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posted by Fnord666 on Saturday January 06 2018, @08:17PM   Printer-friendly
from the just-say-no dept.

Encrypt and lock your electronic devices, because the border agents want to touch them:

Customs officers stationed at the American border and at airports searched an estimated 30,200 cellphones, computers and other electronic devices of people entering and leaving the United States last year — an almost 60 percent increase from 2016, according to Homeland Security Department data released on Friday.

Despite the surge, Customs and Border Protection officials said the searches affected fewer than 1 percent of the more than 300 million travelers who arrived in the United States last year.

Homeland Security officials say border searches are an important investigative tool and are used sparingly by its agents. "In this digital age, border searches of electronic devices are essential to enforcing the law at the U.S. border and to protecting the American people," said John Wagner, the deputy executive assistant commissioner at Customs and Border Protection. Mr. Wagner said the agency was committed to preserving the rights and civil liberties of travelers whose devices are searched.

Also at ABC.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @05:59PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @05:59PM (#619222)

    ding

    hearing 'cloud' and 'safe' is like 'marketing' and 'stupid consumer'

    maybe if we were allowed to sync to our own servers... but like even the mainstream techies with blogs act like knowledge means powerlessness. we're supposed to use the coolest new whatever from apple or google.

    probably they are shills. but knowing that doesnt make it any easier to set up a server that you can sync data to. its not like the fcc guy really cares about letting people mind their own business, and now the isp industry doesn't have to.