Re:My phone was searched at LAX, which apparently is the new...
by kvark on Friday April 07, 2017 @09:48AM
(#14059570)
The difference is that information is easy to store and copy. When they search your luggage, they don't take anything from you. When your cell phone data gets scanned and copied to their servers, it's there forever. You have no control over who reads it, sells it, steals it - to use against you or anyone you contacted afterwards.
Re:My phone was searched at LAX, which apparently is the new...
by nraynaud on Friday April 07, 2017 @09:52AM
(#14059604)
because they are copied and stored indefinitely without any promise of not spilling the content. And also that's the kind of thing that leads to an entire village in Yemen to be killed, women and children included, in the middle of the night by the Navy Seals.
Re:My phone was searched at LAX, which apparently is the new...
by LordWinstanley on Saturday April 08, 2017 @04:47AM
(#14066022)
There's also a delicious irony in the fact the border agents would no doubt claim not to be stealing your data, but merely making a copy of it --while at the same time the US is extraditing people from around the world, to charge them with piracy, for copying music and movie files. In which case, it seems, copying data is theft.
How is searching a phone any different than customs searching all luggage inbound to the US. How are the contents of digital devices considered to be sufficiently different that they don't warrant a cursory scan, if not automatic scan?
Then it comes down to, what exactly could you scan for anyway? Could they do short term scan/records and delete upon leaving the country or short duration? Where is the justification for doing this to citizens of this country or countries not considered to an active threat?