DHS Watchdog OKs 'Suspicionless' Seizure of Electronic Devices Along Border

[Newsjock]

Source: Wired

The Department of Homeland Security’s civil rights watchdog has concluded that travelers along the nation’s borders may have their electronics seized and the contents of those devices examined for any reason whatsoever — all in the name of national security.

The DHS, which secures the nation’s border, in 2009 announced that it would conduct a “Civil Liberties Impact Assessment” of its suspicionless search-and-seizure policy pertaining to electronic devices “within 120 days.” More than three years later, the DHS office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties published a two-page executive summary of its findings.

“We also conclude that imposing a requirement that officers have reasonable suspicion in order to conduct a border search of an electronic device would be operationally harmful without concomitant civil rights/civil liberties benefits,” the executive summary said. (pdf)

... According to legal precedent, the Fourth Amendment — the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures — does not apply along the border. By the way, the government contends the Fourth-Amendment-Free Zone stretches 100 miles inland from the nation’s actual border.

Read more: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/02/electronics-border-seizures/

[Angry Dragon]

1. Police State

Can someone please tell me where the actual terrorists reside??

There goes a shadow we better be afraid

[DJ13]

4. Can someone please tell me where the actual terrorists reside??

[Angry Dragon]

5. Good answer

[X_Digger]

9. Well, since both are within the 100 mile zone, hehe... n/t

[DJ13]

10. eeeek!

[limpyhobbler]

15. LOL!

[Purveyor]

2. That covers my entire state of Michigan! I just don't know what to think anymore about this

Last edited Fri Feb 8, 2013, 10:36 PM - Edit history (1)

country. Just don't know.

[Benton D Struckcheon]

3. Wow. The entire Northeast corridor...

...all of New England, Florida, Michigan (as mentioned), most of New York state, all of NJ, DE, and MD, most of PA, just about the entire populated part of CA...

Nutty.

[X_Digger]

6. Do folks still think that tyranny is impossible in the US? *sigh* n/t

[madrchsod]

7. dam i`m just on the edge of the international border of.....michigan ?

[Fire Walk With Me]

8. We must eliminate DHS and all of its auxiliaries from our country. THEY are the terrorists.

[TheKentuckian]

11. Unwillingness to shut this shit down should mean candidates are no longer "viable".

It is time to put our foot down and quit wringing our hands about TeaPubliKlans and at least clean up our act.

[woo me with science]

18. +100000 Thank you.

[BuelahWitch]

12. "Suspicionless"

So if a DHS agent decided he wanted to give his kid an iPad for Christmas, he could just confiscate yours?

[Newsjock]

13. Border Patrol checkpoints near Yuma nab hordes of pot users headed back from the beach (2008)

http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/content/printVersion/727529 (5,600 words)

... But the vast majority of people getting busted at checkpoints in Arizona near Yuma aren't smugglers or illegal immigrants. They aren't even big-shot partiers like Lil Wayne. They're just average people who happen to be carrying a smidgen of marijuana in their vehicles.

They might never be caught if it weren't for an exception granted the Border Patrol to set up roadblocks with trained dogs. All the Border Patrol checkpoints, not just the ones near Yuma, take advantage of special powers that experts say contradict normal constitutional search-and-seizure rules.

... The Border Patrol is unapologetic about its right turn toward busting hordes of minor drug offenders at the Yuma-area checkpoints. In fact, Jeremy Schappell, spokesman for the Yuma Sector, brags that the agency practices zero tolerance when it comes to any amount of illegal substances or paraphernalia.

"If we get just a pipe, they are getting written up," Schappell says. "If it's a seed, they are getting written up."

[Purveyor]

14. Checkpoint on I-10 around Hudspeth County, Texas is another. Me and my boyfriend found

that out back in 1983 when possession of pot wasn't a hanging offense.

Only time I was ever in jail and did we ever have 'good sex', indeed!

[surrealAmerican]

16. That shaded zone ...

... includes at least 10 states in their entirety, and, I'm guessing, more than half the population of this country.

[X_Digger]

20. 2/3 actually..

197 million folks live within 100 miles of a border, per the census.

[limpyhobbler]

17. I can see why some people prefer to keep their heads in the sand about this stuff.

Really facing up to how we're sliding further into a police state, well it's kind of depressing.

[WinkyDink]

19. Oh, the DHS "civil rights watchdog has concluded"?! Well, ALL-RIGHTY, THEN!