WEBVTT - Can the government take away my laptop?

0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:02.880
<v Speaker 1>Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

0:00:03.240 --> 0:00:08.760
<v Speaker 1>It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With

0:00:08.920 --> 0:00:13.160
<v Speaker 1>tech stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hi there,

0:00:13.200 --> 0:00:15.600
<v Speaker 1>welcome to the podcast. My name is Chris Poulette. I'm

0:00:15.600 --> 0:00:18.000
<v Speaker 1>an editor here at how Stuff Works, and today I

0:00:18.079 --> 0:00:22.200
<v Speaker 1>have next to me writer extraordinariy Jonathan Strifland. Oh you're

0:00:22.200 --> 0:00:27.080
<v Speaker 1>just trying to butter me up before we get into this. Yes, Uh,

0:00:27.120 --> 0:00:29.840
<v Speaker 1>you know, I wanted to go at this little different.

0:00:29.840 --> 0:00:32.559
<v Speaker 1>We have sort of a sensitive topic to uh to

0:00:32.640 --> 0:00:35.800
<v Speaker 1>discuss today. But you know, you do a lot more

0:00:35.800 --> 0:00:38.080
<v Speaker 1>traveling than I do. I do a lot of traveling,

0:00:38.560 --> 0:00:41.479
<v Speaker 1>and uh, you know, there was one other thing I

0:00:41.560 --> 0:00:45.239
<v Speaker 1>was thinking about, and that's how the government is changing

0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:49.040
<v Speaker 1>the way we travel with our electronic devices. For for example,

0:00:49.200 --> 0:00:52.000
<v Speaker 1>for example, one of the things that I saw not

0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:55.400
<v Speaker 1>too long ago was that the government is now allowing

0:00:55.520 --> 0:00:58.640
<v Speaker 1>special kinds of laptop bags, which, of though, is really

0:00:58.680 --> 0:01:01.360
<v Speaker 1>cool because you know, I'm like before, if you don't

0:01:01.400 --> 0:01:03.120
<v Speaker 1>travel that much, what they make you do is if

0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:05.319
<v Speaker 1>you're flying, you have to take your laptop out of

0:01:05.319 --> 0:01:07.560
<v Speaker 1>your laptop bag. And the reason for that is if

0:01:07.560 --> 0:01:11.200
<v Speaker 1>you've got I guess they assume that you have handheld

0:01:11.280 --> 0:01:15.120
<v Speaker 1>pd A, you've got cell phone, you've got an iPod,

0:01:15.240 --> 0:01:17.280
<v Speaker 1>you've got you know, all these other things, and they're

0:01:17.360 --> 0:01:21.720
<v Speaker 1>your game boy, your PS three or a D that

0:01:21.800 --> 0:01:25.920
<v Speaker 1>you have. You know that you're gonna and uh, you know,

0:01:25.959 --> 0:01:29.200
<v Speaker 1>they can't really see if the laptop itself is what

0:01:29.319 --> 0:01:31.320
<v Speaker 1>you say it is, So you take it out of

0:01:31.360 --> 0:01:33.880
<v Speaker 1>your bag. And you know, if you're like me when

0:01:33.959 --> 0:01:37.039
<v Speaker 1>Jonathan traveled to c E S with me this past year,

0:01:37.040 --> 0:01:39.080
<v Speaker 1>you had to watch me as all the junk fell

0:01:39.120 --> 0:01:41.120
<v Speaker 1>out of my bag and you know I had to

0:01:41.160 --> 0:01:43.800
<v Speaker 1>struggle to put everything back in. Well, now you don't

0:01:43.800 --> 0:01:45.480
<v Speaker 1>have to do that. You don't have to take your

0:01:45.560 --> 0:01:48.240
<v Speaker 1>laptop out of the bag. You can buy especially made

0:01:48.800 --> 0:01:52.280
<v Speaker 1>bag and it basically, I guess, zips in half so

0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:55.840
<v Speaker 1>that you have one section that has the laptop in,

0:01:56.000 --> 0:01:58.320
<v Speaker 1>but you you open it like a clamshell so that

0:01:58.400 --> 0:02:00.960
<v Speaker 1>they can the the t s A agents can scan

0:02:01.040 --> 0:02:02.800
<v Speaker 1>it without you having to remove it, and then you

0:02:02.800 --> 0:02:04.480
<v Speaker 1>can just put it back together and zip it back up.

