Now it is official.
They can take any electronic device at the border
And do what they want with it
Regardless of what you want.
How does this make us safe even though the REAL threats don't need to carry their data with them? On the information superhighway, borders are speed bump. This is not protection. It is an invitation to rape, and that is not a metaphor. Rape: destroy and strip of its possession
Here's a thought...what makes you think this is just in place at the border?
What happens when you board an AMTRAK train? DHS stops searching?
What happens when they go through the laptop and find legal consults?
What happens when they go through the laptop and find commercial secrets?
What happens when they go through the camera and find porn?
What happens when they grab the ipod with downloaded music?
How do you know evidence won't get planted?
Are you skilled enough in computer forensics to defend against that?
This is a con job. Just like Total Information Awareness. Which, by the way, was run for quite some time by a convicted FELON... but I am sure Admiral Poindexter learned the errors of his ways and stopped raping the constitution years ago.
If TIA was really working to catch criminals (and terrorists are nothing but piratical criminals) they could demonstrate it to everyone's satisfaction without compromising any of the internal workings of their system.
How? Shut down cocaine trafficking. We know where the stuff comes from. We know how it gets here. I won't belabor you with the math. If you are interested, you can see my reasoning, here. and the hardcore math here. I was informed my bottom line number was a bit off, but the conclusions were spot on.
The bottom line: if their system was capable of finding just ONE terrorist plot... it should be able to shut off 50% of the cocaine traffic. The coast guard ALREADY interdicts between 30% and 50% of the cocaine coming in. Between the two, that would be a death blow to blow. But it hasn't happened. Why? Because that is not what this system is about. You know it. I know it. It's about building a national network of names for total control in the event of a government emergency. Sure, that sounds paranoid, but I remind you that last summer the NSA computer farm almost shut down because of lack of power in the surrounding power grid. You think they are just playing solitaire? Do you really think COINTELPRO died? You really think TIA died? You still believe in Santa Claus?
Here's what will happen when they start grabbing phones: They will not need to hold them longer than their backlog of scanning the chip. They have a database already, so now they can drop those new phone numbers in keyed to the number of the phone they grabbed... and voila!... you just added a small social network to the national database.
So, they find you called the ACLU, or some other equally suspicious group -- maybe the Quakers. Now EVERYONE YOU KNOW is in the database and they are going to be flagged for search. The tentacles reach further, they get their hooks in deeper.
And if you are still foolish enough to think that only "bad people" will be caught up in this snare, I have two words for you: False Positive. That would have special meaning for all the people on the NO FLY LIST because their names are CLOSE to someone else's.
And here's another thing... the data you get out of a process is only as good as the data you put in. What happens if someone makes a mistake entering data? Have you ever had an official document with your name spelled wrong on it? Sure, you could change it if you knew about it. But what happens when you don't?
The Nazis would have given their left nut to have this level of intrusive technology. Yet we are called conspiracy nuts for wondering why Halliburton is building "detention camps" that sit idle?