Ladywriter
August 8th, 2008, 02:37 PM
From the Desk of Caroline Fredrickson
Director, ACLU Washington Legislative Office
Traveling shouldn't mean checking your rights when you're
checking your luggage:
http://action.aclu.org/site/R?i=d1HVx5YpSQjI5oAzJyFI4w..
*************************************************
Dear ACLU Supporter,
Planning a vacation? Thinking about traveling outside the country?
If you travel outside the United States, you can kiss your right to
privacy, and perhaps your laptop, digital camera and cell phone,
goodbye.
With no suspicion and no explanation, the U.S. government can seize
your laptop, cell phone, or PDA as you enter the United States and
download all your private information -- including your personal and
business documents, emails, phone calls, and web history. The
Department of Homeland Security confirms that this is the official
policy.
Tell Congress: it's time to rein in travel abuses by the
Department of Homeland Security.
http://action.aclu.org/site/R?i=KuwLW1JIDYYTs0wLHj3aRQ..
What happens if you refuse to let the agents download your personal
photos? Or if you have encrypted your private information? Then Border
Patrol -- which is now an agency of the Department of Homeland
Security -- can simply copy your entire hard drive or even take your
device and hang on to it indefinitely.
Unfortunately, seizing laptops and cameras at the border isn't
the only travel security measure that infringes on our civil
liberties.
Just last month, the U.S. government's "terrorist watch list"
surpassed one million names and is growing by over twenty-thousand
names per month. The watch list includes the names of prominent
people, like Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA), plus hundreds of thousands of
ordinary Americans -- many of them with common names like Robert
Johnson and James Robinson. Your name might be on the list, but
there's no way to know for sure until you are delayed -- or even
detained for hours in a back room. If you discover your name is on the
list, it's nearly impossible to get off. It actually took an Act of
Congress to get Nelson Mandela off the list. No joke. An Act of
Congress.
These abuses have something in common: They make all of us into
suspects, with no rule of law and no accountability.
Tell Congress: it's time to rein in travel abuses by the
Department of Homeland Security.
http://action.aclu.org/site/R?i=se4V4JbZosWmTxuDAk_BmQ..
It's hard to know what surveillance-state bureaucrats will come
up with next. For instance, many airports are using scanners that are
so invasive that they are like a virtual strip search! See-through
body scanning machines are capable of showing an image of a
passenger's naked body. Security measures like this are extremely
intrusive -- and should only be used when there is good cause to
suspect that an individual is a security risk.
And recently, the TSA expressed interest in having every traveler wear
an "electro-muscular disruption" bracelet that airline personnel or
marshals could use to shock passengers into submission. Unless
something is done, this plan may not be as far-fetched as one would
think.
Tell Congress: it's time to rein in travel abuses by the
Department of Homeland Security.
http://action.aclu.org/site/R?i=fS4KKpshMTvJlNng-OLUMw..
Traveling shouldn't mean checking your rights when you're
checking your luggage. It's time for some sanity when it comes
to security. Please, speak out now.
Caroline Fredrickson, Director
ACLU Washington Legislative Office
P.S. Many Americans don't know about these travel abuses. Please
forward this email on to anyone you know who travels and ask them to
take action, too.
© ACLU, 125 Broad Street, 18th Floor New York, NY 10004
Director, ACLU Washington Legislative Office
Traveling shouldn't mean checking your rights when you're
checking your luggage:
http://action.aclu.org/site/R?i=d1HVx5YpSQjI5oAzJyFI4w..
*************************************************
Dear ACLU Supporter,
Planning a vacation? Thinking about traveling outside the country?
If you travel outside the United States, you can kiss your right to
privacy, and perhaps your laptop, digital camera and cell phone,
goodbye.
With no suspicion and no explanation, the U.S. government can seize
your laptop, cell phone, or PDA as you enter the United States and
download all your private information -- including your personal and
business documents, emails, phone calls, and web history. The
Department of Homeland Security confirms that this is the official
policy.
Tell Congress: it's time to rein in travel abuses by the
Department of Homeland Security.
http://action.aclu.org/site/R?i=KuwLW1JIDYYTs0wLHj3aRQ..
What happens if you refuse to let the agents download your personal
photos? Or if you have encrypted your private information? Then Border
Patrol -- which is now an agency of the Department of Homeland
Security -- can simply copy your entire hard drive or even take your
device and hang on to it indefinitely.
Unfortunately, seizing laptops and cameras at the border isn't
the only travel security measure that infringes on our civil
liberties.
Just last month, the U.S. government's "terrorist watch list"
surpassed one million names and is growing by over twenty-thousand
names per month. The watch list includes the names of prominent
people, like Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA), plus hundreds of thousands of
ordinary Americans -- many of them with common names like Robert
Johnson and James Robinson. Your name might be on the list, but
there's no way to know for sure until you are delayed -- or even
detained for hours in a back room. If you discover your name is on the
list, it's nearly impossible to get off. It actually took an Act of
Congress to get Nelson Mandela off the list. No joke. An Act of
Congress.
These abuses have something in common: They make all of us into
suspects, with no rule of law and no accountability.
Tell Congress: it's time to rein in travel abuses by the
Department of Homeland Security.
http://action.aclu.org/site/R?i=se4V4JbZosWmTxuDAk_BmQ..
It's hard to know what surveillance-state bureaucrats will come
up with next. For instance, many airports are using scanners that are
so invasive that they are like a virtual strip search! See-through
body scanning machines are capable of showing an image of a
passenger's naked body. Security measures like this are extremely
intrusive -- and should only be used when there is good cause to
suspect that an individual is a security risk.
And recently, the TSA expressed interest in having every traveler wear
an "electro-muscular disruption" bracelet that airline personnel or
marshals could use to shock passengers into submission. Unless
something is done, this plan may not be as far-fetched as one would
think.
Tell Congress: it's time to rein in travel abuses by the
Department of Homeland Security.
http://action.aclu.org/site/R?i=fS4KKpshMTvJlNng-OLUMw..
Traveling shouldn't mean checking your rights when you're
checking your luggage. It's time for some sanity when it comes
to security. Please, speak out now.
Caroline Fredrickson, Director
ACLU Washington Legislative Office
P.S. Many Americans don't know about these travel abuses. Please
forward this email on to anyone you know who travels and ask them to
take action, too.
© ACLU, 125 Broad Street, 18th Floor New York, NY 10004