0:02:04.520 --> 0:02:06.640
<v Speaker 1>You're gone. You have to worry about all this stuff.

0:02:06.640 --> 0:02:09.360
<v Speaker 1>It doesn't Yeah, it's designed so that things like your

0:02:09.400 --> 0:02:11.640
<v Speaker 1>power chord and other things that might be in the

0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:14.880
<v Speaker 1>bag don't obstruct their view of the laptop. That was

0:02:14.919 --> 0:02:17.440
<v Speaker 1>the main problem with with regular bags was that there

0:02:17.480 --> 0:02:19.240
<v Speaker 1>could be other stuff there and when you're looking at

0:02:19.240 --> 0:02:21.480
<v Speaker 1>the X ray, you don't have a real clear view

0:02:21.480 --> 0:02:23.360
<v Speaker 1>of the laptop. That's why you had to take it out. Well,

0:02:23.400 --> 0:02:25.400
<v Speaker 1>these bags are designed so that it gives you a

0:02:25.440 --> 0:02:29.040
<v Speaker 1>really clear view of that laptop. You want the security

0:02:29.080 --> 0:02:31.200
<v Speaker 1>people to get a good look at the laptop, right,

0:02:31.240 --> 0:02:33.880
<v Speaker 1>I mean, you don't want to arouse any suspicions. Oh,

0:02:33.919 --> 0:02:37.320
<v Speaker 1>they'll get a good look at your laptop before I

0:02:37.320 --> 0:02:41.480
<v Speaker 1>get into this, um, before before I before I go

0:02:41.560 --> 0:02:45.079
<v Speaker 1>off here. Yeah, you might wanna might want to put

0:02:45.160 --> 0:02:49.280
<v Speaker 1>up the fireproofing. UM. First of all, we should go

0:02:49.320 --> 0:02:50.960
<v Speaker 1>ahead and say that what we're gonna talk about here

0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:53.800
<v Speaker 1>is international travel. This does not uh, this does not

0:02:53.880 --> 0:02:58.000
<v Speaker 1>cover interstate travel. UM. You can travel anywhere within the

0:02:58.080 --> 0:03:00.680
<v Speaker 1>United States and you're going to be you're not gonna

0:03:00.760 --> 0:03:03.680
<v Speaker 1>have a problem with what we're about to talk about.

0:03:03.760 --> 0:03:05.639
<v Speaker 1>But if you are going out of the country are

0:03:05.639 --> 0:03:09.239
<v Speaker 1>coming back into it, there could be some issues. That's

0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:14.400
<v Speaker 1>because the Ninth Circuit Court in San Francisco has essentially

0:03:14.440 --> 0:03:17.840
<v Speaker 1>made a ruling that states that border patrol officials federal

0:03:17.880 --> 0:03:23.760
<v Speaker 1>agents can confiscate and withhold any and all electronic devices

0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:26.799
<v Speaker 1>that you may have with you and search them for

0:03:26.840 --> 0:03:32.799
<v Speaker 1>any and all evidence of a crime. Now that and

0:03:33.200 --> 0:03:36.040
<v Speaker 1>without probable cause. There needs to that you don't have

0:03:36.160 --> 0:03:39.240
<v Speaker 1>to look like you or shifty. You don't have to

0:03:39.800 --> 0:03:43.040
<v Speaker 1>you know, fit a profile. In fact, profiling is specifically

0:03:43.040 --> 0:03:46.000
<v Speaker 1>one of the things they're trying to avoid doing, although

0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:52.240
<v Speaker 1>there's arguments over whether or not that's still happening. Yeah,

0:03:52.280 --> 0:03:55.160
<v Speaker 1>well they'll probably stop you anyway then, um yeah, whether

