US Immigration

[Guest]

Have any of you guys been hassled by US Immigration officials when you got back from an Asian trip?

I have been pulled aside twice now and had to answer questions about where I had been, why I went there, who I was with, etc. On both occasions I had to open up my suitcase for them to go through. One inspector asked me if he could look at the pictures in my camera! I said he could, and he did. Of course, I had the 'good' chip in my pocket, so all he saw was scenery!

The second time it happened, in SFO, the guy looking at my passport wrote "BCC" in big letters on my Customs declaration form and waved me over to another inspector.

Anybody had a similar experience? What, if anything, did you do about it?

[SukhumvitRoad]

There are a lot of reports on almost every Thai-related forum of similar occurrences. For my part, I have to tell you that I think the odds against something like that happening to any particular individual on any particular trip are pretty high.

I have been back and forth between Thailand and the US more than a half dozen times every single year for over twenty years. The only time anyone in authority ever made any comment to me about Thailand was once when I encountered an Immigration guy whose wife was Thai and he wanted some advice about retiring in Thailand. That's it. Never stopped, never searched, never questioned in something like two hundred entries at virtually every US port of entry. One man's experience.....

[kahuna]

Yep...on several occasions they have gone through my suitcase and my laptop in SFO...no big thing takes a few minutes and your off...I have nothing to hide...

What did I do about it??? There ain't nothing you can do about it...file a complaint with your congressperson (the kahuna is always politically correct)?  It's their job to catch pedophiles...and singling out single guys coming from LOS is a good place to start the search...

[johnlbx]

I enter the US through SFO and they are well know for searching single guys coming from SE Asia. I've had varieties of searches, the most thorough included all the pictures in my laptop, in my camera and my whole video tape.

I don't take any x-rated pictures, and nothing even r-rated except a few of my girlfriend sitting on the bed topless. Customs came across them and called over other agents so everyone could get a nice look.

As a white male I've heard about racial profiling but it hasn't happened to me... but now I have the feeling of what it's like for someone in the government to totally invade your privacy without any probable cause and and you can do is take it. It's a sobering experience.

What the customs officer does is ask simple questions and look for signs that you're not telling the truth. If he thinks your hiding something it will encourage him to look further. So always tell them the truth (but don't volunteer anything). Say "I went to Thailand to visit some friends", not "I went to Thailand to visit some ladyboy friends". Such a comment will only get him curious and delay your trip through customs or worse yet you may admit to doing something that you didn't know was illegal.

[post-op lover]

What about the 4th Amendment, if you don't allow them to access your laptop? I'm curious what happens next.

POL

[rxpharm]

somehow I get the feeling that justification of "Homeland Security" can trump the 4th amendment - but you would probably have to sue after the fact. Remember the story of the woman who had to remove her dangerous nipple rings before boarding her flight?

[Lefty]

PDX is a pretty good place to go through customs. There are only 2 international flights a day coming in there, (I think), one from Norita and one from Mexico City, so perhaps it is not a place with as many hard ass officers. Also, perhaps the number of entry stamps they see for the past year in one's passport for a place such as Thailand, may be a criteria by which they decide to hassle someone.

[BAM]

I use to fly down from Toronto to LAX and then out to Asia. I've been searched 3 times for drugs in LAX on my return trips. They're never very nice about anything... always pricks. The guy asked me what did I do in Thailand... I said €˜had a vacation' they guys says "oh really?" then I get searched...  they never looked at my computer or camera.. Just the typical residue swipes run through a Barringer Ionscan 400. What they don't know is I worked for a company in the 1980's that pioneered this technology. Fed up with the US pricks and the retarded TSA workers that should really be working the door at a Chuck E Cheese I decided that I didn't even have to go through the USA to get to Thailand... on my last trip I flew from Toronto to Paris, France and then onto Bangkok. It was kool to fly around the world the other way. I had no problem at all in France... the French have class and welcome you with open arms...  Funny thing about the Paris Airport was how laid back everything was... I didn't see any police at all however felt very safe there... not like LAX where even with all the cops you still feel like a bombs about to go off any second.

I just can't explain to you how much I hate LAX. It use to be the part of all my trips I dreaded the most... getting through LAX. What's with that Airport anyway... the area they search you in looks like the basement of the Bradley Int'l Terminal ... the whole place is a fucking disaster...and it's been like this for years... have you seen the computers they are using... the stuff looks like it was picked out of a garbage dump. I've been through a lot of different airports world-wide and LAX is a total shithole.

