about "search", we are talking about confiscating people`s laptops and their content. So I think that that was another spin.So I suppose it's a grievous human rights violation to confiscate that piece of fruit or bottles of liquor that are in your luggage too?
I think that Deozaan has already answered your second question. On the other hand comparing confiscation of personal-business financial-project data to confiscation of a bottle of liquor is utter craziness I would say.Property is property my friend, to me people going all bugshit over rules and regulations that for the most part have been around since nations formed borders is a little silly.
I hope that one day you wont find yourself in an embarrassing situation in another country.I've already done my traveling around the world and am quite content to stay where I am now. Btw, I never did have any problems.
Does your hypothetical sovereign nation have the authority to punish an unmarried woman for taking a taxi ride with a man? May that nation protect itself by limiting its citizens' access to information that might be subversive to the government?Apparently they do.
For the umpteenth time, the United States is not a democracy, it's a representative republic. Hence the reason we have congress critters, senators and the electoral college.-Cpilot (May 18, 2008, 09:08 PM)
In that regard, the terrorists have been very successful, because we've been full of nothing but fear since the September 11 attack. Freedoms and liberties have been restricted. Laws are being passed that contradict the constitution this country was built on. I love my country more than I can describe, and it makes me extremely sad (and scared!) to see where it's heading with these laws that disregard the constitution and ignore our "inalienable rights" as human beings.No offense Deozaan but I've read stuff like this all over the net and yet no one has ever been able to tell me exactly what laws are doing all this damage.
So Usa is spreading a system that she does not practice around the worldWhen most people around the world think of Democracy they think it's this:For the umpteenth time, the United States is not a democracy, it's a representative republic. Hence the reason we have congress critters, senators and the electoral college.-Cpilot (May 18, 2008, 09:08 PM)-kartal (May 18, 2008, 10:08 PM)
majority rule: the doctrine that the numerical majority of an organized group can make decisions binding on the whole groupWhen in actuality what America has is this:
a political system in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who can elect people to represent themAnd you can't "spread" democracy around the world, you can only suggest the concept. Democracy is a type of government that has to be earned, not given.
In Australia we have some anti-terrorist laws. One such beast allows for the arrest and imprisonment of anyone for quite a time, no contact with anyone, not a lawyer, their wife or husband, no one, for all purposes this person just vanishes. If this person happens to be a minor, then 1 parent is allowed to know, if they tell anyone including the other parent, they can go to jail for 5 yrs i think it is, obviously I have no idea if this has ever been done, and if i did i wouldn't be able to tell you ;DWow, you know that's the first I've heard about that. Now American laws are all the rage to complain about but no one seems to mind that Australian law.-Grorgy (May 18, 2008, 10:21 PM)
...
No offense Deozaan but I've read stuff like this all over the net and yet no one has ever been able to tell me exactly what laws are doing all this damage.
Lots of hysteria but not one person has been able to give me any specific instance where their rights have been violated, and what I mean by that is what rights have you had specifically, that have been violated?-Cpilot (May 18, 2008, 10:12 PM)
In that regard, the terrorists have been very successful, because we've been full of nothing but fear since the September 11 attack. Freedoms and liberties have been restricted. Laws are being passed that contradict the constitution this country was built on. I love my country more than I can describe, and it makes me extremely sad (and scared!) to see where it's heading with these laws that disregard the constitution and ignore our "inalienable rights" as human beings.No offense Deozaan but I've read stuff like this all over the net and yet no one has ever been able to tell me exactly what laws are doing all this damage.
Lots of hysteria but not one person has been able to give me any specific instance where their rights have been violated, and what I mean by that is what rights have you had specifically, that have been violated?-Cpilot (May 18, 2008, 10:12 PM)
Confiscating laptops for their contents is clearly a form of thought policing, and almost equivalent to book burning.
The law mentioned in this thread, about seizing electronic data/equipment without needing cause, and with no limitations, is only taking us back over 300 years to that same old system. Will it be abused in every case? Absolutely not. Will it ever be abused? Absolutely yes! Surely in the time you spent in the military, you saw some power abuse?-Deozaan (May 19, 2008, 08:20 PM)
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Except that encrypted email will throw up all sorts of warning flags and you face a jail sentence in the UK for refusing to hand over any required decryption information upon request.True, it's not going to protect you from prosecution if you're doing something wrong. But it (partially) protects the privacy of the innocent, since the process of demanding keys can't scale up to the entire population's entire set of keys.-Carol Haynes (May 21, 2008, 05:43 AM)
For the full article see: http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2217073/government-plans-database-phone!-Carol Haynes (May 21, 2008, 02:46 AM)
Currently Zimbabwe and Burma are beginning to look liberal!-Carol Haynes (May 21, 2008, 08:11 AM)
BlackBerry Giving Encryption Keys to Indian Governmenthttp://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/05/blackberry_givi.html
RIM encrypts e-mail between BlackBerry devices and the server the server with 236-bit AES encryption. The Indian government doesn't like this at all; they want to snoop on the data. RIM's response was basically: that's not possible. The Indian government's counter was: Then we'll ban BlackBerries. After months of threats, it looks like RIM is giving in to Indian demands and handing over the encryption keys.
Blackberry are stupid then because it just means that they will lose their customer base that depends on confidentiality.Betcha a penny that doesn't happen.-Carol Haynes (May 21, 2008, 04:49 PM)
@Cpilot -- I wonder if some of your posts here are grounded in a practical fear. "The inconvenience is worth the safety?"What exactly do I have to fear? Being neither a terrorist nor paranoid I really don't have to be afraid of much.
Do any of you realize that the only American president to ...Mouser asked us to curtail the politics. Please help us do so.-Cpilot (May 21, 2008, 09:09 PM)
There seems to be a deep disconnect from reality, if you really think things are repressive now google the security measures put in place during WWII. Do any of you realize that the only American president to create internment camps was Franklin Roosevelt, a democrat?*cough* guantanamo *cough*
Do you all realize that it was democratic administrations that over saw the most repressive governmental act in violation of liberty and freedom in the form of involuntary conscription into the armed forces?If you had involuntary conscription, perhaps your army would have less psychos. Works pretty well for Denmark.
No offense but as I've stated before, I couldn't really care less what "Denmark", or any of Europe for that matter, think of guantanamo. Not many Americans I've spoken to care either.There seems to be a deep disconnect from reality, if you really think things are repressive now google the security measures put in place during WWII. Do any of you realize that the only American president to create internment camps was Franklin Roosevelt, a democrat?*cough* guantanamo *cough*-f0dder (May 22, 2008, 07:49 AM)
Do you all realize that it was democratic administrations that over saw the most repressive governmental act in violation of liberty and freedom in the form of involuntary conscription into the armed forces?
If you had involuntary conscription, perhaps your army would have less psychos. Works pretty well for Denmark.This just shows you're an idiot.