| Laptop hunt is open |
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| Thursday, 26 October 2006 | ||||
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A lot of troubles are actually concerning business travellers and all those who cannot leave their laptop home when moving by airplane: the airline bomb scare that happened in London last August provoked a lot of restrictions about the items allowed on board, but the problem was partially solved through the use of memory sticks or of those phones which have the double-function as “mobile/pocket PC”. Last news from the United States, however, make us guess that from now on it could become even more complicated to carry technology around: any person crossing US borders could have his or her laptop confiscated and analyzed by authorities… and not only lap tops: Flash drive devices , memory sticks, and Ipods containing any kind of personal information could be subjected to unmotivated inspection. The legitimacy of this procedure is quite debated, anyway: according to a sentence emitted last july “no convincing reason ,suspect or warrant is needed” to justify the confiscation and analysis of a PC’s content. Actually, such judgement was pronounced in a case of children pornography, where random inspections of laptops have yielded evidence of possession of child pornographic images on the hard drive of a passenger’s laptop, but in spite of the specific nature of this case, the sentence has been considered as a precedent for these measures’ supporters.
On a more recent case, however, a Californian court ruled that laptop searches were a serious invasion of privacy. “People keep all sorts of personal information on computers,” the court said, dealing with diaries, personal letters, financial records, lawyers’ confidential client information and reporters’ notes on confidential sources. That court ruled, in that specific case, that “the correct standard requires that any border search of the information stored on a person’s electronic storage device be based, at a minimum, on a reasonable suspicion”, the NY Times reported. "The common belief is that there is a right to the privacy of one's computer. Yet it appears that there is none" commented Miss Gurley referring to the fact that the object of the controversy is to determine an exception in custom laws to allow –under the “homeland security reasons” - those perquisitions that anywhere else in the country would be impossible to carry out. “The issue is what happens to the proprietary business information that might be on a laptop. Is information copied? Is it returned? We understand that the U.S. government needs to protect its borders. But we want to have transparent information so business travellers know what to do. Should they leave business proprietary information at home?” Miss Gurley added. The problem indeed is of primary importance for various reasons: first of all such new measures could have an effect on how international business is conducted , representing a disadvantage for economic stability. Then, it would be extremely restrictive for private users as well: any device could be temporarily confiscated and scrutinized or subject to forensic analysis, with unspecified implications that is impossible to foresee now.
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