total.pardo

if you are kevin mitnick – you should expect to have your bags checked – your laptops, lock picks, etc confiscated – even if you are traveling to do a “security conference” in one of the drug capitals of the world.  the DHS and ICE don’t care about the 4th Amendment – it doesn’t apply any longer in this day and age if you are a US citizen.  kevin probably should have expected this:

cnet

“They can detain you for four hours, inspect everything, and put you through the third degree for no reason. It’s really a police state,” Mitnick said. “I travel in foreign countries that have even more stringent rules, and I never have problems.”

To protect his privacy and that of his clients, Mitnick encrypts all the confidential data on his laptops, transmits it over the Internet for storage on servers in the U.S., and wipes it from the computer before returning from any international trips, just in case officials decide to search or seize his equipment. He also encrypts his hard drive. And now, he says he is going to keep a “clone” of his MacBook at home so he will have an exact duplicate of it if it is ever seized.

“I don’t harbor any ill feelings toward (customs), but I was really scared because of the circumstances that were happening in Bogota at the same time,” he says. “I feel lucky in a sense, and I feel violated in a sense.”

violated huh (pot, kettle, black). you should feel that way kevin.  as should we all.   I think back to the quote from West Wing with President Bartlet exclaiming:  “Did you know that two thousand years ago a Roman citizen could walk across the face of the known world free of the fear of molestation? He could walk across the Earth unharmed, cloaked only in the protection of the words civis Romanus — I am a Roman citizen. So great was the retribution of Rome, universally certain, should any harm befall even one of its citizens.”

Cives Romani doesn’t apply anymore.  We no longer walk the earth unmolested as a people – we encounter more issues from our own government than we do at times from those who wish to do us harm.  there is hope from a few Democrats:

cnet

The Homeland Security Department has declared its right to seize laptops at the U.S. border indefinitely, but legislation introduced Thursday is intended to curb that power.

U.S. Sens. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), and Rep. Adam Smith, (D-Wash.), introduced the Travelers Privacy Protection Act in response to the DHS policy allowing customs agents to detain a traveler’s laptop for an unspecified period of time to review its contents, even absent of individualized suspicion.

“Most Americans would be shocked to learn that upon their return to the U.S. from traveling abroad, the government could demand the password to their laptop, hold it for as long as it wants, pore over their documents, e-mails, and photographs, and examine which Web sites they visited–all without any suggestion of wrongdoing,” Feingold said. “Focusing our limited law enforcement resources on law-abiding Americans who present no basis for suspicion does not make us any safer and is a gross violation of privacy.”

The legislation would require DHS to form reasonable suspicion of illegal activity before searching electronic devices carried by U.S. residents. The DHS would also be required to provide probable cause and a warrant or court order to hold such a device for more than 24 hours. The bill also limits what information acquired through electronic searches the DHS can disclose, and it requires the department to report on its border searches to Congress.

The DHS refused to send a witness to a Senate hearing in June, chaired by Feingold, regarding searches of electronic devices, but it provided a written statement defending its policy. A ruling in April by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals also defended the agency’s right to conduct the searches without reasonable suspicion.

Similar bills, such as the Securing Our Borders and Our Data Act and the Border Security Search Accountability Act, have been introduced this year in the House.

there is a more in depth article about this at the washington post:  http://tinyurl.com/4qx83x

the aclu (obviously) supports this measure:  http://tinyurl.com/4shbbz

makes you wonder who runs this country and if every citizen is to be considered a threat.  the steps we need to take to protect our privacy are becoming insurmountable.  kevin’s example (and he is one of the smartest people out there in terms of circumventing such security) of transferring data across the web to a server in the US and returning his hard drives to virgin states is telling – telling of the ludicrousness of our age.  its almost like you have to think like a bad guy to survive.

i wrote my senators asking for their support.  my representative is in flux right now, Rob Andrews stepped down to run for the senate this year – i think his wife is the congresswoman who took his seat.