Entries Tagged "borders"

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Large-Scale Collection of Cell Phone Data at US Borders

The Washington Post is reporting that the US Customs and Border Protection agency is seizing and copying cell phone, tablet, and computer data from “as many as” 10,000 phones per year, including an unspecified number of American citizens. This is done without a warrant, because “…courts have long granted an exception to border authorities, allowing them to search people’s devices without a warrant or suspicion of a crime.”

CBP’s inspection of people’s phones, laptops, tablets and other electronic devices as they enter the country has long been a controversial practice that the agency has defended as a low-impact way to pursue possible security threats and determine an individual’s “intentions upon entry” into the U.S. But the revelation that thousands of agents have access to a searchable database without public oversight is a new development in what privacy advocates and some lawmakers warn could be an infringement of Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures.

[…]

CBP conducted roughly 37,000 searches of travelers’ devices in the 12 months ending in October 2021, according to agency data, and more than 179 million people traveled that year through U.S. ports of entry.

More articles. Slashdot thread.

Posted on September 19, 2022 at 6:07 AM • View Comments

US Journalist Detained When Returning to US

Pretty horrible story of a US journalist who had his computer and phone searched at the border when returning to the US from Mexico.

After I gave him the password to my iPhone, Moncivias spent three hours reviewing hundreds of photos and videos and emails and calls and texts, including encrypted messages on WhatsApp, Signal, and Telegram. It was the digital equivalent of tossing someone’s house: opening cabinets, pulling out drawers, and overturning furniture in hopes of finding something—anything—illegal. He read my communications with friends, family, and loved ones. He went through my correspondence with colleagues, editors, and sources. He asked about the identities of people who have worked with me in war zones. He also went through my personal photos, which I resented. Consider everything on your phone right now. Nothing on mine was spared.

Pomeroy, meanwhile, searched my laptop. He browsed my emails and my internet history. He looked through financial spreadsheets and property records and business correspondence. He was able to see all the same photos and videos as Moncivias and then some, including photos I thought I had deleted.

The EFF has extensive information and advice about device searches at the US border, including a travel guide:

If you are a U.S. citizen, border agents cannot stop you from entering the country, even if you refuse to unlock your device, provide your device password, or disclose your social media information. However, agents may escalate the encounter if you refuse. For example, agents may seize your devices, ask you intrusive questions, search your bags more intensively, or increase by many hours the length of detention. If you are a lawful permanent resident, agents may raise complicated questions about your continued status as a resident. If you are a foreign visitor, agents may deny you entry.

The most important piece of advice is to think about this all beforehand, and plan accordingly.

Posted on July 4, 2019 at 6:38 AM • View Comments

Why Are Cryptographers Being Denied Entry into the US?

In March, Adi Shamir—that’s the “S” in RSA—was denied a US visa to attend the RSA Conference. He’s Israeli.

This month, British citizen Ross Anderson couldn’t attend an awards ceremony in DC because of visa issues. (You can listen to his recorded acceptance speech.) I’ve heard of two other prominent cryptographers who are in the same boat. Is there some cryptographer blacklist? Is something else going on? A lot of us would like to know.

Posted on May 17, 2019 at 6:18 AM • View Comments

Former Mozilla CTO Harassed at the US Border

This is a pretty awful story of how Andreas Gal, former Mozilla CTO and US citizen, was detained and threatened at the US border. CBP agents demanded that he unlock his phone and computer.

Know your rights when you enter the US. The EFF publishes a handy guide. And if you want to encrypt your computer so that you are unable to unlock it on demand, here’s my guide. Remember not to lie to a customs officer; that’s a crime all by itself.

Posted on April 4, 2019 at 2:10 PM • View Comments

On the Security of Walls

Interesting history of the security of walls:

Dún Aonghasa presents early evidence of the same principles of redundant security measures at work in 13th century castles, 17th century star-shaped artillery fortifications, and even “defense in depth” security architecture promoted today by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and countless other security organizations world-wide.

Security advances throughout the centuries have been mostly technical adjustments in response to evolving weaponry. Fortification—the art and science of protecting a place by imposing a barrier between you and an enemy—is as ancient as humanity. From the standpoint of theory, however, there is very little about modern network or airport security that could not be learned from a 17th century artillery manual. That should trouble us more than it does.

Fortification depends on walls as a demarcation between attacker and defender. The very first priority action listed in the 2017 National Security Strategy states: “We will secure our borders through the construction of a border wall, the use of multilayered defenses and advanced technology, the employment of additional personnel, and other measures.” The National Security Strategy, as well as the executive order just preceding it, are just formal language to describe the recurrent and popular idea of a grand border wall as a central tool of strategic security. There’s been a lot said about the costs of the wall. But, as the American finger hovers over the Hadrian’s Wall 2.0 button, whether or not a wall will actually improve national security depends a lot on how walls work, but moreso, how they fail.

Lots more at the link.

Posted on February 19, 2018 at 4:24 PM • View Comments

Department of Homeland Security to Collect Social Media of Immigrants and Citizens

New rules give the DHS permission to collect “social media handles, aliases, associated identifiable information, and search results” as part of people’s immigration files. The Federal Register has the details, which seems to also include US citizens that communicate with immigrants.

This is part of the general trend to scrutinize people coming into the US more, but it’s hard to get too worked up about the DHS accessing publicly available information. More disturbing is the trend of occasionally asking for social media passwords at the border.

Posted on September 28, 2017 at 7:43 AM • View Comments

Passwords at the Border

The password-manager 1Password has just implemented a travel mode that tries to protect users while crossing borders. It doesn’t make much sense. To enable it, you have to create a list of passwords you feel safe traveling with, and then you can turn on the mode that only gives you access to those passwords. But since you can turn it off at will, a border official can just demand you do so. Better would be some sort of time lock where you are unable to turn it off at the border.

There are a bunch of tricks you can use to ensure that you are unable to decrypt your devices, even if someone demands that you do. Back in 2009, I described such a scheme, and mentioned some other tricks the year before. Here’s more. They work with any password manager, including my own Password Safe.

There’s a problem, though. Everything you do along these lines is problematic, because 1) you don’t want to ever lie to a customs official, and 2) any steps you take to make your data inaccessible are in themselves suspicious. Your best defense is not to have anything incriminating on your computer or in the various social media accounts you use. (This advice was given to Australian citizens by their Department of Immigration and Border Protection specifically to Muslims pilgrims returning from hajj. Bizarrely, an Australian MP complained when Muslims repeated that advice.)

The EFF has a comprehensive guide to both the tech and policy of securing your electronics for border crossings.

Posted on June 1, 2017 at 10:59 AM • View Comments

Programming No-Fly Zones into Drones

DJI is programming no-fly zones into its drone software.

Here’s how it’ll work. The update will add a list of GPS coordinates to the drone’s computer that tells it not to fly around the Washington D.C. area. When users are within a 15-mile restricted zone, the drone’s motors won’t spin up, preventing it from taking off.

If this sounds like digital rights management, it basically is. And it will fail in all the ways that DRM fails. Cory Doctorow has explained it all very well.

Posted on February 12, 2015 at 12:22 PM • View Comments

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Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.