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CNN and a a lot of other outlets are reporting that JPL engineer Sidd Bikkannavar, an American-born citizen, was detained at the border when returning from racing solar powered cars overseas.
The border guards demanded he turn over his government-issued NASA phone and its PIN and held him in their detention area.
Bikkannavar also was interviewed by The Verge:
"It was not that they were concerned with me bringing something dangerous in, because they didn't even touch the bags. They had no way of knowing I could have had something in there," he says. "You can say, 'Okay well maybe it's about making sure I'm not a dangerous person,' but they have all the information to verify that."
Bikkannavar says he's still unsure why he was singled out for the electronic search. He says he understands that his name is foreign — its roots go back to southern India. He didn't think it would be a trigger for extra scrutiny, he says. "Sometimes I get stopped and searched, but never anything like this. Maybe you could say it was one huge coincidence that this thing happens right at the travel ban."
Land of the free? Home of the brave?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 15 2017, @07:52PM
I think what you're hinting at is while, "corporate security may demand you unlock your mobile/laptop for inspection upon leaving," they cannot actually *make* you unlock said device. They cannot keep said device either, actually. Your response might be, "Call a cop and let's see if you can hold me here or steal my laptop from me, OK?" if you're willing to burn your bridges with said company. If cops actually do show up, the company can present all the NDAs and pre-inspection authorizations but would tell security, "This is her laptop, she is free to go with it unlocked or otherwise, and your requirements are a civil and not criminal matter." And a corporation that says, "Oh, we'll just take this from you then..." will surrender it once person calls police and police informs security that this would be prosecutable theft, if any security department were stupid enough to try that. At least in states where security officers are always private citizens and never sworn officers. The corporation relies on you [or your company] needing the other corporation's good will to make any inspections stick.
Or they can have rules like at one place I interviewed at: No cameras, no cell phones, no laptops not owned by the company allowed on the premises. (They also didn't really have out-of-company visitors there.) It was an age before portable hard drives and USB sticks, but absolutely no 3.5 disks allowed offsite - if you needed to take data home, you had a company issued laptop. All cell phones were dumb then, too, but still not allowed. And because the only laptops allowed on premise carried the company property stickers (checked for on entrance and exit,) the machines were company property and searchable at any time without cause.
The government, on the other hand, has the force of law to say, "You ain't gonna unlock it? Then you ain't crossing the border. And you ain't leaving the border checkpoint until you do." Fair, especially to a citizen? Hell, no. It should be, "No warrant, no proximate suspicion of crime, no way." But it isn't. And we are so scared of teh terrorists and teh copyrights violatorz and teh haxxors that we let that bullshit stand.
Of course, it may just *just* be that as a JPL employee he has a security clearance. And it may just *just* be that someone in the FBI or other TLO with jurisdiction has a reason they wanted that engineer stopped and searched. Which might not have anything to do with a weird last name and everything about a JPL engineer doing overseas travel.