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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
Speaker 1: tech stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hi there,
Speaker 1: welcome to the podcast. My name is Chris Poulette. I'm
Speaker 1: an editor here at how Stuff Works, and today I
Speaker 1: have next to me writer extraordinariy Jonathan Strifland. Oh you're
Speaker 1: just trying to butter me up before we get into this. Yes, Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I wanted to go at this little different.
Speaker 1: We have sort of a sensitive topic to uh to
Speaker 1: discuss today. But you know, you do a lot more
Speaker 1: traveling than I do. I do a lot of traveling,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, there was one other thing I
Speaker 1: was thinking about, and that's how the government is changing
Speaker 1: the way we travel with our electronic devices. For for example,
Speaker 1: for example, one of the things that I saw not
Speaker 1: too long ago was that the government is now allowing
Speaker 1: special kinds of laptop bags, which, of though, is really
Speaker 1: cool because you know, I'm like before, if you don't
Speaker 1: travel that much, what they make you do is if
Speaker 1: you're flying, you have to take your laptop out of
Speaker 1: your laptop bag. And the reason for that is if
Speaker 1: you've got I guess they assume that you have handheld
Speaker 1: pd A, you've got cell phone, you've got an iPod,
Speaker 1: you've got you know, all these other things, and they're
Speaker 1: your game boy, your PS three or a D that
Speaker 1: you have. You know that you're gonna and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: they can't really see if the laptop itself is what
Speaker 1: you say it is, So you take it out of
Speaker 1: your bag. And you know, if you're like me when
Speaker 1: Jonathan traveled to c E S with me this past year,
Speaker 1: you had to watch me as all the junk fell
Speaker 1: out of my bag and you know I had to
Speaker 1: struggle to put everything back in. Well, now you don't
Speaker 1: have to do that. You don't have to take your
Speaker 1: laptop out of the bag. You can buy especially made
Speaker 1: bag and it basically, I guess, zips in half so
Speaker 1: that you have one section that has the laptop in,
Speaker 1: but you you open it like a clamshell so that
Speaker 1: they can the the t s A agents can scan
Speaker 1: it without you having to remove it, and then you
Speaker 1: can just put it back together and zip it back up.
Speaker 1: You're gone. You have to worry about all this stuff.
Speaker 1: It doesn't Yeah, it's designed so that things like your
Speaker 1: power chord and other things that might be in the
Speaker 1: bag don't obstruct their view of the laptop. That was
Speaker 1: the main problem with with regular bags was that there
Speaker 1: could be other stuff there and when you're looking at
Speaker 1: the X ray, you don't have a real clear view
Speaker 1: of the laptop. That's why you had to take it out. Well,
Speaker 1: these bags are designed so that it gives you a
Speaker 1: really clear view of that laptop. You want the security
Speaker 1: people to get a good look at the laptop, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, you don't want to arouse any suspicions. Oh,
Speaker 1: they'll get a good look at your laptop before I
Speaker 1: get into this, um, before before I before I go
Speaker 1: off here. Yeah, you might wanna might want to put
Speaker 1: up the fireproofing. UM. First of all, we should go
Speaker 1: ahead and say that what we're gonna talk about here
Speaker 1: is international travel. This does not uh, this does not
Speaker 1: cover interstate travel. UM. You can travel anywhere within the
Speaker 1: United States and you're going to be you're not gonna
Speaker 1: have a problem with what we're about to talk about.
Speaker 1: But if you are going out of the country are
Speaker 1: coming back into it, there could be some issues. That's
Speaker 1: because the Ninth Circuit Court in San Francisco has essentially
Speaker 1: made a ruling that states that border patrol officials federal
Speaker 1: agents can confiscate and withhold any and all electronic devices
Speaker 1: that you may have with you and search them for
Speaker 1: any and all evidence of a crime. Now that and
Speaker 1: without probable cause. There needs to that you don't have
Speaker 1: to look like you or shifty. You don't have to
Speaker 1: you know, fit a profile. In fact, profiling is specifically
Speaker 1: one of the things they're trying to avoid doing, although
Speaker 1: there's arguments over whether or not that's still happening. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well they'll probably stop you anyway then, um yeah, whether
Speaker 1: you're a United States citizen or not a citizen. Uh,
Speaker 1: they can the government official can take your electronics, um
Speaker 1: and search them for evidence of a crime. Now, one
Speaker 1: of the big issues here is that it's not easy
Speaker 1: to find evidence on electronic devices, especially if you know
Speaker 1: what you're doing. If you know what you're doing, you
Speaker 1: can hide evidence. So it takes time. You know, you
Speaker 1: can't just boot up and say, well, let me look
Speaker 1: at the file directory and see if there's something on
Speaker 1: there like blow up the world dot com or you know.
