I stayed up late last night and poured the net for cool flickr links… And if anyone is wondering, the NIN single is encoded VBR.
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ABUSE OF AUTHORITY: Miami-Dade police shoot and kill *FOUR* unarmed black men in 19 days, and are now trying to get the right to carry shotguns – Miami Rally Against Police Abuse What’s wrong with this picture? Everything. Christopher Villano in particular sounds like an asshole. (tags: AbuseOfAuthority shootings) -
MARCH OF THE FLICKR LINKS:
1) find which pictures of your contacts made it to the Explore Page – ["friendscount"] Earlier I posted something to show YOUR explore pictures; this shows YOUR CONTACTS. (tags: flickr)
2) Similr: find photos favorited by people who favorited the same photos you favorited. Great social mashup — You get a page containing all your favorited flickr photos. Click any one, and it looks and sees who else favorited it, and returns photos favorited by that/those person(s).
3) GickR: Create animated GIF using a FlickR username and a tag. I made one out of all the pictures I have tagged “passed out”. This seems like it could be useful in some situations.
4) FlickR: The Internet Inferno: Dante’s Inferno as Flickr pictures – really cool! All levels of hell as described in Dante’s Inferno are transformed into a “bottomless” (just really tall, actually) webpage, where each circle of hell is represented by random flickr pictures chosen by related tags.
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RELIGION: Muslims, but no other religion, gets India-government-subsidized trips to Mecca. But other religions have religious pilgrimages too! Citizens’ petition has failed. India has refused to subsidize any other religions with pilgrimages. This is discriminatory against non-Muslims, and one of MANY examples around the world where the fear of Islamic terrorism has caused governments to appease where they should not be. (tags: Islam appeasement) -
MUSIC: NINE INCH NAILS: free download of the new ‘Discipline’ single They’re pulling a radiohead again! (tags: music free) (HT Glen)
April 23, 2008 at 3:09 PM
In this case, laptops do not fall under the 4th amendment.
In fact, this has absolutely nothing to do with the 4th amendment. Or technology for that matter.
We’re talking about INTERNATIONAL travel here. Ever since I’ve been a child, border/customs agents have had the right to randomly inspect your luggage. This is pretty much the norm in ANY country you travel to. Such searches would include the contents of the luggage. Why should or would a laptop be any different or exempt from such search?
The purpose of border/customs agents is to prevent the entry of illegal items into their country(in this case, the US). This includes child pornography.
Now if we were talking about domestic travel, I would have to agree with you 100%, but we’re not.
April 23, 2008 at 3:19 PM
I see what you’re saying, but this is a deeper issue than mere legal technicality. The spirit of the law and the letter of the law often diverge.
It’s one thing to search your “effects” to make sure you don’t have, say, a bomb. It’s another thing to read every word of your papers (e.g. your diary).
Compare, United States v. Ickes, 393 F.3d 501 (4th Cir. 2005)(a laptop’s information is cargo within the meaning of customs statutes) with United States v. Arnold, 454 F. Supp. 2d 999, 1003-04 (N.D. Cal. 2006)(a laptops search requires suspicion because it is highly intrusive), appeal docketed, No. 06-50581 (9th Cir. June 13, 2007).
Conflicting rulings mean they will take this to the Supreme Court — but the Supreme Court probably wont hear the case, which sucks. 911 hysteria. Considering the successful test runs performed by Homeland Security in smuggling explosives onto planes, it is obvious to me that our security is barking up the wrong tree. Every person searching a laptop COULD be searching for a bomb.
MY POINT BEING, the hole in the law that lost people their original physical privacy/4th amendment rights was the PHYSICAL THREAT that could occur in an airport, which cannot relate to child porn in any way, shape, or form.
Now, the threat of physical threat is used as justification to search papers, and the searching of papers is used to justify the search of … data?!?! That’s quite the house of cards. No information on a laptop is going to be a physical threat to anybody. They are taking a hole in the law that was placed there for a reason — physical threat — and expanding that hole like a gangbanged vagina to incorporate analagous situations with new technology.
That’s exactly the technology war is about — making sure that when equivalent situations change over into technological analogues, that we don’t get to assert the same rights that we had in the physical world.
It’s a land grab for Orwellianism, and they are succeeding.
April 23, 2008 at 4:09 PM
Like I said, I agree with you 100%, in the case of domestic travel. But not international travel. It’s not just a legal distinction.
These are things that were in place way before 911 or any
terrorism hysteria. When you’re traveling internationally, at customs they can search you
for ANYTHING that is illegal to import(without needing to have probable cause). That
includes certain fruits and vegetables, sanctioned items such as ivory, or child
pornography(which would most likely be stored on a laptop).
None of which would constitute a physical threat to anybody.
Im guessing you’ve never traveled internationally before?
