Posted on 06/25/2008 8:50:13 PM PDT by Babu
Two U.S. senators called on U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to back off its assertion that it can search laptops and other electronic devices owned by U.S. citizens returning to the country without the need for reasonable suspicion of a crime or probable cause.
Senators Russell Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat, and Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, both urged CBP to reconsider its policy that apparently has lead to frequent searches of laptops, digital cameras and handheld devices at borders.
"If you asked [U.S. residents] whether the government has a right to open their laptops, read their documents and e-mails, look at their photographs, and examine the Web sites they have visited, all without any suspicion of wrongdoing, I think those same Americans would say that the government has absolutely no right to do that," said Feingold, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Property Rights. "And if you asked him whether that actually happens, they would say, 'not in the United States of America.'"
In a February survey of its membership, the Association of Corporate Travel Executives found that 7 percent said they've had electronic devices seized at the U.S. border, said Susan Gurley, executive director of the trade group. It can take weeks to have those devices returned, and the seizures can disrupt the owners' work and require companies to buy costly replacements, she said.
Half of the survey respondents said a seizure of an electronic device could damage their standing within their companies, Gurley said. "These devices constitute the offices of today," Gurley said.
(Excerpt) Read more at pcworld.com ...
So do I... and FEINGOLD, of all people??? Who’da thunk it???
I’ve read they catch a lot of child porn pervs by doing this. Evidentially, they travel overseas to exploit children.
I’m with ‘em too.
Feingold’s one of the most principled people in DC of either party, so it’s no surprise reasonable people occasionally agree with him.
How many posts until someone slams the Dem. Senators for questioning the laptop searches?
This is wrong but it only affects morons.
The smart man knows where and in what form to keep his important data.
Feingold is one of the stupidest men in Congress. He outranks Harry Reid, Dickless Durbin, Smucky Schumer, Ted The Orca, John the Frenchman Kerry, Leaky Leahy,and a whole lot of others.
If he actually protests about something because it is wrong, it is because he is like a broken clock, which is right twice a day no matter what.
He’s not smart enough to actually think something thru, and that is the danger he poses. He is clueless. He is more dangerous to American security than is Bin Laden.
We will eventually capture or kill BL, ending his threat, but Feingold, like an old whore, just keeps on truckin’.
Senator Feingold is not stupid. He is a Rhodes Scholar and he graduated from Harvard Law School with honors. He's probably smarter than 90 percent of the people in DC.
Yes, he's probably the most liberal person in the Senate, and yes, he has an extremely naive worldview. These lead him to take the wrong position (in my opinion) on most issues. But he is clearly not stupid, and comments like yours only discredit you.
What’s the difference between full car searches, searches of packages and searches of laptops?
4th Amendment.
Feingold is pretty good on civil liberties.
Arguably, laptops might contain more personal information than would a search of your car. If the police search my car at the border, they'd find a tennis racquet and a set of golf clubs and a blanket and a few other odds and ends.
On the other hand, a laptop might well contain a lot of very personal information, including emails or letters to/from lovers, financial information, diaries, etc. It makes sense to set a higher bar for these types of searches that are more likely to uncover items that are extremely personal.
“...both urged CBP to reconsider its policy that apparently has lead to frequent searches of laptops, digital cameras and handheld devices at borders.”
Here’s the problem. The fascist federal bureaucracy is illegally writing laws, and the senate is begging these fascist pigs to change the law. So what’s wrong with this picture?
We are guaranteed, by our constitution, the right to choose our representatives - those who write laws - via the ballot box. When those we elect write laws we don’t like, we have the option of removing them via the ballot box. We don’t have that option with unelected bureaucrats, thus, our representative republic has been short-circuited, and we have been robbed of our most important right - elected representation through the ballot box.
Unelected bureaucrats writing law is one of the primary features of a dictatorship. And there are only two methods of removing dictators.
We are far down the road toward a dictatorship and a much needed confrontation with the criminal fascist syndicate occupying Washington.
4th Amendment doesn’t apply at the border.
All packages and letters entering the US are subject to search. Even your body cavities are subject to search. There’s no reason to believe that anything that enters the US from outside the country, from email to computer files to phone calls, is not subject to search just because it’s electronic data and it might contain personal information. If you bring anything into the country, you should go through Customs with the idea that it will be inspected.
Even your body cavities are subject to search.
This is an undecided question, but the Supreme Court has hinted that such searches are improper without heightened suspicion.
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