Appeals court upholds search of laptop at LAX

[Newsjock]

Source: Daily Breeze

It may hold our financial records, innermost thoughts and pictures of our loved ones - but there's nothing private about a laptop computer at the nation's borders, a federal appeals court ruled Monday.

In a closely watched search-and-seizure case, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court's decision to toss evidence of alleged child pornography found on a traveler's computer at Los Angeles International Airport.

... Federal prosecutors appealed, arguing successfully that the law allows searches at the nation's borders without reasonable suspicion.

... "I think it will surprise people that their laptops are subject to search without any level of suspicion when they get to a border checkpoint," added Jennifer Chacon, a law professor at the University of California, Davis.

"I think it may change the way people travel," she said.

Read more: http://www.dailybreeze.com/ci_9009312

[truebrit71]

1. This is sure to be appealed though...

...no way this is consitutional...

[tinymontgomery]

21. What's a constitution?

What's a constitution? You must think your in France or Canada or something.

[truebrit71]

22. It's "just a f*cking piece of paper" according to the current occupant of the WH..

..

[mac2]

23. Even they had a constitution.

France is now part of the EU and has lost theirs. Canada part of the Americas Union is about to lose theirs. The huge non-democratic unions are being formed against their and our will.

Boot click.

[TooBigaTent]

2. The only successful fight against this will be business pukes who fear that their

secrets will get out.

Civil liberties for the rest of us no longer matter.

[BadgerLaw2010]

16. Good luck breaking through most business encryption software.

[mac2]

19. Fascism

[izquierdista]

3. The times they are a changin'

Mid-20th century: "Let me see your papers!"

Early 21st century: "Let me see your files!"

[mac2]

17. Boot click

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

4. we have had a laptop seized

The user didn't know the administrative password on his company notebook, so they seized it. He (a lawyer) demanded to either be returned his laptop or arrested. Declining either option he was thrown out of the airport. In retrospect he is probably fortunate he was not a victim of a summary execution. It took us quite a while to recover the machine from the government.

We are no longer allowed to travel with our work machines, rather we are issued a shitty old laptops that we are supposed to use Citrix with along with a so-called "Cyanide CD" that we are to use if we had client data on the computer that apprently formats the hard drive 7 times and then loads a backup of some home computer that just looks like the crap on a family PC.

[mac2]

20. Neither is Lieberman, Boxer, or Sanders when you come

right down to it. Only Kucinich and a few others are. I'd say even that is questionable with their amnesty stand since that will bring us open borders and the Americas.

"Robert Mugabe, Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro and Che™ are NOT progressives!"

[crimsonblue]

5. That's why you password protect the F out of your computer

And refuse to divulge the password. The article didn't say, but I suspect that the man did not have his computer protected. It's a bullshit ruling, but I can understand where the judge was coming from. I can only assume that the Appeals Court viewed an unprotected laptop much like a pulled over car-- since the laptops not protected it could be considered "in plain sight" (much like if an officer sees something through the window, he can pretty much instantly demand a search). It is complete bullshit that this guy was arrested because they opened up a picture with two naked women in it. Since when was this a crime? yeah, I know he allegedly had kiddie porn on his computer, but any number of viruses can secretly install condemning info onto the computer. Just wait until the Government starts connecting cords to your laptop in order to "check for terrorist activity" and then proceed to copy and/or delete your entire hard drive.

[DemocratInSoCal]

6. He's A Terrorist & Should Be Detained, Arrested, Castrated, Shot, Waterboarded nt

[mac2]

24. Yes...he is the worst one yet. What secrets is he hiding?

Even the President is not above the law (the law of the land under Bush, Inc.).

[SpiralHawk]

7. "All your data are belong to us." - BushCo & Republicon Homelanders

Totally totalitarian. Republicons - Ptooey...

[mac2]

13. "Mr. Bush you do not own this country"...

emm seems he tries to. He is the danger and we should be watching him. He lied about WMD, Katrina, and 911. Shouldn't we put spy devices every where he goes?

So much for rights in this democracy. He decides who has rights and who doesn't. We make the rules in a democracy Mr. Bush.

The computer was probably a plant to once again cause fear and hide the PNAC agenda going on in New Orleans this week.

Boot Click.

[JCMach1]

8. Strong encryption...

:(

[Xenotime]

10. Doesn't matter. They can crack it.

[CatholicEdHead]

12. Eventually, but not for a very long time

if it is encrypted properly.

[Poll_Blind]

15. Nah. Nah they can't. You might think they can, but they can't.

  Really. Not a round-robin multi-algorithm that's steganographically hidden inside another encrypted volume. The only computers that can crack it are the ones that can read your mind to find the password- cause they ain't doing it any other way.

You should check out my post a little lower in the thread.

PB

[customerserviceguy]

9. OK, I'm going to be the first one to ask

why did he have kiddie porn on his computer?

Probably not the guy you'd prefer for the test case that goes to the Supreme Court.

[CatholicEdHead]

11. I guess my personal laptop is not making any flights anytime soon

At least I have my iPod Touch to make due for personal trips (just need WiFi for email and DU check).

[Poll_Blind]

14. Ya'll can protect your computers for free with the open-souce TrueCrypt.

TrueCrypt

Main Features:
Creates a virtual encrypted disk within a file and mounts it as a real disk.


Encrypts an entire partition or storage device such as USB flash drive or hard drive.


Encrypts a partition or drive where Windows is installed (pre-boot authentication).


Encryption is automatic, real-time (on-the-fly) and transparent.


Provides two levels of plausible deniability, in case an adversary forces you to reveal the password:

1) Hidden volume (steganography – more information may be found here).

2) No TrueCrypt volume can be identified (volumes cannot be distinguished from random data).


Encryption algorithms: AES-256, Serpent, and Twofish. Mode of operation: XTS.

  Damned easy to use and not even quantum computers will be able to crack my stego'd volumes. Pre-boot authentication, that's sizzlin'!

PB

[Turner Ashby]

18. I would imagine, knowing the gov't think,

that the very idea that you have your computer so "encrytped" (if that is a word) you are suspicious. Remember, just looking suspicious, makes you suspicious, so the idea that you have made your computer difficult to get into, makes you suspicious. It is circuitous logic, but in prosecutorial eyes, EVERYONE is a criminal. So, the "profile" will soon be, heavily encrypted laptop and that will be reasonable suspicion at the border, and uh... no 4th amendment protection.

[Poll_Blind]

25. Well Turner, in that case, you could make an encrypted volume-within-a-volume drive.

  Say you're at the border and someone asks to see your laptop. You give it over and they boot it up, and it asks for a password. You give them a password and the computer boots up. They search your computer for now-illegal copies of the Bill of Rights- and they find none.

  But what they do not know and what they can absolutely never detect is that there is another encrypted partition on your hard drive which only appears as "free space" on the computer they logged into. It does not exist as a volume or a file, it is data directly written to a part of the drive.

  And since the whole drive is encrypted even free space appears to be random characters.

  The drive-within-a-drive concept, or "stego" drive, is the power here, because there is no way to detect that it even exists. With nested encrypted subvolumes, the following analogy would describe the situation investigators would be in: It would be as though they were entering a room whose four walls, ceiling and floor were slate. With a piece of chalk they could draw a door anywhere but only if it was in the correct place would it reveal the next blackboard room if they pushed. Once in the next blackboard room they would face the same dilemma. It would also be impossible, even residing in the first "room" to know that there were further rooms to explore, where the rabbit hole ended.

PB

[BreweryYardRat]

26. Thanks.

I'll take a look at this.