Speaker 1: It's not that simple, right, So that means that often
Speaker 1: that will have to take it to an off site facility,
Speaker 1: and they can hold it for as long as they
Speaker 1: need to, until they're satisfied that they have completely and
Speaker 1: thoroughly searched your devices. And you don't get them back
Speaker 1: until they're done, and you may never get them back.
Speaker 1: And and it's any crime, it's not even a specific crime.
Speaker 1: So theoretically they're looking for something that might clue them
Speaker 1: into two terrorist activity area in the in the Washington
Speaker 1: Post that Secretary Michael Churdoff said that UM terrorists materials
Speaker 1: are often found on laptop computers are often electronic materials,
Speaker 1: which is I guess what prompted them to make this
Speaker 1: this ruling, you'd think, except that the case where this
Speaker 1: ruling came from, which was Arnold versus the United States
Speaker 1: of America. By the way, Arnold lost um to a
Speaker 1: three nothing decision, no less, a unanimous decision by the
Speaker 1: Ninth Circuit Court. Um. It was actually a child pornography case.
Speaker 1: And child pornography is horrible. It's terrible, it's a blight,
Speaker 1: but it also serves as a great way to champion
Speaker 1: this kind of approach of taking devices away without any
Speaker 1: probable cause. Now, in that case, Arnold was coming in
Speaker 1: from the Philippines UM and officials saw some stuff that
Speaker 1: looked kind of suspicious to them, so they decided to
Speaker 1: look at his lap top and see if there was
Speaker 1: any evidence of child pornography on there. And that's what
Speaker 1: kind of precipitated this whole discussion. So we are talking
Speaker 1: any crime now. Granted, the spin on this is yes,
Speaker 1: you know, we're looking for for signs of terrorist activity
Speaker 1: or or plans to try and head it off. And
Speaker 1: and that's a very noble thing. You don't you know,
Speaker 1: you don't want terrorists to act within your country, obviously,
Speaker 1: but it's it's a blanket that covers everything. So let's
Speaker 1: say they take your your iPod and they think, hey,
Speaker 1: there's no way that this bald headed, tattooed guy has
Speaker 1: Britney Spears album on his iPod. He there's no way
Speaker 1: he bought this. He must have downloaded it from a site.
Speaker 1: And they can look through everything and if they think
Speaker 1: that you have violated but stolen material on your laptop,
Speaker 1: you could be prosecuted for that. You know, I don't
Speaker 1: know where. You know, you're gonna have to get rid
Speaker 1: of the illegal Britney Spears on your iPod. Yeah, Christina
Speaker 1: Aguilar's next. But you know it's not even limited. You know.
Speaker 1: Under further reading, I realized it's not just your iPod,
Speaker 1: your flash drive, your computer. They can actually take paper
Speaker 1: materials from you and do the same things. Anything paper,
Speaker 1: even your pocket where they're calling pocket trash, you know,
Speaker 1: post it note with something written on there that might
Speaker 1: give them a clue that you're up to something. Um,
Speaker 1: you know the part where it says download a legal
Speaker 1: copy of Christina Aguilera. They can take your digital camera. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: they can take your cell phone. They take your cell
Speaker 1: phone and and search it, get all the contacts off
Speaker 1: of it. I mean this, this extends far beyond just
Speaker 1: the individual who's under surveillance at this point. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's everyone that that person has come into contact with
Speaker 1: electronically essentially. It's it's it's mind blowing. Let me ask
Speaker 1: you this. Yes, I've read some articles that suggested that
Speaker 1: people in other countries. Um, the side I founded on
Speaker 1: was I think actually the CBC, the Canadian broadcasting company.
Speaker 1: They were talking about how, um, people who are you know,
Speaker 1: people in Canada and United States along the border. They
Speaker 1: a lot of times work closely employees of multinational corporations
Speaker 1: do a lot of travel, um, and in this particular case,
Speaker 1: they were saying that the corporations were starting to warn people,
Speaker 1: you know, look, be careful what you take with you,
Speaker 1: because if they take it and you don't get it back,
Speaker 1: then you know, you're stuck. And you know, if they
Speaker 1: don't happen to have if they don't have any probable cause,
Speaker 1: if there's nothing on it, but they still take it
Speaker 1: because they have some suspicion that there's something going on.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, your business computers gone. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: do you think this will hold up under pressure from
Speaker 1: international organizations uh, you know, international corporate entities or governments
Speaker 1: that pressure and say, look, you know, of the people
Speaker 1: that you're going to to uh to investigate are probably
Speaker 1: to be okay, right. I don't know the exact numbers, obviously,
Speaker 1: but you know most the majority of people are all right.
Speaker 1: So do you think that they'll soften it somewhat or
Speaker 1: or something like that? You know, I hope, so, I really,
Speaker 1: I really and truly hope. So. But I know that
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of businesses are already taking
Speaker 1: the approach of this is going to happen so let's
Speaker 1: try and plan for it, which is is a terrible
Speaker 1: thing in my mind because essentially it means that you're
Speaker 1: resigned to the fact that this is going to happen. Um.
