What’s in YOUR laptop?
If you travel with digital gear, your Fourth Amendment protections against unlawful search and seizure may be null and void.
My little black MacBook is my digital American Express card. I don’t leave home without it. Whether across town or around the world, it has become indispensable in my travels. I use it to double-check reservations, check in for upcoming flights, get local information in cities and countries I’m visiting, check e-mails and social networking sites to keep up with friends from home, edit pics from my trips — while I’m still on my trips. Not to mention writing travelogues.
Lots of travelers do much the same things with their smartphones and other mobile devices, and people are discovering that the new ultra-slim and light “netbooks” make ideal travel companions. Thisis especially true for those of us who prefer independent travel over tour groups.
But be warned: Depending on where you’ve been in the world for your trip, the good folks at Homeland Security may decide they want a peek at your data when you try to come home. That means they will want to see what Web sites you were looking at, who you were exchanging e-mails or text messages with, what downloads you downloaded while overseas, literally anything and everything. They may compel you to give up you passwords, as well.
Without a warrant. Without even a reason. Federal law, as upheld by judges’ rulings, says they don’t need one.
The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution would seem to outlaw this kind of behavior:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Looks as if someone decided that the digital realm is somehow exempt from the Constitution.
It’s not just the United States. Border authorities in much of the world have the same authority, and you have even less right to fight this abroad than you do at home.
Here are a couple of discussions on this matter , including two that appeared in the Washington Post: 1 2
TechDirt
WIS Technology
You say you have nothing to hide? Cool. Neither do I. But there is something fundamental in the American psyche that chafes and bristles at having government — any government — intrude into our private lives on a whim. Most of us cherish our right to privacy. But as the links above suggest, that right may exist more in our own minds than anywhere else.
This may make you uncomfortable for professional as well as personal reasons. If you travel with a work computer, there may be proprietary information on your hard drive that your employer would prefer not be perused by border cops on a digital fishing expedition. What’s more, these searches may damage or destroy files — and if that happens, you have little to no recourse.
If you signed one of those agreements on your job that make you responsible for safeguarding your company’s proprietary info, this could have direct and unpleasant consequences for your job.
There are folks out there fighting this battle on behalf of citizens, principally the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Meanwhile, when it comes to protecting your privacy and your data, you’re on your own. So if there’s anything in your electronics that you’d prefer not to become public knowledge via government fiat, copy it elsewhere and get it off your equipment before you leave home.
That means making sure it’s deleted completely. And no, simply pressing the DELETE will NOT do that!
In most cases, simple deletions just remove the digital “flags” on your hard drive that designate a certain file so that your computer can’t find it anymore. That doesn’t actually erase it from the drive. It’s still there.
There is software out there that will erase files from your hard drive, both freeware and commercially sold. One such example is Eraser for Windows computers or Permanent Eraser for Macs. If this is issue is a concern for you, you need to find such software and use it, after you’ve safely secured your data somewhere else.
