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Friday, August 01, 2008

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International Travelers Be Warned: Your Mobile Gadgets May Be Detained At The Border

I’m not trying to make a political point here, instead merely offering this as info for travelers coming into the US. If you’re traveling into the US (citizen or non-citizen) be aware that your laptop, mobile phone, mp3 player, or any gadget “capable of any device capable of storing information in digital or analog form” may be taken for inspection by the TSA. This also includes video, video tapes, books, pamphlets and “written materials commonly referred to as pocket trash or litter.” This practice by the USA’s Transportation Safety Administration has actually been in effect for awhile but now the Department of Homeland Security is actually acknowledging it publicly.

This, like everything since 9/11 is draped in the cloak of national security. Once your gear has been impounded it can be kept for a reasonable period of time. There are reports of this taking quite some time in some instances. Note that this can occur without any suspicion of wrongdoing on your part and that officials may share copies of your data with other agencies.

Via The Washington Post

Tags: TSA

Mobile

8/1/2008 6:01 AM MST

International Travelers Be Warned: Your Mobile Gadgets May Be Detained At The Border Comments [6] | Digg This | del.icio.us | Citations

Friday, August 01, 2008 8:11:05 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

This is only a reason in plus to never visit USA.

Petr

Friday, August 01, 2008 9:20:19 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

This is political, just not partisan. Both parties are equally responsible for nonsense like this. The 3oz bottle rule is merely silly and inconvenient. This one is just plain scary.

DanT

Friday, August 01, 2008 10:21:04 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

Hmmm... I've been on the fence with issues like this since 2001. I travel frequently to Europe and other parts of the world, and have seen things that are better (more traveler friendly) and worse (less traveler friendly) than here in the US. In this case, I have never heard of anything like detaining your mobile devices anywhere, so I am curious to learn whether this is something we are just doing here or if it is done elsewhere.

In any event, it is certainly very discouraging for traveling.

Fernando

Friday, August 01, 2008 11:34:51 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

There is no question that it discourages international travel.

It actually is not new, except in the sense that before 1990 or so, there weren't many "devices" going through airports and those that did required special documentation anyway.

The US Supreme Court has always held that border searches were not subject to Fourth Amendment limitations, and the war on drugs provided a basis for border searches before 9/11.

Paul Harrigan

Saturday, August 02, 2008 9:40:57 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

So if the agent takes a liking to your device, he can seize it in the name of National Security...

Big Brother is here!!

SAM

Sunday, August 03, 2008 5:02:21 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

Hi. Sadly, here in Europe they are too talking about such action. But here main reason isn't security, but controlling piracy: it's supposed they are going to search for movies, songs,etc you have downloaded from internet. Now, how they are going to decide if a track in my minidisk is a downloaded one or one that I have ripped from my legitimate buyed cds is a great mistery for all of us.

Taliesin

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