[johnlbx]

(post-op lover @ Mar. 29 2008,21:42) What about the 4th Amendment, if you don't allow them to access your laptop? I'm curious what happens next.

I'm not a lawyer so I could be wrong on this but I don't know if you're technically in the US until you pass through customs, so you're not under normal US law.

Even if that weren't the case there has to be implied consent to be searched if you want to enter a country, any country. The duties of the customs officers can only be done if they can search at will -- they have no time to build a case and call up a judge an get a search warrant on every passenger of a 747 that just arrived.

If you refuse to have your laptop searched Customs will simply keep it and have their own people search it and maybe one day you'll get it back (and maybe in pieces).

There was a recent hubbub about a fellow who had his laptop seized. He was a businessman and fit the terrorist profile and his concern were that confidential company documents were now out of his hands. If customs starts seizing laptops on a regular basis then business travelers will no longer be able to carry their laptops with them on international flights (if they keep company confidential information private). This will harm business.. and so on.

[Torurot]

Of laptops and US border searches
Feds seek unfettered access
Page: 1 2 3 Next >
By Mark Rasch, SecurityFocus → More by this author
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008....earches
Published Monday 24th March 2008 09:02 GMT


and particularly the comments at
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008....omments

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_v._Royer

the US Constitution applies everywhere in the US.. even airports.

you may also wish to review (especially all footnotes, or start at #10):

http://supreme.justia.com/us/461/352/case.html

[buttafly]

This happens to me all the time, at least 20 since 2000

 no probs, check me all you want, I have nothing to hide  

[SamplerDoc]

Great Thread Guys.

I can only offer a theory to You. Perhaps you somehow got on a Flag List and thats why you are getting repeat searches.  It does happen for a variety of reasons.  I had on sunglasses traveling into Canada by car one day (was that kinda drizzle and sunny day in combo going on), The Guy he demanded the glasses come off and I did not hear him at first and he had to repeat it.  Well off to get the car searched, I mean 3 guys looking everywhere and I was questioned about job, income, home etc.  

I was very put off by this and commented to one of the guys watching me as the car was searched and asked why, since I know i am squeakey clean.  Anyrate, man said in reply, "He is a prick and having another bad day, he does this to people often".  Just another reason why these things happen, just because they can do it

Then on the other hand flying all over the Asia area and back to the States and Canada, never had a problem.  Matter of fact, I have always been just waived thru not even a question just a welcome back and off I go.

We could only guess as to why these things happen I suppose.  Hope this helps too

[buttafly]

(SamplerDoc @ Mar. 29 2008,20:39) Perhaps you somehow got on a Flag List and thats why you are getting repeat searches.  

I am on this list

    My first trip to Asia was in 1998; went to Thai, Cambo and Vietnam, when the last 2 were really just opening up to western tourism in big numbers..... got into Detroit after 11 hours from  Tokyo, the customs looks at my passport and says "Thailand, Vietnam and Cam .....  errr, can you come with US,  sir?"

   This was before 9/11 but I still got strip-searched and even a full-body cavity search  {yes, rubber gloves and all} and all my shit x-rayed..... of course had nothing to hide, I guess they were looking for Opium or some shit.

 Also, 2 years ago, I brought back a ton of shit from panthip plaza, never even gave it a thought but all those 3 dollar hacked movies were "illegal" of course because of copyrights.....so now when I go anywhere, even Jamaica or Mexico, I get the luggage search and 3rd degree.  I take it well, again I have nothing to hide and I am not a smuggler so they can search me all they want and I NEVER keep porn on my laptop, even clear all the cache before I land!

 {Don't want them to know I visit the  LB Forums!!}

[post-op lover]

Here's a story from the New York Times.

POL



January 7, 2008
Sidebar
If Your Hard Drive Could Testify ...
By ADAM LIPTAK

A couple of years ago, Michael T. Arnold landed at the Los Angeles International Airport after a 20-hour flight from the Philippines. He had his laptop with him, and a customs officer took a look at what was on his hard drive. Clicking on folders called "Kodak pictures" and "Kodak memories," the officer found child pornography.

