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Court: Suspicionless Searches of Travelers’ Phones and Laptops Unconstitutional

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Re: Court: Suspicionless Searches of Travelers’ Phones and Laptops Unconstitutional

#401

Post by t0ddbonzalez »

yqx wrote: post #388
cies wrote: post #376

So a govt agency does something illegal. To be honest, im not thrilled. They seem to be acting against the laws they claim to uphold all the time. Do they get punished? Are they put under extra monitoring now? This is not a democracy people, this is not "trias politica". Police brutality rampant, this merely being one more case. These court rulings seem rather useless, when the same govt keeps illegal torture prisons…

I didn't study law, but as far as I understand, illegal is not the right word here. They (govt) do things for which there is no legal precedence all the time. The court could also have found no problem with these searches. Now that they did take issue with it if the searches would continue then yes, that would be illegal.

"Evidence collected in breach of your constitutional rights" is probably a better way of describing the situation.

Re: Court: Suspicionless Searches of Travelers’ Phones and Laptops Unconstitutional

#402

Post by throaway4644998 »

ramblerman wrote: post #400
mlang23 wrote: post #399

Best thing is to just not have anything to do with the US of A. Death penalty, loaded guns everywhere, a general attitude of being the masters of the world which leads to things like suspicionless searches. No, thanks. I think the best would be if more people would actually stop dealing with the USA. Its becoming a trend. I once turned down an invitation to a conference in Hawai, and guess what, I was not alone.

As a european who is not always very fond of the US, this is ridiculous, and lazy thinking. The amount of generalization and black and white simplifications to come up with such a thing is impressive though.

He is far from being the only one to have this feeling. I once intended to even base my business there, but at this point I do not want to have anything to do with this country. This is not lazy thinking, this is exactly the opposite. This is finally catching up with reality and moving beyond hollywood movies and the American dream propaganda.

Re: Court: Suspicionless Searches of Travelers’ Phones and Laptops Unconstitutional

#403

Post by g105b »

mlang23 wrote: post #399

Best thing is to just not have anything to do with the US of A. Death penalty, loaded guns everywhere, a general attitude of being the masters of the world which leads to things like suspicionless searches. No, thanks. I think the best would be if more people would actually stop dealing with the USA. Its becoming a trend. I once turned down an invitation to a conference in Hawai, and guess what, I was not alone.

This comment is as mindless as the generalisation it's applying to an entire population.

Re: Court: Suspicionless Searches of Travelers’ Phones and Laptops Unconstitutional

#405

Post by Confusion »

throaway4644998 wrote: post #402
ramblerman wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a european who is not always very fond of the US, this is ridiculous, and lazy thinking. The amount of generalization and black and white simplifications to come up with such a thing is impressive though.

He is far from being the only one to have this feeling. I once intended to even base my business there, but at this point I do not want to have anything to do with this country. This is not lazy thinking, this is exactly the opposite. This is finally catching up with reality and moving beyond hollywood movies and the American dream propaganda.

Your comment is devoid of argument.

Re: Court: Suspicionless Searches of Travelers’ Phones and Laptops Unconstitutional

#406

Post by scottlocklin »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #167
jakeogh wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have the higher courts have addressed that? The tourist example I'm expecting they _should_ since they are not breaking any law. Hm. Page 27: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44618.pdf I'm ignoring FFL's because it's not directly relevant.

There was a recent court case about this (Rehaif v. U.S) where the Supreme Court made a decision about the law making it a felony to knowingly possess a gun in the US while here illegally. The prosecutor said "knowingly" just refers to the gun possession, but Rehaif's lawyer said it should refer to knowingly possessing the gun and knowing that you weren't in the country legally (Rehaif claimed that he hadn't read an…

> Another thing that I just learned it is actually still illegal to borrow a gun at a shooting range if you have a non-immigrant visa (unless you have a hunting license).

Huh; do you have a citation for this? I used to bring scientists from other countries to the shooting range for the cultural experience, and almost brought a pal from Europe hunting a year or two ago (on my license). Never realized I might have been putting them in legal jeopardy.

Re: Court: Suspicionless Searches of Travelers’ Phones and Laptops Unconstitutional

#407

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

g105b wrote: post #403
mlang23 wrote: post #399

Best thing is to just not have anything to do with the US of A. Death penalty, loaded guns everywhere, a general attitude of being the masters of the world which leads to things like suspicionless searches. No, thanks. I think the best would be if more people would actually stop dealing with the USA. Its becoming a trend. I once turned down an invitation to a conference in Hawai, and guess what, I was not alone.

This comment is as mindless as the generalisation it's applying to an entire population.

It's more about American governance than anything else.

Re: Court: Suspicionless Searches of Travelers’ Phones and Laptops Unconstitutional

#408

Post by cmurf »

They can image my mobile device in, what, 5 minutes? Why hold it for days or weeks except as a form of coercion? You land and need your phone to retrieve the phone number for friends or family, to order rides, create and manage accommodations, and find directions. Taking someone's mobile device leaves them stranded.

Re: Court: Suspicionless Searches of Travelers’ Phones and Laptops Unconstitutional

#410

Post by cmurf »

t0ddbonzalez wrote: post #404

Solution: Go through border control with blank phone/laptop and restore from backup later.

Is this what the EFF, ACLU, etc. actually recommend these days? Or do they want regular Joe Citizen to be willing to subject themselves to duress by customs?

If most people erase their devices, it's a kind of giving up. Accepting data loss (hopefully temporarily, but not everything is stored in the cloud, e.g. SMS messages, at least in Android phones with the original texting app) is punative. And disproportionate. And resets are a PITA for non-technical people. As a work around to avoid being harassed, to me it proves we've lost the privacy fight.

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