Re: [privacy] U.S. Agents Seize Travelers' Devices

["Larry Seltzer" <Larry () larryseltzer com>]

I saw this. Is it related to this, on the TSA's blog?

http://www.tsa.gov/blog/2008/02/hooray-bloggers.html

A Win for the Blogesphere

Posters on this blog have had their first official impact on our
operations. That's right, less than one week since we began the blog and
already you're affecting security in a very positive way.

On Monday afternoon we began receiving questions about airports that
were requiring ALL electronics to be removed from carry-on bags
(everything, including blackberrys, iPods and even cords). This practice
was also mentioned on several other blogs and left us scratching our
heads.

So...we checked with our security operations team to figure out what was
going on. After some calls to our airports, we learned that this
exercise was set up by local TSA offices and was not part of any grand
plan across the country. These practices were stopped on Monday
afternoon and blackberrys, cords and iPods began to flow through
checkpoints like the booze was flowing on Bourbon Street Tuesday night.
(Fat Tuesday of course).

So thanks to everyone for asking about this and for giving us a chance
to make it right. Our hope is that examples like this validate our forum
and show the solid partnerships we can form with our customers - the
traveling public - in not only increasing security but in making all of
our lives just a little easier.

Thanks again and keep those comments and questions coming.
   
Larry Seltzer
eWEEK.com Security Center Editor
http://security.eweek.com/
http://blogs.pcmag.com/securitywatch/
Contributing Editor, PC Magazine
larry.seltzer () ziffdavisenterprise com


-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Ferguson [mailto:fergdawg () netzero net] 
Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2008 3:06 PM
To: privacy () whitestar linuxbox org
Subject: [privacy] U.S. Agents Seize Travelers' Devices

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Via The Washington Post.

[snip]

Nabila Mango, a therapist and a U.S. citizen who has lived in the
country since 1965, had just flown in from Jordan last December when,
she said, she was detained at customs and her cellphone was taken from
her purse. Her daughter, waiting outside San Francisco International
Airport, tried repeatedly to call her during the hour and a half she was
questioned. But after her phone was returned, Mango saw that records of
her daughter's calls had been erased.

A few months earlier in the same airport, a tech engineer returning from
a business trip to London objected when a federal agent asked him to
type his password into his laptop computer. "This laptop doesn't belong
to me," he remembers protesting. "It belongs to my company." Eventually,
he agreed to log on and stood by as the officer copied the Web sites he
had visited, said the engineer, a U.S. citizen who spoke on the
condition of anonymity for fear of calling attention to himself.

[snip]

More:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/06/AR200802
060
4763.html

Also:

The Asian Law Caucus (ALC) and Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
filed suit today against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
for denying access to public records on the questioning and searches of
travelers at U.S. borders. Filed under the Freedom of Information Act,
the suit responds to growing complaints by U.S. citizens and immigrants
of excessive or repeated screenings by U.S. Customs and Border
Protection agents.

http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2008/02/07

- - ferg

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--
"Fergie", a.k.a. Paul Ferguson
 Engineering Architecture for the Internet  fergdawg(at)netzero.net
ferg's tech blog: http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/

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