It really blows my mind that Congress will be closing up for the year. Do your fucking jobs that we pay you to do. Outside of teachers, I don't see anyone I know getting to take off for three months. Its not like we have any problems that need to be worked on till next year, I guess.

Skorpius

Never forget the list of options that we Giz readers cooked up when the law first came out.
We'll still have to use those until the Act is passed.

kanon

I've been waiting for this. I've had my laptop searched several times upon re-entering the US from the middle east, and even though there is an easy work-around with true-crypt, it is frustrating to have to use it constantly. Also, I fail to see how these searches are even relevant because we can store data in everything from the S3 server to a local NAS device.

etimy

@johnnyabnormal: Let's be precise here. The are seizing laptops at border crossings. So they're treating your laptop just like any other potential contraband (drugs, people, etc). Traditional 4th Amendment rights don't apply to those things and this pre-dated the Patriot Act.

The problem is that: 1) the border agents' discretion unimpeachable; 2) They don't promise to protect your property or only use it to determine if you have contraband. Meaning, they can upload your whole HD to your CIA file and use it for nefarious purposes. 3) They can keep it for a very long time.

ARP

Its a miracle, a bill that actually directly protects the average person.

Zomb

Always great news - now let's just get it passed.

xxdesmus

Thank god for Gizmodo.

Airline Lobbyists be damned, It was CLEARLY Gizmodo's constant reporting of this issue that singlehandedly brought this about.

crazyshoes

All of this just makes me want to have tubgirl as a screen saver...or worse.

johnnyabnormal

@dead_red_eyes: This I know....it's pathetic, huh?

johnnyabnormal

@Skorpius: Much of Congress needs to go home to campaign for the November election. Adjournment is typically earlier in election years.

nakedmac

@MikeK: I don't think them having a mirror of a harddrive w/ cascaded AES256-Truefish-Serpent is going to do them a whole lot of good.

thecodingeye

24 hours is still too much time away from my laptop. I say they need a court order just to seize it.

AJ_Syrinx

Um. They need a court order to keep it for "more than a day"? How long does it take to make an image of the hard disk that they can then fiddle with for as long as they want?

MikeK

It's sad that we have to actually past an Act to protect our privacy these days.

addiktion

@johnnyabnormal:

Hahaha. You kidding me? The Patriot Act basically takes a shit on the Bill of Rights, then the government throws that all into a brown paper sack, puts it on your front porch, lights it on fire, and then presses your doorbell.

dead_red_eyes

@dead_red_eyes, @Skorpius:
For some blatantly stupid reason, Congress has not yet managed to pass a spending bill before the start of the fiscal year that the bill will be funding. It says something about the way our Government has bloasted. They would probably spend a week discussing wheter or not to intorduce a bill that would raise the salary of the next session's Representatives, and then they would load the bill with tidbits of those dear folk back home.

kanon

@Skorpius:

Well they are closed for 2 days, because of Roshashanna. I think what he means by them closing up for the rest of the year, is that they're closing for the rest of this fiscal year, which the new one starts on October 1st.

[en.wikipedia.org]

dead_red_eyes

This pleases me.

KarinLovesYou

Does "illegal search and seizure" mean anything to anyone anymore?

johnnyabnormal

@crazyshoes: duh.

thnkwhatyouthnk

This will go through eventually because enough people will complain and/or make campaign contributions to supporting Congressmen and get this passed.

bagellord

To everyone listing off their favorite encryption algorithms: One of the provisions was that you could be forced to decrypt material protected in this fashion so that it could be inspected. If you refused, do you think that would make it LESS likely that your laptop would be seized, and that you would be forced to give up your private keys before it would be returned to you?

Mandatory_Field

@AJ_Syrinx: you can be held by the police for something like 24 hrs without being charged... I think holding your laptop for a similar period is similar...

they can copy the encrypted drive if they want... the question becomes whether they can require me to provide the password for them or not.

freelunch

Even a day is too long.

I mean what am I supposed to do if I'm coming home from Canada and they take my laptop with all my vacation photos on it? Drive three hours back up to the Canadian border the next day to pick it up? Stay in a hotel overnight just across the border? Let them ship it to me with inadequate padding and recieve it broken?

They shouldn't be allowed to look at the data on laptops period.

Elliuotatar

Are they gonna read all my notebooks too? What if someone's planning terrible deeds the old fashioned way via ball point pen? Why's it got to be one a laptop? Do they inspect thumb drives?

Atriel

They have no rights to seize the laptop in the first place
i thought laptop was personal belongings unlike some other things as drugs
but i thought usb (thumb) drives were also seized to be investigated...?

I need my laptop for my work (and any usb drive/sticks)
and for my work i need some "illegal" tools to fix others cause without i can't do much sometimes in certain circumstances

TBM-Fan

Why do they even need access to data on anyone's laptop? Secret agents would probably have a different less conspicuous place to store top secret information. So ask yourself again why they need access to YOUR data.

AzaleaBrutus