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Canada Border Services seizes lawyer's phone, laptop for not sharing passwords

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Re: Canada Border Services seizes lawyer's phone, laptop for not sharing passwords

#171

Post by skywhopper »

LeonM wrote: post #99

I have asked this question before, but never really got a satisfiable answer: why do governments (not just USA/canada) spend these resources to check data physically at a border? It's not like you need to 'smuggle' any form of data physically. I mean, any data considered to be dangerous (like terrorist attack plans, atomic bomb designs or political inside information) can be accessed across borders via the internet.…

I was coming here to ask this exact question. There's no reason it makes sense to search electronic records at a border crossing. As you point out, the point of the search is to control customs and ensure there's no smuggling going on. But electronic records are not smuggled physically. There is zero reason to do so.

So the actual reason customs agencies perform these searches is that they are allowed to do so because of the way the laws are written and precedent is set.

Re: Canada Border Services seizes lawyer's phone, laptop for not sharing passwords

#172

Post by lawn »

vuln wrote: post #87
lawn wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it can, sounds like a loophole to get a case you're working on thrown out. If it cannot, sounds like a convenient way to gain extra leverage. And all it takes is to bribe an officer.

Even an attempt at Bribing a law enforcement officer is a felony.

Yet it happens all the time.

Re: Canada Border Services seizes lawyer's phone, laptop for not sharing passwords

#173

Post by chopin »

mattnewton wrote: post #54
gruez wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>he probably shouldn't trust either device in the future (possibly more so for the laptop). Seems risky for the government to put any firmware/hardware implants on those devices. The user is naturally going to be suspicious of it because the government had unrestricted access for days/weeks. So there's a high chance that the user might not even use it or will send it to an expert for analysis. If discovered, it's goi…

Suspicious, sure, but most users aren’t equipped to do that kind of diagnosis, and many won’t be able to afford new devices, and maybe it will look even worse for the government but I am certain absolutely nothing bad will happen to the people who added the malware.

But in this case the EFF would love to do a forensic examination.

Re: Canada Border Services seizes lawyer's phone, laptop for not sharing passwords

#174

Post by justinclift »

lixtra wrote: post #85
Spare_account wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you expand on this? I'm curious and a little Googling didn't yield much

I think we simply don’t know in this case. But if a super sophisticated approach is used, they could just as well catch and prepare your computer before you receive it i.e. if you ordered it by mail.

Apparently that's already been happening for years:

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/nsa-i...

Seems like a one-size-fits-all approach leaves gaps in targeting, so something a bit more Tailored for the others make sense.

Re: Canada Border Services seizes lawyer's phone, laptop for not sharing passwords

#175

Post by orthoxerox »

rocqua wrote: post #81
Zombieball wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think its better to have an iPhone powered down or on? I am wondering if it would be possible to leverage remote wipe features, but maybe the border agents power off the device or put it in a bag / container that blocks cellular signals.

Remote wipe might not play very well. If it was detained in relation with a crime, they might go with 'attempting to destroy evidence'. Look at it this way. Suppose the seizure of the phone was totally reasonable (because that is how they will think about it). Now, that suspected criminal who apparently had something to hide decided to remotely tamper with evidence after we lawfully detained it? That is subversion of…

Isn't it legal to destroy evidence that can be used against you? That's basically exercising your right to not self-incriminate.

Re: Canada Border Services seizes lawyer's phone, laptop for not sharing passwords

#176

Post by foldr »

sandworm101 wrote: post #148
dmix wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guatemala is well known as a drug transport point. Plenty of the politicians there were caught being directly involved. Which, along with other contraband, accounts for the majority of the customs actual work and far more likely to be the concern with any traveller from there: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-guatemala-politics/guatem... https://www.insightcrime.org/investigations/the-zetas-in-gua... http://latinal…

Don't use american definitions of "probably cause". Canada is a different country and defines probably cause very differently. Canada has a different relationship with its boarders than America. The physical scale is are different. Sovereignty is different. Canada's "charter rights" are different than american "constitutional" rights. Canada placed greater trust in individual enforcement officers and, generally, does…

> Canadian boarder services agents may have greater power than their US counterparts but they are still a billion times easier to deal with than that TSA

I think you mean US Customs and Border Protection, not the TSA.

Re: Canada Border Services seizes lawyer's phone, laptop for not sharing passwords

#177

Post by throw2016 »

This is the definition of a police state, with law enforcement officers empowering themselves and demanding to go through your personal papers, how dehumanizing is this?

What is the difference between this and the stasi or the police of any totalitarian state demanding to go through your personal papers? There is a huge difference between physically checking your laptop or phone and demanding to go through its contents and your personal data and thoughts. This is hugely invasive and dehumanizing and is the definition of totalitarianism. The word democracy by definition cannot include this.

Even more disturbing is the cognitive dissonance of those who have complete moral clarity when condemning police state tactics in some third country and then stretching credulity to normalize the exact same thing when done by their own governments or 'democracies'. The is the dangerous road to totalitarianism where values are not defined by actions but actors.

Re: Canada Border Services seizes lawyer's phone, laptop for not sharing passwords

#178

Post by gumby »

lawn wrote: post #172
vuln wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even an attempt at Bribing a law enforcement officer is a felony.

Yet it happens all the time.

There are various linguistic constructions you can use for plausible deniability (e.g. "at home I can just pay a fee to get into a different priority group: do you have the same system here? I think I have enough cash to cover it.")

I actually once did pay a speeding ticket to an arresting officer (in Montana or Wyoming or one of the Dakotas IIRC -- it was decades ago) an it was very clear how the officer handled it that he was not pocketing the money (e.g. he held an envelope I placed the check into, I licked and sealed it, and his boy never came in contact with my check, though cash was also an option).

Re: Canada Border Services seizes lawyer's phone, laptop for not sharing passwords

#179

Post by tomp »

sandworm101 wrote: post #141
lohszvu wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is wrong with sex tourism?

Really? I think you know. I'm not going to spell it out. Edit: fine. I guess some people here need the talk . This is about the phenomena of men traveling from rich countries to poor countries to engage in sex with children. Not this guy, but it does happen. These men often return with digital images stored on laptops and cellphones. Possession of such images is illegal in canada and so Canadian boarder services targ…

You sound like Elon Musk (at his worst).

Re: Canada Border Services seizes lawyer's phone, laptop for not sharing passwords

#180

Post by vbezhenar »

dontbenebby wrote: post #62
jandrewrogers wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This and related edge cases are something that I've always wondered about e.g. where compliance would be illegal. There are a number of scenarios where one can have content on devices that it is expressly illegal to disclose to random border police. Even within a single country, there is a conflict of authority here.

When I was a grad student I worried about this, since I was required to keep study participant data and student data confidential. Sounds like this lawyer arrived at the same plan I did: Refuse the request, file a lawsuit, and contact the media when released to shame the government that saw fit to violate my rights.

Encrypt the data (probably easiest way is to use encrypted 7z archive), memorize the password, upload the encrypted data into any cloud storage (e.g. Google Drive) and don't care about disclosing anything on your devices.
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