DillMan

Does anyone know if they are able to search my Quibble without cause? Are they able to detain it too?

That is where I draw the line!

halls120

We do. Problem is, it is increasingly under attack by the "security" forces that are supposedly protecting us.

Five years ago, I would have agreed with the following statement - "Extremist Islam is the gravest threat we face."

Today, I agree with the following - "Our increasingly overbroad and unnecessary response to the threat posed by extremist Islam is gravest threat we face."

polonius

More importantly, do naked pictures of Chertoff count as "child porn"?

Superguy

He'd probably deem it illegal though.

Superguy

Minnesota's the only one that has actually ruled that way. It wouldn't hold at a federal level and in other states, though a prosecutor could use that decision to strengthen his/her argument.

The judge clearly blew that ruling as well, which makes it ripe for challenge. Some arguments against it are encrypting financial documents and using encryption on the Internet to secure e-commerce. The judge would have a hard time ruling that those legal and common uses indicate that there is wrongdoing afoot. Additionally, the judge would have a hard time holding that considering the federal government and businesses now as a standard require laptop hard drives to be encrypted.

I'd give a high chance of it being struck down if it ever made it to SCOUTS or that other courts would find differently.

One of the biggest challenges in this country (and the world for that matter) is judges often don't understand technology and it's uses. All of this is fairly new legal territory, and you have a lot of older judges.

Superguy

Methinks someone else has read Schneier's book Applied Cryptography. ^

Superguy

I think that would vary by company. Some posters have said that their companies have told them to cooperate and give them the machine while others said that they were to keep the machine at all costs and try to call legal counsel and the company's security department. It'd be wise to check with your employer before traveling.

Depends on how the software is licensed. Some agreements state that the license is tied to the machine, so if the machine sold, so is the software license. In the case of confiscation then, you'd likely have to buy another license (sucks, I know). Others, like a retail license aren't restricted that way, so you should be able to reload the OS on another PC as you no longer own the first machine. If you got the machine back, you would be in violation and would either have to remove the OS from the second machine or buy another license.

n5667

Within the scope of customs, this isn't really a surprise -- as technology has permeated life to such a degree, searching a laptop is akin to searching a suitcase.

I suppose you could just upload everything -- but since the NSA has their special rooms at telco facilities, it's all moot.

n4zhg

Dubya, he only has one b...
Chertoff, has two but very small
Cheney, has ca-ca stainee
And Hawley has no b...s at all



For those of you going think "Bridge Over The River Kwai" for the music.

Edit -- aka The Colonel Bogie March

n4zhg

They may not count as child porn, but I would personally find them...disturbing...

n4zhg

Chertoff strikes me as the kind of person who takes a shower with his clothes on or the lights off, nakedness offends him so.

GUWonder

While I agree with what you've mentioned, I would say that younger judges are more of a problem than the oldest judges when it comes to rulings favorable for civil liberty protections (even with regard to technology) than mid-life-aged judges or even the youngest judges.

I also am not extremely confident that younger generations who are more connected to technology are necessarily as civil liberties and privacy friendly as people older than them may still be since they are largely data surrender monkeys without recognizing as intrinsically how authoritarian and totalitarian governments behave and how the transition from somewhat open societies to authoritarian and totalitarian governments involves following the course of actions that Cheney and Chertoff find comforting.

PhlyingRPh

The rise of religious fundamentalists/neo-conservatives and agents of a certain foreign country in the U.S. has adversely impacted the rights of Americans in general.

There are judges that are allied with this cabal and in deference to the ideology of religious superiority and murder this troika espouses, they are more than willing to trample over the rights of ordinary Americans.

Global_Hi_Flyer

Be careful. CBP clearly states that obscene material is illegal... the problem is definition of obscene. Playboy should be fine, some other stuff (in the pr0n class) may not be.

http://help.cbp.gov/cgi-bin/customs....i=&p_topview=1

I do note that some things on that list are probably not prohibited - but if CBP is making that list public you can bet some of their "finest" will use it against you.

Deeg

Yup. The old immoral acticles statute: 19 USC 1305. But it is pretty clearly known within CBP that only bestiality and child porn are prohibited. No need to worry about community standards or any of that. The only other class that might be seized would be depictions of violent sexual acts, such as snuff films or (even staged) rape. If you can buy it at your local news stand, it's fine to come in. In fact, a lot of explicit porn magazines are printed in Canada or other countries and imported into the United States.

Edit: All of the items mentioned in the post above are indeed banned by law. (Except perhaps liquor-filled candies. That's a new one to me.)