0:03:55.200 --> 0:03:58.040
<v Speaker 1>you're a United States citizen or not a citizen. Uh,

0:03:58.080 --> 0:04:02.200
<v Speaker 1>they can the government official can take your electronics, um

0:04:02.600 --> 0:04:05.560
<v Speaker 1>and search them for evidence of a crime. Now, one

0:04:05.600 --> 0:04:08.440
<v Speaker 1>of the big issues here is that it's not easy

0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:12.520
<v Speaker 1>to find evidence on electronic devices, especially if you know

0:04:12.560 --> 0:04:14.680
<v Speaker 1>what you're doing. If you know what you're doing, you

0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:18.200
<v Speaker 1>can hide evidence. So it takes time. You know, you

0:04:18.240 --> 0:04:20.040
<v Speaker 1>can't just boot up and say, well, let me look

0:04:20.080 --> 0:04:21.919
<v Speaker 1>at the file directory and see if there's something on

0:04:21.960 --> 0:04:24.880
<v Speaker 1>there like blow up the world dot com or you know.

0:04:24.920 --> 0:04:29.480
<v Speaker 1>It's not that simple, right, So that means that often

0:04:29.520 --> 0:04:33.000
<v Speaker 1>that will have to take it to an off site facility,

0:04:33.040 --> 0:04:35.040
<v Speaker 1>and they can hold it for as long as they

0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:38.720
<v Speaker 1>need to, until they're satisfied that they have completely and

0:04:38.760 --> 0:04:42.200
<v Speaker 1>thoroughly searched your devices. And you don't get them back

0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:44.599
<v Speaker 1>until they're done, and you may never get them back.

0:04:45.120 --> 0:04:48.839
<v Speaker 1>And and it's any crime, it's not even a specific crime.

0:04:49.040 --> 0:04:53.200
<v Speaker 1>So theoretically they're looking for something that might clue them

0:04:53.200 --> 0:04:56.200
<v Speaker 1>into two terrorist activity area in the in the Washington

0:04:56.240 --> 0:05:02.760
<v Speaker 1>Post that Secretary Michael Churdoff said that UM terrorists materials

0:05:02.760 --> 0:05:06.200
<v Speaker 1>are often found on laptop computers are often electronic materials,

0:05:06.200 --> 0:05:09.240
<v Speaker 1>which is I guess what prompted them to make this

0:05:09.520 --> 0:05:12.359
<v Speaker 1>this ruling, you'd think, except that the case where this

0:05:12.480 --> 0:05:16.760
<v Speaker 1>ruling came from, which was Arnold versus the United States

0:05:16.760 --> 0:05:21.159
<v Speaker 1>of America. By the way, Arnold lost um to a

0:05:21.320 --> 0:05:25.279
<v Speaker 1>three nothing decision, no less, a unanimous decision by the

0:05:25.360 --> 0:05:30.320
<v Speaker 1>Ninth Circuit Court. Um. It was actually a child pornography case.

0:05:30.920 --> 0:05:35.080
<v Speaker 1>And child pornography is horrible. It's terrible, it's a blight,

0:05:36.560 --> 0:05:40.400
<v Speaker 1>but it also serves as a great way to champion

0:05:41.520 --> 0:05:46.599
<v Speaker 1>this kind of approach of taking devices away without any

0:05:46.640 --> 0:05:50.840
<v Speaker 1>probable cause. Now, in that case, Arnold was coming in

0:05:51.000 --> 0:05:55.920
<v Speaker 1>from the Philippines UM and officials saw some stuff that

0:05:56.040 --> 0:05:58.400
<v Speaker 1>looked kind of suspicious to them, so they decided to

0:05:58.440 --> 0:06:01.000
<v Speaker 1>look at his lap top and see if there was

0:06:01.080 --> 0:06:05.200
<v Speaker 1>any evidence of child pornography on there. And that's what

0:06:05.480 --> 0:06:09.880
<v Speaker 1>kind of precipitated this whole discussion. So we are talking

