Posted on 06/28/2008 11:47:40 AM PDT by BGHater
Returning from a brief vacation to Germany in February, Bill Hogan was selected for additional screening by customs officials at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C. Agents searched Hogan's luggage and then popped an unexpected question: Was he carrying any digital media cards or drives in his pockets? "Then they told me that they were impounding my laptop," says Hogan, a freelance investigative reporter whose recent stories have ranged from the origins of the Iraq war to the impact of money in presidential politics.
Shaken by the encounter, Hogan says he left the airport and examined his bags, finding that the agents had also removed and inspected the memory card from his digital camera. "It was fortunate that I didn't use that machine for work or I would have had to call up all my sources and tell them that the government had just seized their information," he said. When customs offered to return the machine nearly two weeks later, Hogan told them to ship it to his lawyer.
The extent of the program to confiscate electronics at customs points is unclear. A hearing Wednesday before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary's Subcommittee on the Constitution hopes to learn more about the extent of the program and safeguards to traveler's privacy. Lawsuits have also been filed, challenging how the program selects travelers for inspection. Citing those lawsuits, Customs and Border Protection, a division of the Department of Homeland Security, refuses to say exactly how common the practice is, how many computers, portable storage drives, and BlackBerries have been inspected and confiscated, or what happens to the devices once they are seized. Congressional investigators and plaintiffs involved in lawsuits believe that digital copies?so-called "mirror images" of drives?are sometimes made of materials after they are seized by customs.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
You have never had a 'reasonable expectation of privacy' when going through customs.
Since when? I'm a free citizen, single, and over 21.
I ALWAYS have 'a reasonable expectation of privacy' and if need be, a shotgun to back that up.
Call before you come over.
/johnny
And I don't need to go to government to establish or support those rights. I have them. God gave them to me. They are mine.
And you can't take them. Neither can the government, local, state, or feral(speeling on purpose). All you can do is kill me.
Governments have powers. I have rights. I have delegated certain powers to government.
And they are WAY too large for their britches right about now.
/johnny
“I ALWAYS have ‘a reasonable expectation of privacy’ and if need be, a shotgun to back that up.”
Um, no, you don’t, at least while going through customs. That’s why they cab xray and search your bags, strip search you, etc. This is old law, as old as the nation. Th point originally was to stop smugglers. After that, it was t keep harmful biologicals out of the country. Now it is also to keep terrorists and bombs out.
Go ahead and try to use you shotgun in a customs stop to “back that up,” and you’ll have a reasonable expectation to be shot and/or spend a LONG time in prison.
A customs stop is NOT your home.
And everything with me, came with me without inspection.
I don't need a passport. I'm not a non-combatant.
/johnny
Silly fool. You’re on Free Republic. Where only the 2nd Amendment means what it says.
And mean enough to move the goats away from the yellowjackets they got into, tough enough to hand a nurse a glass of water as she goes into the delivery room, and bull-headed enough to argue for real Freedom on a public board.
/johnny
If Hogan feels as though his property was wrongly confiscated, then why didn't he get the names of the TSA folks who took his stuff? Why didn't he request some paperwork from the area supervisor with a stamp or signature block?
Aren't most of the TSA agents required to wear nameplates/badge IDs in perfect view of the civilian population they serve? I also believe he could have requested a receipt or some sort of official documentation from them when they took his stuff away.
The idiots who wrote this trashpiece of an article make it seem like "the nameless faces of the TSA took all my stuff away and threatened my life, and scared me and blah blah blah blah blah."
The sad reality is that these losers are shameless in their deceptions and falisifications of reality.
Only a fool would read such garbage and believe it as the truth of the matter.
Do not expect a right to privacy at the border.
law says you don’t have one.
My guess is that they had good reason to suspect this media infiltrator of something, possibly turned up by FISA or surveillance. USNWR used to be a good magazine back in the 70s.
Reuters is the first organization to come to mind whenever I think of the media conspiring with the enemies of the United States and Israel.
Reuters officially published falsified photos in order to sway their audiences against the Israeli Defense Force.
You’re kidding, right? You believe that the only people entitled to constitutional protection are ones that agree with whatever administration is in power? Whew!
The law is an ass. I have the right AND THE POWER to cross borders without inspection. Thousands of illegals do it every day.
And without crossing borders I have right AND THE POWER to do certain things. If congress, assembled, can't figure it out. I'm willing to help. I am willing to exersize my power.
Because they don't have a frigging clue.
/johnny
It’s spooky seeing how so many Freepers do not understand the concept of freedom, if it is a liberal’s freedom that is being infringed upon.
But as I constantly tell people, just wait until Hitlery or Obama are in office and it’s OUR laptops that are being seized, Freep’s servers that are shut down or our email, letters and packages searched because we are part of the vast army of freedom-loving dissenters that will arise when we start lookign like the quasi-police states of Europe.
Freedom is freedom, period, whether it’s our freedom or a liberal’s freedom...
Ed
Everything after that is in God's Hands.
But I am old and grumpy, and I WILL be free, regardless of the whiners.
Only thing they (or my kids) can do to shut me up is to shoot me.
/johnny
True. And once they’ve got physical possession of your ‘puter and or media, there is no guarantee that things you’ve never even imagined won’t show up on them.
No facist government is above planting evidence.
No facist government is above installing spyware.
Met a fellow on a recent trip who had two laptops taken away when entering into South Africa. He doesn’t travel internationally with them any more.
I got flagged for an arbitrary search last fall. When I resisted a search of the company laptop I was advised they could take it away. They checked my digital camera too — nothing but a bunch of lousy tourist shots...
/johnny
I don’t even want electronic krap on the plane with me and that includes everyone else’s. I still remember Pan Am 800. I travel LIGHT, carrying nothing. If you need it where you’re going ship it ahead. There is nothing more boring than sitting next to some clown with a laptop trying to pull up his porn collection. If there is an actual security concern why the bleep is the bozo carrying it thru public places anyway? If all of you would leave you’re gee-whiz gear home maybe we could all get thru an airport before the sun goes down? Every body who thinks he’s a big deal when he gets on a plane raise your hand-—and put your Gyrogearloose gear on the conveyor. I’m all for inspecting your electronic gizmos to the max and it doesn’t bother me if it takes a couple weeks for you to get them back. And that goes double for this whiner.
It’s the only way to be sure...
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