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

cbc.ca

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

#281

Post by Joakal »

stale2002 wrote: post #222
cmurf wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How long can you be detained? And under what conditions? More than a few hours will get the vast majority of people cooperating. I suspect they could detain you for 24 hours, or even several days, but I don't know what the legal limit is for detaining a citizen at the border of their own country. And for quite a lot of other people, even not being personally detained, but having to acquire new devices is inconvenient…

> How long can you be detained? And under what conditions The answer is not very long. I'd call "a couple days" to be not a big deal, and not at all equivalent to being tortured to death, like the person I was responding to was implying would happen. So yes, encryption does work, and all that will happen to you is that you could be moderately inconvenienced. But even that I would expect to be rare. Most border securi…

I gather it could be indefinite detention. Say 5 hour detention then they ask again. Then detention again. Repeat.

I think a couple days is good enough because people will miss holidays, work, plans etc. That's Western nations "torture" equivalent of a wrench

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

#282

Post by [deleted] »

sandworm101 wrote: post #249
eecc wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still a dragnet. They're not SWATing a semiautomatic rifle up your nose - nobody's claiming they're not polite - but the fact remains.

Dragnets tend to catch more people. This is less than 1% of 1% of travelers. It is a very limited program.

[deleted]

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

#283

Post by bonestamp2 »

dontbenebby wrote: post #68

Why do border services think they can seize a device and send it to a lab? If a border officer suspected I had a hidden compartment in my suitcase could they ship it off to a special lab? I don't agree with (but can see the logic in) them copying data off your HD and trying to crack it later. But I don't understand what legal argument is to be made for arbitrarily seizing property at the border.

It used to kind of make sense when they were just searching physical property (baggage). There is a legitimate argument for wanting to stop dangerous or immoral things from entering any given country (weapons, poached ivory, foreign animals that may disrupt the ecosystem, unsafe food/drugs, etc).

Then there are financial reasons for stopping some items that have tariffs or duty on them. Then there are legal reasons for stopping other things that violate the law (items that violate local copyright/patents, etc).

I think most people would agree with those items above, so they have a legal right to search you and your belongings. Those same laws have been applied to computers and phones without any new thought. So, if they have to ship it off to a lab to search it because you won't share the password then they have the legal authority to do so.

I don't agree with all of it, but they have the legal authority to do it.

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

#284

Post by jMyles »

vbezhenar wrote: post #180
dontbenebby wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> don't care about disclosing anything on your devices.

I'm not sure this is good advice. I think it's almost certainly better to have an unblemished record of assertion than a mixed record of assertion and acquiescence. Surely the latter appears far more suspicious.

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

#285

Post by bonestamp2 »

albertgoeswoof wrote: post #44

So what’s the Canadian governments real position on this? Are individuals and companies allowed to store private and confidential data, or is all information seizable by the government without a warrant at the border? They can pick one...

It's not that black and white. Private and confidential data is allowed; however, customs and border patrol also have legal authority to inspect such private and confidential data when you cross the border. They do not have the right to inspect it, without warrant, elsewhere.

This is the same in the US, maybe even worse in the US. Customs can inspect your home if you live within 100 miles of any border...

https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/05/who-lives-in-border-p...

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

#286

Post by xvector »

Buttons840 wrote: post #265
belorn wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For work data such as the lawyer in the article I would recommend go one step further and not having the password in the first place. You can achieve this by for example having the server admin at work remotely unlock the device at request, have hardware tokens at trusted locations, or software that provide similar effect. No amount of $5 wrench or legal threats can change the situation as it not in your hand to give…

Like, leave a private key at home and encrypt your drive with the public key before crossing the border? Yeah, at that point you are powerless to do anything until you are at home.

This only works if you trust egress border crossing more than ingress. Otherwise you might as well not bring your laptop along in the first place as it'd be an encrypted deadweight.

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

#287

Post by xvector »

webninja wrote: post #264
vbezhenar wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Or use Veracrypt with AES25 and a 30+ character password. Good luck NSA trying to break that.

Methinks the NSA could break AES-25 just fine :)

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

#288

Post by pmorici »

vbezhenar wrote: post #198
pmorici wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a great idea. You have no reason to believe deleted and cached copies aren’t lingering on you disk unprotected.

If you're THAT worried, then securely reformat disk and reinstall OS just before travel.

If you are going to bother you might as well do something that will be effective.

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

#289

Post by ddalex »

mortenjorck wrote: post #256
saagarjha wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not going to be tortured to death, but there are quite a few things that the government can do to make your life miserable.

The $5 wrench isn’t what most people have to worry about; it’s the 5-hour detention without charge.

5 hour detention is nothing - expensed vacation :)

Extraordinary rendition to the Guantanamo Bay is what concerns me.

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

#290

Post by stale2002 »

Joakal wrote: post #281
stale2002 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How long can you be detained? And under what conditions The answer is not very long. I'd call "a couple days" to be not a big deal, and not at all equivalent to being tortured to death, like the person I was responding to was implying would happen. So yes, encryption does work, and all that will happen to you is that you could be moderately inconvenienced. But even that I would expect to be rare. Most border securi…

I gather it could be indefinite detention. Say 5 hour detention then they ask again. Then detention again. Repeat. I think a couple days is good enough because people will miss holidays, work, plans etc. That's Western nations "torture" equivalent of a wrench

> . Say 5 hour detention then they ask again. Then detention again. Repeat.

Ok, and does this happen in real life?

The answer is no. It does not. In almost any western country in the world, the low paid border security guards are not detaining people in mass for days on end.

This stuff just isn't really happening to any large degree.

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