0:06:09.920 --> 0:06:13.000
<v Speaker 1>any crime now. Granted, the spin on this is yes,

0:06:13.120 --> 0:06:16.280
<v Speaker 1>you know, we're looking for for signs of terrorist activity

0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:19.680
<v Speaker 1>or or plans to try and head it off. And

0:06:19.680 --> 0:06:21.960
<v Speaker 1>and that's a very noble thing. You don't you know,

0:06:22.040 --> 0:06:26.000
<v Speaker 1>you don't want terrorists to act within your country, obviously,

0:06:26.720 --> 0:06:30.760
<v Speaker 1>but it's it's a blanket that covers everything. So let's

0:06:30.760 --> 0:06:34.400
<v Speaker 1>say they take your your iPod and they think, hey,

0:06:34.440 --> 0:06:37.920
<v Speaker 1>there's no way that this bald headed, tattooed guy has

0:06:38.120 --> 0:06:41.280
<v Speaker 1>Britney Spears album on his iPod. He there's no way

0:06:41.320 --> 0:06:44.239
<v Speaker 1>he bought this. He must have downloaded it from a site.

0:06:44.560 --> 0:06:46.440
<v Speaker 1>And they can look through everything and if they think

0:06:46.440 --> 0:06:51.359
<v Speaker 1>that you have violated but stolen material on your laptop,

0:06:51.440 --> 0:06:54.120
<v Speaker 1>you could be prosecuted for that. You know, I don't

0:06:54.120 --> 0:06:55.919
<v Speaker 1>know where. You know, you're gonna have to get rid

0:06:55.960 --> 0:06:59.000
<v Speaker 1>of the illegal Britney Spears on your iPod. Yeah, Christina

0:06:59.000 --> 0:07:03.919
<v Speaker 1>Aguilar's next. But you know it's not even limited. You know.

0:07:04.000 --> 0:07:06.760
<v Speaker 1>Under further reading, I realized it's not just your iPod,

0:07:06.800 --> 0:07:09.760
<v Speaker 1>your flash drive, your computer. They can actually take paper

0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:12.640
<v Speaker 1>materials from you and do the same things. Anything paper,

0:07:13.080 --> 0:07:16.320
<v Speaker 1>even your pocket where they're calling pocket trash, you know,

0:07:16.640 --> 0:07:19.160
<v Speaker 1>post it note with something written on there that might

0:07:19.160 --> 0:07:22.320
<v Speaker 1>give them a clue that you're up to something. Um,

0:07:22.400 --> 0:07:24.800
<v Speaker 1>you know the part where it says download a legal

0:07:24.800 --> 0:07:30.360
<v Speaker 1>copy of Christina Aguilera. They can take your digital camera. Um, yeah,

0:07:30.720 --> 0:07:33.280
<v Speaker 1>they can take your cell phone. They take your cell

0:07:33.280 --> 0:07:36.680
<v Speaker 1>phone and and search it, get all the contacts off

0:07:36.720 --> 0:07:39.400
<v Speaker 1>of it. I mean this, this extends far beyond just

0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:43.040
<v Speaker 1>the individual who's under surveillance at this point. I mean,

0:07:43.040 --> 0:07:46.200
<v Speaker 1>it's everyone that that person has come into contact with

0:07:46.400 --> 0:07:52.320
<v Speaker 1>electronically essentially. It's it's it's mind blowing. Let me ask

0:07:52.360 --> 0:07:57.560
<v Speaker 1>you this. Yes, I've read some articles that suggested that

0:07:57.600 --> 0:08:01.400
<v Speaker 1>people in other countries. Um, the side I founded on

0:08:01.480 --> 0:08:04.240
<v Speaker 1>was I think actually the CBC, the Canadian broadcasting company.

