Appeals court rules border agents can't seize/deep search without a warrant

[thewayne]

It's going to have to go higher and will need further review to clarify the language, but it's a promising step in the right direction.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/03/gadget-border-searches/

Comments

[silveradept]

Definitely a step in the right direction. I'm still a big fan of "the rights of the people to be secure in their persons and papers", myself, so it would be nice if the courts said "Look. The default is that people can carry their data without it being seized. You need sufficient proof to convince a magistrate to grant you an order if you want to challenge that default." I'd feel better about the rule of law if that were the way they decided it.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

I really hate the concept of there being zones where certain parts of the constitution don't apply. I really liked the bit about the judges seeing that a laptop or phone contains huge amounts of personal information akin to a briefcase which would require a warrant to search.

I recently took to encrypting my backups, three of my four backup drives are now done. I also encrypt my phone backups. Haven't encrypted my hard drives yet.

[silveradept]

Other city cases, if I recall correctly, have said that law enforcement can demand you decrypt anything they want to look at, which pretty well defeats the purpose of encrypting sensitive things. This whole "must stop terrorism" thing has been horrible for the presumptions that most people are regular citizens and that everyone is entitled to constitutional protections. Maybe the next President will actually do something about reversing that trend.