29th
DHS Laptop Search Policy
So, DHS gets it: our laptops allow us to carry our lives around with us, and losing them is not only a tremendous inconvenience, but raises legitimate fears of exposing irrelevant personal information.
Just because they get it, however, doesn’t mean that they’re going to act upon that knowledge in any significant manner. The new policy statement sets a few standards and limits for what they do with hardware and data, but doesn’t really change the dynamics of the seizures.
So, for example, the document states that the owner of a device should be present when its contents are examined, but carves out so many vague exceptions—”unless there are national security, law enforcement, or other operational considerations that make it inappropriate to permit the individual to remain present”—that it’s not clear that the principle would have any practical impact. In the same manner, it lays out the principle that the hardware should be returned to its owner as soon as possible, but only “when appropriate, given the facts and circumstances of the matter.” And that’s after the agent has been given the opportunity to copy all of the device’s data.
Why is this Benjamin Franklin quote:
Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety
In my head right now?
Well done America, “Land of the Free!”
