Surely the authority of the customs people to inspect vessels or
vehicles applies only to those that have been outside the United States?
Anyway, there was an amusing thing in the news a few months ago. Some
guy came into the US from Canada and somehow the customs people
learned that there was kiddy porn on his laptop computer and arrested
him. However, the files were encrypted, and even the feds were unable
to break the encryption and prove it. Courts ruled that the defendent
could not be required to give up the key to the code. (I suspect this
might have been a deliberate test case, with the offending image
deliberately out where the customs inspector would see it.)
Drive them crazy. Get PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) and encrypt lots of
perfectly innocent stuff on your computer. Don't use some wimpy
encryption facility that comes with your operating system; it is
probably not NSA-proof. (Actually, of course, unless you deliberately
do something to make them suspicious--not recommended--, it is
extremely unlikely that they'll ever check.) It would be really nice
if it was easy and convenient to encrypt everything, including all
voice communications. But almost nobody really cares about his
privacy. Witness all those people who travel around with their cell
phones turned on, making it possible to track them in real time.
--Mixon
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A fearless man cannot be brave.
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