[IP] U.S. Agents Seize Travelers' Devices

[David Farber]

________________________________________
From: Sashikumar N [sashikumar.n at gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2008 1:46 PM
To: David Farber
Subject: U.S. Agents Seize Travelers' Devices

Dear Prof Dave,
Happen to read this link from slashdot, this is a disturbing news, a
direct assault on privacy...shocking that this could be real.

regards
sashi

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/06/AR2008020604763.html
Clarity Sought on Electronics Searches
U.S. Agents Seize Travelers' Devices

By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 7, 2008; Page A01

Nabila Mango, a therapist and a U.S. citizen who has lived in the
country since 1965, had just flown in from Jordan last December when,
she said, she was detained at customs and her cellphone was taken from
her purse. Her daughter, waiting outside San Francisco International
Airport, tried repeatedly to call her during the hour and a half she
was questioned. But after her phone was returned, Mango saw that
records of her daughter's calls had been erased.

A few months earlier in the same airport, a tech engineer returning
from a business trip to London objected when a federal agent asked him
to type his password into his laptop computer. "This laptop doesn't
belong to me," he remembers protesting. "It belongs to my company."
Eventually, he agreed to log on and stood by as the officer copied the
Web sites he had visited, said the engineer, a U.S. citizen who spoke
on the condition of anonymity for fear of calling attention to
himself.

Maria Udy, a marketing executive with a global travel management firm
in Bethesda, said her company laptop was seized by a federal agent as
she was flying from Dulles International Airport to London in December
2006. Udy, a British citizen, said the agent told her he had "a
security concern" with her. "I was basically given the option of
handing over my laptop or not getting on that flight," she said.
<snip>

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