0:08:04.280 --> 0:08:08.200
<v Speaker 1>They were talking about how, um, people who are you know,

0:08:08.760 --> 0:08:10.960
<v Speaker 1>people in Canada and United States along the border. They

0:08:11.320 --> 0:08:15.360
<v Speaker 1>a lot of times work closely employees of multinational corporations

0:08:15.360 --> 0:08:18.920
<v Speaker 1>do a lot of travel, um, and in this particular case,

0:08:18.960 --> 0:08:22.520
<v Speaker 1>they were saying that the corporations were starting to warn people,

0:08:22.800 --> 0:08:24.880
<v Speaker 1>you know, look, be careful what you take with you,

0:08:24.920 --> 0:08:27.119
<v Speaker 1>because if they take it and you don't get it back,

0:08:27.680 --> 0:08:30.440
<v Speaker 1>then you know, you're stuck. And you know, if they

0:08:30.440 --> 0:08:32.800
<v Speaker 1>don't happen to have if they don't have any probable cause,

0:08:32.840 --> 0:08:34.800
<v Speaker 1>if there's nothing on it, but they still take it

0:08:34.840 --> 0:08:37.960
<v Speaker 1>because they have some suspicion that there's something going on.

0:08:38.000 --> 0:08:41.400
<v Speaker 1>All of a sudden, your business computers gone. Um. You know,

0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:45.560
<v Speaker 1>do you think this will hold up under pressure from

0:08:46.080 --> 0:08:52.359
<v Speaker 1>international organizations uh, you know, international corporate entities or governments

0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:56.440
<v Speaker 1>that pressure and say, look, you know, of the people

0:08:56.480 --> 0:08:59.880
<v Speaker 1>that you're going to to uh to investigate are probably

0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:02.920
<v Speaker 1>to be okay, right. I don't know the exact numbers, obviously,

0:09:02.960 --> 0:09:05.480
<v Speaker 1>but you know most the majority of people are all right.

0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:09.320
<v Speaker 1>So do you think that they'll soften it somewhat or

0:09:09.440 --> 0:09:11.920
<v Speaker 1>or something like that? You know, I hope, so, I really,

0:09:12.160 --> 0:09:14.120
<v Speaker 1>I really and truly hope. So. But I know that

0:09:14.160 --> 0:09:17.200
<v Speaker 1>a lot of a lot of businesses are already taking

0:09:17.240 --> 0:09:19.839
<v Speaker 1>the approach of this is going to happen so let's

0:09:19.880 --> 0:09:24.240
<v Speaker 1>try and plan for it, which is is a terrible

0:09:24.280 --> 0:09:26.640
<v Speaker 1>thing in my mind because essentially it means that you're

0:09:26.679 --> 0:09:30.160
<v Speaker 1>resigned to the fact that this is going to happen. Um.

0:09:30.240 --> 0:09:35.040
<v Speaker 1>But uh yeah, I hope that pressure from both inside

0:09:35.080 --> 0:09:39.760
<v Speaker 1>and outside the United States will will cause people to

0:09:40.000 --> 0:09:43.440
<v Speaker 1>rethink this decision and revisit it. Um. It was the

0:09:43.520 --> 0:09:46.040
<v Speaker 1>Ninth Circuit, so it could go higher. But this was

0:09:46.760 --> 0:09:50.360
<v Speaker 1>the second court in a row to to make this

0:09:50.400 --> 0:09:54.560
<v Speaker 1>particular decision, which second appeals court, which does not bode well.

0:09:54.720 --> 0:09:58.160
<v Speaker 1>Usually if there's two appeals courts that that make the

0:09:58.160 --> 0:10:00.160
<v Speaker 1>same decision, it's not going to go higher than at

0:10:00.200 --> 0:10:03.319
<v Speaker 1>It rarely gets to the Supreme Court in that case. Okay,

0:10:03.360 --> 0:10:07.640
<v Speaker 1>So I'm let's say I'm traveling internationally and I'm not

0:10:07.720 --> 0:10:10.640
<v Speaker 1>up to something, but I have something that I might

0:10:10.679 --> 0:10:12.400
<v Speaker 1>want to keep private, like I don't know, like a

0:10:12.400 --> 0:10:15.760
<v Speaker 1>patent that I'm I'm considering applying for a secret invention

