A travel industry group has called on the US government to halt its use of new machinery that remotely reads government issued identification cards at border crossings until the safety of the new system can be better understood...

"We think there's a significant risk down the road of people being tracked by these static unique ID numbers," Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told The Register. "How hard is it to harvest numbers and associate them with people's names?"

Agents along the Canada and Mexico borders are using a controversial new machine that can "read" the personal information contained in some government-issued ID cards — such as passports and driver's licenses — as travelers approach a checkpoint...

"There's this strange rush to a fancy or shiny new technology," says Lee Tien of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The cards "are quite vulnerable" to being cloned or having their codes broken.

Since 2007, in a "quiet" reversal of a two-decades-old policy, US customs officials have been able to read and copy personal documents of people -- including US citizens -- not suspected of wrongdoing that enter the United States, two civil rights organizations said Tuesday...

"Your laptop computer likely contains a massive amount of private information such as personal e-mails, financial data or confidential business records," said EFF lawyer Marcia Hofmann.
"The Department of Homeland Security has given its agents increasingly broad authority to search, copy, and store that information. Congress needs to step in now to stop these invasive practices and protect travelers," said Hofmann.

The U.S. government has quietly recast policies that affect the way information is gathered from U.S. citizens and others crossing the border and what is done with it, including relaxing a two-decade-old policy that placed a high bar on federal agents copying travelers' personal material, according to newly released documents...

Marcia Hofmann, staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said that laptop computers may contain "a massive amount of private information such as personal e-mails, financial data or confidential business records" and that the government should not violate travelers' constitutional rights in the name of national security.

A bid by the US government to force a child porn suspect to surrender his encryption password has sparked fierce debate about whether the move violates constitutional protections against self-incrimination.

On one side of the issue are civil libertarians from such groups as the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. They argue the Fifth Amendment, which protects suspects from government demands to testify against themselves, extends to passwords because they're stored in a suspect's head.

"The last line of defense really is you holding your own password," Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney at the EFF, said.

Travelers beware: U.S. agents now have the authority to seize and retain laptops indefinitely, according to a new policy detailed in documents issued by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

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The DHS document, issued July 16, appears to state publicly a policy that has already existed. Laptops and electronic devices have been subject to search in the past, and travelers have reported not getting their devices back. The policy has drawn strong criticism from lawmakers and nonprofit groups, who charged that the searches were invasive and a violation of an individual's privacy rights. Computers contain a vast amount of private information about family, finances and health, which could be easily copied and stored in government databases, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has complained.

The New Yorker magazine cover cartoon this week shows a turban–wearing Barack and gun–toting Michelle Obama in the White House. An American flag burns in the fireplace. The New Yorker says the cartoon satirizes the worst scare tactics being used against Obama. Obama's campaign manager calls it tasteless and offensive. What do you think?

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And for the past 18 months, immigration officials at border entries have been searching electronic files on some citizens' laptops and cellphones when they return from international trips. Civil rights groups say it's unconstitutional and they want the Department of Homeland Security to stop.

Guests

Lee Tien is a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco. He testified in favor of a probable cause standard for laptop searches at a Congressional hearing last month.

Bill Hogan was returning home to the U.S. from Germany in February when a customs agent at Dulles International Airport pulled him aside. He could reenter the country, she told him. But his laptop couldn't.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents said he had been chosen for "random inspection of electronic media," and kept his computer for about two weeks, recalled Hogan, 55, a freelance journalist from Falls Church, Va.

Fortunately, it was a spare computer that had little important information. But Hogan felt violated.

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Said Lee Tien, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, "People keep their lives on these devices: diaries, personal mail, financial records, family photos. . . . The government should not be able to read this information."

The oft-maligned Transportation Security Agency (TSA) has earned a reputation for ridiculous overreach, confiscating fingernail clippers, tweezers and assorted benign implements on the grounds it could be used to hijack an airplane.

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The government's position appears to be that you have no right to know what the rules are, despite a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and repeated attempts by a Florida law firm to find out.