I don't know about you, but I don't feel one iota safer because of the W, Rove and Co.'s actions since Nine Eleven. Now that I typed that, perhaps I should re-label the circus at the Whitehouse because Rove should be indicted and has been absent for while, but he's still responsible for some very shady and reprehensible, if not unethical, immoral and illegal, political practices (read: signing statements). Let's call the lame duck Whitehouse the Condi and Georgie Show for now. But I digress.
Since Nine Eleven, the common myth is that "we are safer here given that we fought them over there." In reality, the insideous nature of the Condi and Georgie's practice is that we didn't need much saving from the terrorists, more than we needed saving from ourselves. Remember the Fourth Amendment?
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.Well, in Georgie and Condi's America, that goes right out the window.
Federal agents may take a traveler's laptop computer or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed.This clearly falls in to the WTF category? Do you feel safer in George Bush's America? Not me! Turn on your iTunes, click on Mozart's Requiem, and turn it up loud because our rights have died and were downright squashed, spindled, and mutilated by George Bush and his crack team of GOP politicos.
Also, officials may share copies of the laptop's contents with other agencies and private entities for language translation, data decryption or other reasons, according to the policies, dated July 16 and issued by two DHS agencies, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
.....Rex, Rex
2 comments:
All you bits are belong to us
There's no need for the government to confiscate your laptop, they could just 'borrow' it for an hour and clone it. They confiscate to demonstrate the power of the state. By its right name it's called fascism.
Encrypted 1's and 0's pass freely over the internet by FTP or P2P. There's no way the government is going to catch anyone smart enough to do any damage to the state by inspecting cross-border incoming laptops, flash drives, digital cameras, iPods, DVDs, CDRs, or audio and video tapes.
Security is a 'show.' This show is a flop.
Big fat Priority or Express Mail envelope
The basic response from Homeland Security has been: "We can search everything in your suitcase at the border, so we can search everything in your laptop." The new policy, though, highlights one intriguing protection at the border — the policy follows existing law and says "sealed letter class mail" can only be opened with probable cause.
Send yourself a letter.
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