0:10:15.800 --> 0:10:18.200
<v Speaker 1>that i've you know, hope they'll make me millions of

0:10:18.240 --> 0:10:22.880
<v Speaker 1>dollars or is just not gonna work. I'm telling you, dude,

0:10:23.040 --> 0:10:27.480
<v Speaker 1>it's gonna be fine. Or maybe it's a screenplay or

0:10:27.559 --> 0:10:31.359
<v Speaker 1>a book that you know, or love letters or anything,

0:10:31.679 --> 0:10:35.000
<v Speaker 1>or love letters to your freezer. Ay, sure you know

0:10:35.080 --> 0:10:38.640
<v Speaker 1>that I just would rather not everybody have a chance

0:10:38.679 --> 0:10:41.240
<v Speaker 1>to look at But you know that's not anything bad

0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:44.600
<v Speaker 1>or or that I'm really worried that we'll get me

0:10:44.720 --> 0:10:46.760
<v Speaker 1>convicted of some kind of crime. What would I do?

0:10:47.320 --> 0:10:49.319
<v Speaker 1>All right, Well, there are a few things you can

0:10:49.360 --> 0:10:52.720
<v Speaker 1>do now we had health stuff works. Of course, don't

0:10:52.800 --> 0:10:55.800
<v Speaker 1>condone any criminal activity. This is really just talking about

0:10:55.800 --> 0:10:59.560
<v Speaker 1>a concern for privacy. But at home kids, right, let's

0:10:59.800 --> 0:11:03.439
<v Speaker 1>let's leave it to the professionals. Something like that. Okay, Well,

0:11:03.440 --> 0:11:06.760
<v Speaker 1>there are a few things you can do, okay, such

0:11:06.800 --> 0:11:10.240
<v Speaker 1>as Oh, the easy one would be, I don't know,

0:11:10.320 --> 0:11:12.280
<v Speaker 1>leave it at home. Yeah, leaving it at home would

0:11:12.320 --> 0:11:15.719
<v Speaker 1>be a good choice. Um, leaving it at home if

0:11:15.760 --> 0:11:18.640
<v Speaker 1>you if you if you absolutely don't need it, uh,

0:11:18.640 --> 0:11:21.120
<v Speaker 1>and you don't you know, if you're worried about losing it,

0:11:21.160 --> 0:11:22.720
<v Speaker 1>then I guess you can leave it at home. Now. Granted,

0:11:22.760 --> 0:11:25.040
<v Speaker 1>that's a bad choice for anyone who's traveling for business

0:11:25.200 --> 0:11:28.280
<v Speaker 1>or really does need their equipment. There are other choices.

0:11:28.960 --> 0:11:32.480
<v Speaker 1>One of them is to partition your hard drive UM

0:11:32.640 --> 0:11:35.880
<v Speaker 1>and put in a dual level of encryption. This is

0:11:36.000 --> 0:11:39.960
<v Speaker 1>essentially hiding information on your computer. The first level of

0:11:40.000 --> 0:11:44.760
<v Speaker 1>encryption is meant to allow someone the opportunity to say, hey,

0:11:44.800 --> 0:11:47.520
<v Speaker 1>there's some stuff on this computer, and then they can

0:11:47.640 --> 0:11:49.120
<v Speaker 1>you know, you can give them the log in or

0:11:49.240 --> 0:11:52.120
<v Speaker 1>password or make them figure it out if you are

0:11:52.160 --> 0:11:56.000
<v Speaker 1>really mean. But once they get into that level, they

0:11:56.000 --> 0:11:58.960
<v Speaker 1>look around see that there's nothing really bad there, and

0:11:59.000 --> 0:12:04.400
<v Speaker 1>then they don't even see the partitioned second encrypted level.