This wikipedia page pretty much summarizes it, and I pretty much agree with it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_search_exception
April 23, 2008 at 5:29 PM
P.S. If the rest of the world spread your rectum with a speculum to 3 inches diameter, and America did too — Just because it is accepted worldwide doesn’t mean that it’s right, or that it’s what the definition of freedom that was originally applied to this country was meant to be, or that I wouldn’t blog about it as an abusive invasion of privacy and rectum rights.
May 15, 2008 at 12:55 PM
Big update from Slashdot about the laptop search ruling — basically that the court said a laptop is not “your papers” (it fucking is! I don’t USE paper!):
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/15/1551246&from=rss
Obviously pretty much everybody agrees with me, especially that the constitution applies to all american citizens at all times.
May 15, 2008 at 4:04 PM
The problem here is that you can’t really say the constitution protects you here.
It protects you from “unreasonable” search and seizure. Unfortunately, the constitution doesn’t define unreasonable.
What is completely unreasonable to one person is completely reasonable to another.
If you’re going to leave the country, don’t take anything illegal with you. Or better yet, leave your laptop at home, and rent one when you get to your destination.
May 15, 2008 at 4:13 PM
I definitely see what you’re saying, but I thought I read a comment at the slashdot story that seemed to indicate that the reason the court ruled in favor of the government was not over the word “unreasonable”, but over the word “papers”. That is, they weren’t arguing that it was unreasonable: they were arguing that your files are not the same as your papers, which is wrong.
I can’t claim to know for certain that is the case, though. Too lazy ATM.
Complicating the issue is that they make copies of harddrives during their searches. You know, proprietary information, stuff that can used for identity theft — how about the government running identity theft via black ops against political dissidents? Stuff that can be used for espionage — considering most espionage is industrial espionage, and how close our government works with certain corporations — that becomes quite scary. Patenting a new invention? Don’t take your info across the border, or the U.S. govt can steal your intellectual property and, say, sell it to a chinese company. Or Halliburton. It’s kind of the stuff the 4th amendment was invented to keep from happening.
ANY porn is illegal to take across the border. Got naked pics of your wife? Best email them to your new place.
In fact, if I were to expatriate, I’m not sure how I would get my data out of the country. Considering they have dogs that sniff for burned dvds (you can’t smell legal vs illegal dvds!), and they search laptops …. I’m not sure how to get my terabytes and terabytes of data to another country, should I leave.
The whole situation reeks. Like having your anus spread with a speculum :)
May 15, 2008 at 5:59 PM
I don’t have a problem with laptops being searched. I DO have a problem with copies being retained. And maybe that’s what needs to be challenged.
As far as IP goes, our security department has already made it explicitly clear, that if leaving the country with a laptop, NO company sensitive information is to be on that laptop. Of course this has to do mainly with other governments, but I’m sure many other companies are under the same directive. And certainly any company that does government contracting.
May 15, 2008 at 6:11 PM
(bends over) :-S
June 26, 2008 at 9:21 AM
Yet, Senators in the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Property Rights DO have a problem with laptop searches at the border, for american citizens suspected of no wrongdoing:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/06/25/Senators_question_border_laptop_searches_1.html
* “Senators Russell Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat, and Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, both urged CBP to reconsider its policy that apparently has lead to frequent searches of laptops, digital cameras, and handheld devices at borders.”
* The Association of Corporate Travel Executives found that 7 percent said they’ve had electronic devices seized at the U.S. border
* “EFF does not dispute that the Fourth Amendment works differently at the border,” Tien said. “But ‘differently’ does not mean ‘not at all.’”
June 26, 2008 at 10:44 AM
Update on border laptop searches:
LINK: http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnews/seizinglaptopsandcameraswithoutcause
BACKUP: http://www.badcopnews.com/2008/06/25/us-customs-agents-seize-reporters-laptop-computer-at-dulles-international-airport/
It makes a good point in making the distinction between x-raying one’s briefcase for bombs is NOT the same as copying a laptop’s harddrive.
Your personal effects — papers, and such — do NOT get copies made of them when they search you. But that is what they are doing with harddrives. And the Seante subcommitte on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Property rights agrees with my view on this.
August 1, 2008 at 11:37 AM
Update on border laptop searches:
DHS can keep your laptop indefinitely. And, by the way, they have also said they can search your books and pamphlets — quite LITERALLY, the same papers the 4th amendment says cannot be searched.
And keep in mind the mentality for airport searches is for *immediate safety*.
I guess the pen really is mightier
than the sword!
And, in typical fashion, if you give them an inch, they’ll try to take a mile.
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/01/0958242&from=rss
August 1, 2008 at 1:42 PM
I would like to amend my original statement. While I still believe customs does and should have the right to search a laptop, this DHS stuff is just plain bullshit and over the top.
And before it gets misinterpreted, Clint, your last comment is not bullshit. What DHS is doing and claiming is bullshit.
Search at a border should be allowed. Indefinite seizure and retaining of copies. NOT!
August 1, 2008 at 1:53 PM
I think we can both agree on that, Chriggy :)