Dear DHS: Bite me.
Categories: Randomness|From news.cnet.com:
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has concocted a remarkable new policy: It reserves the right to seize for an indefinite period of time laptops taken across the border.A pair of DHS policies from last month say that customs agents can routinely–as a matter of course–seize, make copies of, and “analyze the information transported by any individual attempting to enter, re-enter, depart, pass through, or reside in the United States.”
DHS claims the border search of electronic information is useful to detect terrorists, drug smugglers, and people violating “copyright or trademark laws.” (Readers: Are you sure your iPod and laptop have absolutely no illicitly downloaded songs? You might be guilty of a felony.)
Part of their defense is that not being able to search laptops would allow for illegal files to be smuggled. Because we all know that’s the only way to transport files, right? It was so much easier back in the days when computers had floppy drives and you could just carry a little disk instead of having to schlep a whole computer across the border. Good thing for them that no one has devised a way to send those files electronically - just think what might happen!
Is there anyone out there who truly believes the DHS exists to protect us from terrorism, rather than simply being a front to allow our government to seize and collect data on US citizens? Really?
I’m not asking that to be a political question, honestly. Yeah, I’m registered Democrat but probably lean more toward the Libertarian party. And Republicans are supposed to want smaller government - how do the increasingly invasive policies that are being approved figure into that?