0:12:04.559 --> 0:12:07.720
<v Speaker 1>That's where you keep all your secret stuff, so false

0:12:07.760 --> 0:12:10.600
<v Speaker 1>bottom in your hard drive, right, you know, and and

0:12:10.640 --> 0:12:13.240
<v Speaker 1>you know, I know this sounds really sneaky. Um, but

0:12:13.320 --> 0:12:15.880
<v Speaker 1>one of the points a lot of the critics of

0:12:15.920 --> 0:12:19.640
<v Speaker 1>this policy make is that the bad guys are already

0:12:19.679 --> 0:12:22.360
<v Speaker 1>doing this stuff. This is really hitting the people who

0:12:22.840 --> 0:12:26.480
<v Speaker 1>just don't know how this works. So, I mean, it's

0:12:26.559 --> 0:12:29.199
<v Speaker 1>kind of a tricky situation. But there are other things

0:12:29.280 --> 0:12:31.160
<v Speaker 1>you can do. You could you could wipe your computer

0:12:31.320 --> 0:12:34.600
<v Speaker 1>absolutely clean. You could save everything to the cloud. Uh

0:12:34.720 --> 0:12:37.679
<v Speaker 1>we've talked about cloud computing several times in this podcast.

0:12:37.920 --> 0:12:40.440
<v Speaker 1>But save it to the cloud, wipe your computer clean.

0:12:40.720 --> 0:12:42.960
<v Speaker 1>You go through the border, and when you get to

0:12:42.960 --> 0:12:45.360
<v Speaker 1>where you're going, you can go reconnect to the cloud

0:12:45.880 --> 0:12:48.439
<v Speaker 1>and get your information again, and same thing. When you're

0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:50.280
<v Speaker 1>coming back, you'd have to wipe it, you know, save

0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:52.520
<v Speaker 1>it to the cloud, wipe your computer again, and travel.

0:12:53.080 --> 0:12:56.200
<v Speaker 1>It's sort of like the digital equivalent of an offshore

0:12:56.800 --> 0:13:00.200
<v Speaker 1>account where you store all your you know, see create

0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:03.240
<v Speaker 1>funds or whatever. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, And I mean

0:13:03.240 --> 0:13:05.640
<v Speaker 1>it's it's it's tough to say that you have to

0:13:05.679 --> 0:13:08.120
<v Speaker 1>go through these sort of precautions, but if if it's

0:13:08.120 --> 0:13:10.559
<v Speaker 1>a real concern of yours, if you're worried about losing

0:13:10.760 --> 0:13:15.200
<v Speaker 1>your electronic devices for an indeterminate length of time, it

0:13:15.320 --> 0:13:19.160
<v Speaker 1>might be worth pursuing. Yeah, and uh, you know something

0:13:19.200 --> 0:13:21.240
<v Speaker 1>else to think about too. Not only would we not

0:13:21.320 --> 0:13:23.640
<v Speaker 1>recommend that you try it, but if you think about it,

0:13:23.720 --> 0:13:26.280
<v Speaker 1>if you try something like that, especially if you're not

0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:29.680
<v Speaker 1>guilty of something, it's gonna make you look guilty. Yeah,

0:13:29.720 --> 0:13:32.960
<v Speaker 1>that's true. Um So, yeah, you have to balance out

0:13:33.040 --> 0:13:38.559
<v Speaker 1>that that privacy versus the risk of bringing more suspicion

0:13:38.640 --> 0:13:41.920
<v Speaker 1>on yourself. And that's a tough situation. So if you

0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:44.240
<v Speaker 1>want to read more about this subject, check out our

0:13:44.320 --> 0:13:47.319
<v Speaker 1>article Can the Government take my laptop away? At how

0:13:47.360 --> 0:13:49.520
<v Speaker 1>stuff Works dot com and we'll talk to you soon.

0:13:50.160 --> 0:13:55.360
<v Speaker 1>Give me that. Okay. For more on this and thousands

0:13:55.360 --> 0:13:59.120
<v Speaker 1>of other topics, how stuff works dot com Let us

0:13:59.120 --> 0:14:02.040
<v Speaker 1>know what you think. Send an email to podcast at

0:14:02.040 --> 0:14:07.800
<v Speaker 1>how stuff works dot com. Brought to you by the

0:14:07.840 --> 0:14:11.080
<v Speaker 1>reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you