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from the sudden-outbreak-of-common-sense? dept.
The US Customs and Border Protection agency has updated its guidelines for electronic border searches, clarifying what remain broad and potentially invasive procedures. The directive was published today [ January 5, 2018], and it adds new detail to border search rules that were last officially updated in 2009.
Officers can still request that people unlock electronic devices for inspection when they're entering the US, and they can still look through any files or apps on those devices. But consistent with a statement from acting commissioner Kevin McAleenan last summer, they're explicitly banned from accessing cloud data — per these guidelines, that means anything that can't be accessed while the phone's data connection is disabled.
The guidelines also draw a distinction between "basic" and "advanced" searches. If officers connect to the phone (through a wired or wireless connection) and copy or analyze anything on it using external devices, that's an advanced search, and it can only be carried out with reasonable suspicion of illegal activity or a national security concern. A supervisor can approve the search, and "many factors" might create reasonable suspicion, including a terrorist watchlist flag or "other articulable factors."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 08 2018, @09:02PM (2 children)
A few years back I tried to take a photograph in a post office - the counter worker wasn't comfortable with that and informed her supervisor, her supervisor proceeded to feed me BS and a half about how photographing in a federal building is illegal (this, in front of their own video monitoring cameras.) Now, your choices are:
1) feign compliance with the supervisor and make everybody at the scene happy, or
2) walk away and dare them to call the cops and trump up whatever trouble they can invent for you.
I went with 1), being Texas I'm sure there is a long list of imaginary charges waiting for any circumstance in which the perp has pissed off "one of the good people," regardless of how made up the "good people's" supposed infractions are.
TSA vs US Post Office, I can only assume from their outward demeanor that the TSA is 100x worse.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by legont on Tuesday January 09 2018, @01:22AM (1 child)
Just the other week I tried to make a picture of my package at the post office in NYC after the postage sticker was attached to it. (why? to email to my friend as a "proof" - a joke it was) I was not allowed and told that it's against the rules and the only thing I can have for the proof is my receipt. Given the total paranoid state of authorities, I did not question it.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 3, Touché) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday January 09 2018, @03:07AM
Makes me want to wear Google Glass every time I walk into a post office, just to piss them off...
🌻🌻 [google.com]