U.S. border agents copying contents of travelers' laptops
Federica Narancio
Posted on Wed, Jun. 25, 2008
WASHINGTON - U.S. border agents are copying and seizing the contents of
laptops, cell phones and digital cameras from U.S. and foreign travelers
entering the United States, witnesses told a Senate subcommittee Wednesday.
The extent of this practice is unknown despite requests to the Department of
Homeland Security from the Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution and
several nonprofit agencies.
The department also declined to send a representative to the hearing.
Subcommittee Chairman Russ Feingold, D-Wis., said Homeland Security had told
him that its "preferred" witness was unavailable Wednesday.
Feingold added that he'd submitted written questions about the seizures of
electronic data - and of some devices - to Homeland Security Secretary
Michael Chertoff in April. To date, Feingold said, he's gotten no reply.
Chertoff's department provided a written statement that said it wasn't its
intention to infringe on Americans' privacy but to protect the country from
terrorists and criminals, whose electronic devices can reveal incriminating
materials.
During border searches of laptops, according to the statement, the
department's Customs and Border Protection officers have found "jihadist
material, information about cyanide and nuclear material, video clips of
improvised explosive devices being exploded, pictures of various high-level
al Qaida officials and other material associated with people seeking to do
harm to U.S. and its citizens."
Jayson Ahern, the deputy commissioner of Customs and Border Protection,
signed the statement.
Some witnesses noted that the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San
Francisco had ruled in a recent child-pornography case that federal agents
could seize a laptop computer at the border without reasonable suspicion
that its owner was engaged in unlawful activities.
However, several witnesses said that the ruling, by the most liberal of U.S.
appeals courts, didn't end their concerns about Homeland Security's refusal
to explain the standards for its searches, how it protects privacy, how the
seized material is used and who can see or use it.
Three nonprofits - the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Asian Law Caucus
and the Association of Corporate Travel Executives - filed a Freedom of
Information Act request last year seeking Homeland Security's answers to
those questions. They've gotten none thus far.
They and other groups consider seizures made without probable cause to be an
invasion of privacy that leaves the door open to ethnic and racial
profiling.
Farhana Khera, the president of Muslim Advocates, a San Francisco nonprofit,
said they'd received complaints from Muslim, Arab and South Asian Americans.
She said they also had been questioned about their political, religious and
personal views.
Retaining confidential computer files also worries business travelers and
companies, said Susan Gurley, the executive director of the Association of
Corporate Travel Executives, an international group based in Alexandria,
Va..
Her organization surveyed its 2,500 members in February, Gurley said. Of 100
respondents, seven said border agents had seized their laptops or their
files. Four out of five, she said, were unaware that border agents could
seize their electronic data and devices.
http://www.mcclatch ydc.com/251/ story/42186. html
Federica Narancio
Posted on Wed, Jun. 25, 2008
WASHINGTON - U.S. border agents are copying and seizing the contents of
laptops, cell phones and digital cameras from U.S. and foreign travelers
entering the United States, witnesses told a Senate subcommittee Wednesday.
The extent of this practice is unknown despite requests to the Department of
Homeland Security from the Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution and
several nonprofit agencies.
The department also declined to send a representative to the hearing.
Subcommittee Chairman Russ Feingold, D-Wis., said Homeland Security had told
him that its "preferred" witness was unavailable Wednesday.
Feingold added that he'd submitted written questions about the seizures of
electronic data - and of some devices - to Homeland Security Secretary
Michael Chertoff in April. To date, Feingold said, he's gotten no reply.
Chertoff's department provided a written statement that said it wasn't its
intention to infringe on Americans' privacy but to protect the country from
terrorists and criminals, whose electronic devices can reveal incriminating
materials.
During border searches of laptops, according to the statement, the
department's Customs and Border Protection officers have found "jihadist
material, information about cyanide and nuclear material, video clips of
improvised explosive devices being exploded, pictures of various high-level
al Qaida officials and other material associated with people seeking to do
harm to U.S. and its citizens."
Jayson Ahern, the deputy commissioner of Customs and Border Protection,
signed the statement.
Some witnesses noted that the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San
Francisco had ruled in a recent child-pornography case that federal agents
could seize a laptop computer at the border without reasonable suspicion
that its owner was engaged in unlawful activities.
However, several witnesses said that the ruling, by the most liberal of U.S.
appeals courts, didn't end their concerns about Homeland Security's refusal
to explain the standards for its searches, how it protects privacy, how the
seized material is used and who can see or use it.
Three nonprofits - the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Asian Law Caucus
and the Association of Corporate Travel Executives - filed a Freedom of
Information Act request last year seeking Homeland Security's answers to
those questions. They've gotten none thus far.
They and other groups consider seizures made without probable cause to be an
invasion of privacy that leaves the door open to ethnic and racial
profiling.
Farhana Khera, the president of Muslim Advocates, a San Francisco nonprofit,
said they'd received complaints from Muslim, Arab and South Asian Americans.
She said they also had been questioned about their political, religious and
personal views.
Retaining confidential computer files also worries business travelers and
companies, said Susan Gurley, the executive director of the Association of
Corporate Travel Executives, an international group based in Alexandria,
Va..
Her organization surveyed its 2,500 members in February, Gurley said. Of 100
respondents, seven said border agents had seized their laptops or their
files. Four out of five, she said, were unaware that border agents could
seize their electronic data and devices.
http://www.mcclatch ydc.com/251/ story/42186. html