The search was not unusual: the government contends that it is perfectly free to inspect every laptop that enters the country, whether or not there is anything suspicious about the computer or its owner. Rummaging through a computer's hard drive, the government says, is no different than looking through a suitcase.

One federal appeals court has agreed, and a second seems ready to follow suit.

There is one lonely voice on the other side. In 2006, Judge Dean D. Pregerson of Federal District Court in Los Angeles suppressed the evidence against Mr. Arnold.

"Electronic storage devices function as an extension of our own memory," Judge Pregerson wrote, in explaining why the government should not be allowed to inspect them without cause. "They are capable of storing our thoughts, ranging from the most whimsical to the most profound."

Computer hard drives can include, Judge Pregerson continued, diaries, letters, medical information, financial records, trade secrets, attorney-client materials and €” the clincher, of course €” information about reporters' "confidential sources and story leads."

But Judge Pregerson's decision seems to be headed for reversal. The three judges who heard the arguments in October in the appeal of his decision seemed persuaded that a computer is just a container and deserves no special protection from searches at the border. The same information in hard-copy form, their questions suggested, would doubtless be subject to search.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, Va., took that position in a 2005 decision. It upheld the conviction of John W. Ickes Jr., who crossed the Canadian border with a computer containing child pornography. A customs agent's suspicions were raised, the court's decision said, "after discovering a video camera containing a tape of a tennis match which focused excessively on a young ball boy."

It is true that the government should have great leeway in searching physical objects at the border. But the law requires a little more €” a "reasonable suspicion" €” when the search is especially invasive, as when the human body is involved.

Searching a computer, said Jennifer M. Chacón, a law professor at the University of California, Davis, "is fairly intrusive." Like searches of the body, she said, such "an invasive search should require reasonable suspicion."

An interesting supporting brief filed in the Arnold case by the Association of Corporate Travel Executives and the Electronic Frontier Foundation said there have to be some limits on the government's ability to acquire information.

"Under the government's reasoning," the brief said, "border authorities could systematically collect all of the information contained on every laptop computer, BlackBerry and other electronic device carried across our national borders by every traveler, American or foreign." That is, the brief said, "simply electronic surveillance after the fact."

The government went even further in the case of Sebastien Boucher, a Canadian who lives in New Hampshire. Mr. Boucher crossed the Canadian border by car about a year ago, and a customs agent noticed a laptop in the back seat.

Asked whether he had child pornography on his laptop, Mr. Boucher said he was not sure. He said he downloaded a lot of pornography but deleted child pornography when he found it.

Some of the files on Mr. Boucher's computer were encrypted using a program called Pretty Good Privacy, and Mr. Boucher helped the agent look at them, apparently by entering an encryption code. The agent said he saw lots of revolting pornography involving children.

The government seized the laptop. But when it tried to open the encrypted files again, it could not. A grand jury instructed Mr. Boucher to provide the password.

But a federal magistrate judge quashed that subpoena in November, saying that requiring Mr. Boucher to provide it would violate his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Last week, the government appealed.

The magistrate judge, Jerome J. Niedermeier of Federal District Court in Burlington, Vt., used an analogy from Supreme Court precedent. It is one thing to require a defendant to surrender a key to a safe and another to make him reveal its combination.

The government can make you provide samples of your blood, handwriting and the sound of your voice. It can make you put on a shirt or stand in a lineup. But it cannot make you testify about facts or beliefs that may incriminate you, Judge Niedermeier said.

"The core value of the Fifth Amendment is that you can't be made to speak in ways that indicate your guilt," Michael Froomkin, a law professor at the University of Miami, wrote about the Boucher case on his Discourse.net blog.

But Orin S. Kerr, a law professor at the George Washington University, said Judge Niedermeier had probably gotten it wrong. "In a normal case," Professor Kerr said in an interview, "there would be a privilege." But given what Mr. Boucher had already done at the border, he said, making him provide the password again would probably not violate the Fifth Amendment.

There are all sorts of lessons in these cases. One is that the border seems be a privacy-free zone. A second is that encryption programs work. A third is that you should keep your password to yourself. And the most important, as my wife keeps telling me, is that you should leave your laptop at home.

Beginning Jan. 15, Adam Liptak's column will appear on Tuesdays. Online: Documents and an archive of articles: nytimes.com

[Guest]

Jeez, Buttafly! After your story, I shouldn't be complaining!