He was brown.
A few inches shy of 6 feet tall and well-dressed in a tailored suit, my guess was that he was of Lebanese origin given his easy command of French, English, and Arabic… but regardless, he was standing in the US citizen line at the airport immigration checkpoint.
I don’t know exactly what was said between the man and the border patrol agent, but the encounter was brief; within 30-seconds he was being escorted to the secondary screening room.
Given that I had briefly chatted with this gentleman on the plane from Tokyo while waiting for the lavatory in the business class cabin, I considered him to be a ‘single-serving friend’ and felt comfortable enough to approach him later when I saw him later waiting for his wife.
“What happened back there?”
“Oh, typical. He asked me how long I was gone and if I had purchased anything while abroad… I said ‘6-weeks’ and ‘no,’ which must have set something off, so they sent me to the back room.”
“Yeah I’ve been there… it’s big fun. But you weren’t in there for too long.”
“No- it was quick. I hadn’t sat down for more than 2 minutes before they called my name, asked me some questions, and said they would need to search my laptop. Naturally I complied, you have no rights in there, and I just wanted to get home as quickly as possible.”
“So did they seize your computer?”
“No, they told me to log in to my computer. I did…. then one guy, he was really fat, disappeared with my laptop for about five minutes. When he came back they escorted me down to baggage claim, sent me through the ‘red line’ to inspect my checked bag, and that was it. The whole thing was over in 15-20 minutes.”
I was floored.
Not because the US government is detaining its own citizens and inspecting their most private possessions without reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing, but because of the speed and efficiency with which they are now doing this.
I have long believed that in the United States there are two places where civil liberties do not exist– tax court and the airport.
In the former, the IRS has the full authority to put the habeas grabbus on whatever assets they feel like with a ‘presumed guilty until you go broke proving your innocence’ burden of proof.
Airports though, in my opinion, are even more draconian.
Under the catch-all auspices of anti-terrorism, the government’s border and airport security agencies have been dealt an enormous amount of authority to go along with their intimidation tactics; thanks to a recent ruling by US Court of Appeals, border agents have nearly unlimited latitude over personal effects, including laptops:
“The authority of the United States to search the baggage of arriving international travelers is based on its inherent sovereign authority to protect its territorial integrity. By reason of that authority, it is entitled to require that whoever seeks entry must establish the right to enter and to bring into the country whatever he may carry. . . Therefore, we are satisfied that reasonable suspicion is not needed for customs officials to search a laptop or other personal electronic storage devices at the border. “
Subsequent to this ruling, US Customs and Border Protection issued its own policy regarding search authority:
- Officers may, without reasonable suspicion, detain documents, electronic devices, or copies thereof for a ‘reasonable’ period of time to perform a thorough border search, which may take place on-site or at an off-site location;
- In the event that contents are unreadable or encrypted, officers may enlist the support of other agencies for translation and/or decryption assistance;
- Content that may constitute trade secret, commercial information, or even attorney-client privilege are still subject to search and seizure.
The singular exception to this rule is ‘sealed letter-class mail’, the international equivalent of First Class– sealed letters that are presently within an international postal system (NOT including private carriers like FedEx or DHL) cannot be searched or seized without a warrant or consent.
I will also be discussing some savvy encryption solutions in future letters; in the meantime, though, be mindful of what you bring along during international voyages– except for the ‘mail loophole’ I mentioned above, just about anything you bring into the country can be searched and seized without reasonable suspicion.