Speaker 1: But uh yeah, I hope that pressure from both inside
Speaker 1: and outside the United States will will cause people to
Speaker 1: rethink this decision and revisit it. Um. It was the
Speaker 1: Ninth Circuit, so it could go higher. But this was
Speaker 1: the second court in a row to to make this
Speaker 1: particular decision, which second appeals court, which does not bode well.
Speaker 1: Usually if there's two appeals courts that that make the
Speaker 1: same decision, it's not going to go higher than at
Speaker 1: It rarely gets to the Supreme Court in that case. Okay,
Speaker 1: So I'm let's say I'm traveling internationally and I'm not
Speaker 1: up to something, but I have something that I might
Speaker 1: want to keep private, like I don't know, like a
Speaker 1: patent that I'm I'm considering applying for a secret invention
Speaker 1: that i've you know, hope they'll make me millions of
Speaker 1: dollars or is just not gonna work. I'm telling you, dude,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be fine. Or maybe it's a screenplay or
Speaker 1: a book that you know, or love letters or anything,
Speaker 1: or love letters to your freezer. Ay, sure you know
Speaker 1: that I just would rather not everybody have a chance
Speaker 1: to look at But you know that's not anything bad
Speaker 1: or or that I'm really worried that we'll get me
Speaker 1: convicted of some kind of crime. What would I do?
Speaker 1: All right, Well, there are a few things you can
Speaker 1: do now we had health stuff works. Of course, don't
Speaker 1: condone any criminal activity. This is really just talking about
Speaker 1: a concern for privacy. But at home kids, right, let's
Speaker 1: let's leave it to the professionals. Something like that. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: there are a few things you can do, okay, such
Speaker 1: as Oh, the easy one would be, I don't know,
Speaker 1: leave it at home. Yeah, leaving it at home would
Speaker 1: be a good choice. Um, leaving it at home if
Speaker 1: you if you if you absolutely don't need it, uh,
Speaker 1: and you don't you know, if you're worried about losing it,
Speaker 1: then I guess you can leave it at home. Now. Granted,
Speaker 1: that's a bad choice for anyone who's traveling for business
Speaker 1: or really does need their equipment. There are other choices.
Speaker 1: One of them is to partition your hard drive UM
Speaker 1: and put in a dual level of encryption. This is
Speaker 1: essentially hiding information on your computer. The first level of
Speaker 1: encryption is meant to allow someone the opportunity to say, hey,
Speaker 1: there's some stuff on this computer, and then they can
Speaker 1: you know, you can give them the log in or
Speaker 1: password or make them figure it out if you are
Speaker 1: really mean. But once they get into that level, they
Speaker 1: look around see that there's nothing really bad there, and
Speaker 1: then they don't even see the partitioned second encrypted level.
Speaker 1: That's where you keep all your secret stuff, so false
Speaker 1: bottom in your hard drive, right, you know, and and
Speaker 1: you know, I know this sounds really sneaky. Um, but
Speaker 1: one of the points a lot of the critics of
Speaker 1: this policy make is that the bad guys are already
Speaker 1: doing this stuff. This is really hitting the people who
Speaker 1: just don't know how this works. So, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: kind of a tricky situation. But there are other things
Speaker 1: you can do. You could you could wipe your computer
Speaker 1: absolutely clean. You could save everything to the cloud. Uh
Speaker 1: we've talked about cloud computing several times in this podcast.
Speaker 1: But save it to the cloud, wipe your computer clean.
Speaker 1: You go through the border, and when you get to
Speaker 1: where you're going, you can go reconnect to the cloud
Speaker 1: and get your information again, and same thing. When you're
Speaker 1: coming back, you'd have to wipe it, you know, save
Speaker 1: it to the cloud, wipe your computer again, and travel.
Speaker 1: It's sort of like the digital equivalent of an offshore
Speaker 1: account where you store all your you know, see create
Speaker 1: funds or whatever. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, And I mean
Speaker 1: it's it's it's tough to say that you have to
Speaker 1: go through these sort of precautions, but if if it's
Speaker 1: a real concern of yours, if you're worried about losing
Speaker 1: your electronic devices for an indeterminate length of time, it
Speaker 1: might be worth pursuing. Yeah, and uh, you know something
Speaker 1: else to think about too. Not only would we not
Speaker 1: recommend that you try it, but if you think about it,
Speaker 1: if you try something like that, especially if you're not
Speaker 1: guilty of something, it's gonna make you look guilty. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true. Um So, yeah, you have to balance out
Speaker 1: that that privacy versus the risk of bringing more suspicion
Speaker 1: on yourself. And that's a tough situation. So if you
Speaker 1: want to read more about this subject, check out our
Speaker 1: article Can the Government take my laptop away? At how
Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com and we'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 1: Give me that. Okay. For more on this and thousands
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