Laptop-Beschlagnahme an US-Grenze - BPB Business Podium Boards: Offshore, Firmengründungen, Beruf & Karriere

tropico · #1 (**permalink**) 03.08.2008, 07:11

Laptop-Beschlagnahme an US-Grenze

Washington (AFP) - Im Bemühen um den Schutz ihrer Grenzen beharren die USA darauf, Grenzschützern das Beschlagnahmen von Laptops auch unverdächtiger Reisender zu gestatten. "Seit der Republikgründung haben wir immer schon weit gehende Rechte bei Überprüfungen an der Grenze gehabt, um die Einreise gefährlicher Personen und Güter zu verhindern", begründete die Sprecherin des Heimatschutz-Ministeriums, Amy Kudwa, die Maßnahme. Im 21. Jahrhundert sei die gefährlichste Schmuggelware meist in elektronischen Medien gespeichert, betonte sie. "Das Zeitalter der Mikrofilme und Papierakten ist lange vorbei."

Das Heimatschutz-Ministerium hatte im Juni Dokumente veröffentlicht, in denen Grenzbeamten erlaubt wird, auch ohne das Vorhandensein eines individuellen Verdachts die von Reisenden transportierten Informationen zu analysieren. Demnach dürfen Dokumente und elektronische Geräte wie Laptops "für eine vernünftige Zeitdauer" zur Untersuchung zurückbehalten werden.

Mit den Kontrollen ohne Vorliegen eines konkreten Verdachts versuche das Heimatschutz-Ministerium die US-Grenze zu einer "verfassungsfreien Zone" zu machen, kritisierte Tim Sparapani von der Bürgerrechtsorganisation ACLU. Der Überführung Krimineller nütze das Beschlagnahmen von Laptops nicht: Kein kluger Terrorist werde gefährliche Bilder oder Dokumente auf seinen Computer oder sein Handy laden, sondern solche Daten auf einem Server ablegen, wo sie nach der Einreise in die USA zugänglich wären, sagte Sparapani. Der US-Senator Russ Feingold bezeichnete die Kontrollen als "bedenklich" und als "grobe Verletzung der Privatsphäre".

Schlimmer geht´s immer ...

tropico · #2 (**permalink**) 03.08.2008, 07:28

WASHINGTON — Federal agents can confiscate your laptop, cell phone or iPod at the border without suspicion of wrongdoing under a recently disclosed U.S. government policy that’s provoking outrage from business travelers and civil libertarians.

“If you don’t want information on your laptop to be seen by the U. S. government, don’t bring it across the border,” Susan Gurley, executive director of the Association for Corporate Travel Executives, said on Friday. “We cannot warn people enough.”

Gurley’s group worries that the government can seize or copy electronic information without just cause when Americans return from overseas — and that sensitive corporate secrets could fall into the wrong hands as a result.

But the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which published the policy July 16 after lawmakers asked that it be made public, insisted the broad authority to conduct searches on electronic equipment is necessary to root out terrorists and child pornographers.

“The danger is legitimate,” said Amy Kudwa, a department spokeswoman, who noted that the confiscation of electronic devices in pursuit of wrongdoers affects only “a very small population.”

Under the policy, “officers may detain documents and electronic devices, or copies thereof, for a reasonable period of time to perform a thorough border search. The search may take place on-site or at an off-site location.”

If, after the review, investigators find no reason to keep any of the information they retrieve from electronic devices, they have to destroy it, the policy says. But it offers no specifics for how long agents have to review information and return laptops and other electronic devices to their owners.

The policy — available at http://www.cbp.gov/linkhandler/cgov/..._authority.pdf — affects all international travelers when they return to the United States not only at land borders but also on overseas flights.

Kudwa said she didn’t know how long the policy has been in effect, but it has raised questions in the travel industry for 18 months.

In a recent survey of its members, Gurley’s business travel group found that 44 percent of respondents had changed their corporate travel policies because of possible border searches.

Only three of the 100 respondents said an electronic device belonging to their company had been seized at the border this year.

But the business travelers still expressed widespread fears; 72 percent said they worried that data seized by the U. S. government was at risk of being compromised.

“We have reduced travel significantly to almost zero” in response to the policy, another respondent said. “We no longer trust U. S. territory to be secure.”

The policy doesn’t apply just to business travelers, either.

“This policy is especially difficult for people who live near the border and travel back and forth for business or pleasure,” said Greg Nojeim, general counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology. “Now they have to think about purchasing a clean laptop just so the government can take it for a few days without damaging their business or revealing personal details about their lives. And that’s just what some travelers are doing.”

The New York Civil Liberties Union and Muslim Advocates, a San Francisco-based group, said they worry that travelers of Arab or South Asian descent may be particularly vulnerable to unwarranted searches.

A federal appeals court, nevertheless, recently upheld the policy, which the government describes as necessary and harmless.

“During border inspections of laptops, [Customs and Border Protection] officers have found violent jihadist material, information about cyanide and nuclear material, video clips of Improvised Explosive Devices, pictures of high-level al-Qaida officials, and other material associated with people seeking to do harm to our country,” Jayson Ahern, deputy commissioner, says on the Customs and Border Protection Web site. “Border searches also have uncovered intellectual property rights violations and child pornography.”

Although the policy allows searches “absent individualized suspicion,” agents actually conduct inspections only when they have some reason to believe that the devices should be examined, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said in a recent USA Today opinion piece.

And Jim Phillips, president of the Lewiston-based Canadian/ American Border Trade Alliance, said he has not heard any complaints about the policy from people who frequently cross the border.

In Congress, however, complaints are growing.

Sen. Russell D. Feingold, DWis., called the policy “truly alarming” and added, “I am more convinced than ever that legislation is needed in order to protect law-abiding Americans from this gross violation of privacy.”

Feingold said he plans to introduce such legislation soon, and Rep. Brian Higgins, D-Buffalo, said he would consider pushing the bill in the House.

“I would call this an outrageous obliteration of civil liberties,” Higgins said of the policy.

Chertoff, however, warned that legislation limiting the searches could cause a “dangerous, chilling effect” that would deter border agents from making searches they ought to make.

“We cannot abandon our responsibility to inspect what enters the U. S. just because the information is on an electronic device,” he said in his USA Today commentary. “To do so would open a dangerous window for terrorists and criminals to exploit our borders in new and unacceptable ways.”

Themen-Optionen
Druckbare Version zeigen Jemanden per E-Mail auf dieses Thema hinweisen
Ansicht
Linear-Darstellung Zur Hybrid-Darstellung wechseln Zur Baum-Darstellung wechseln