Travelers' Laptops May Be Detained At Border (No Reason Required)

[MrLinus]

From the mentality that brought you 9/11................ sure, professional criminals and trained terrorists keep their CVs and itineraries on such devices............. unencrypted of course.

And don't forget their bomb designs.. oh wait.. You can find those on the internet. What was the point again?

[nihil]

Well, I guess I am cynical, but all the allied intelligence and security forces haven't managed to find Osama bin Laden even with their vast funding and expertise. In fact they haven't even managed to inflict any real setback to Al Quaeda.

I see this current move as a knee jerk by politicians who feel that they "need to be seen to be doing something...anything". Given that any successes would have to be pure chance, I just cannot see how this approach can be in any way cost justifiable?

A senior, trained, professional terrorist just isn't going to carry any incriminating evidence. People actually have memories and the ability to speak to eachother. In the old days human messengers were used to carry military messages................ errrr have we forgotten about the Olympic games and the "marathon" which is supposed to emulate the feat of the messenger who brought news of the battle of Marathon?

Another thing is that intel has a very short shelf-life. Grab a terrorist or his laptop at the airport and the whole cell will know in 30 minutes and just evaporate. Anyway, you can get 8.4Gb on a DVD these days, so you don't even need a laptop to arouse suspicion?................ Assuming, of course that it is possible to buy PCs in the USA?

And please don't try to tell me that the POS they employ at airports would even know how to spell "steganography" let alone detect the difference between an innocent DVD and something altogether more sinister

I am sorry but the whole thing just doesn't hang together for me.

[brokencrow]

...ain't America great?

[nihil]

@ brokencrow,

Yes, She is, as is the fact that American citizens are quite prepared to discuss the shortcomings of their public servants and systems.

Rest assured, whilst you may consider the Americas Cup and the Ryder Cup to be your birthright................... if it came to moronic politicos, we would give you a damn good run for your money.............. now that is a truly international sport...they really should introduce it to the Olympics?

My basic personal complaints are:

1. Legislation of this nature won't work and will be a total waste of funds.
2. Only serves to remove governance and accountability from those who are empowered to enforce the legislation, many of whom are neither elected nor appointed public servants

Incidentally, the UK definition of a civil (public) servant:

"civil to no man, and servant to the Devil"

[brokencrow]

1. Legislation of this nature won't work and will be a total waste of funds.
2. Only serves to remove governance and accountability from those who are empowered to enforce the legislation, many of whom are neither elected nor appointed public servants:eek

Legislation is never a total waste of money. The money's goin' in someone's pocket.
Like my Ol' Man used to say, "In America, it's socialism for the rich and capitalism
for the rest of us." I think he wanted to be a socialist but never had enough money.

And I'm not so sure about #2. In my book, there's only one way to remove governance
and accountability from the empowered: go to law school.

The bureaucrats have a saying here: "We're from the gov't and we're here to help you."