It's outrageous!
I have extensive travelling in my future (I'm talking possibly decades of global criss-crossing) -- the idea of having my electronics checked at every customs point is prohibitive to my travelling.

What can we expect in the future? Body cavity searches for USB flash drives??

Sooner or later, yes. As the interwebs become more and more vital to the global economy, it's going to become more and more difficult to resist cries of "Protect us!" from the financial institutions, and companies, and the average punter.

Always trust some guy writing on a pron site to show me the truth.

There's been a lot of talk about people having their computers searched when traveling overseas. This isn't strictly a Canadian problem, many countries apparently go through your stuff and I've read more than one article from frequent travelers on how they combat this, the most common being using something like TrueCrypt to create a hidden volume with your actual drive contents.

With that said, I've crossed the border into Canada nine times since November 2006, and never once have they searched any of my electronics, of which I carry a lot, and have stated as such. And it's worth noting this is a proposal, nothing that's in effect for Canadians just yet, but I do agree it's atrocious and should be fought against. The conservatives have really been doing a number on you guys lately.

At the borders, from what I can find, they do a simple item. 1. Copy the data (meaning your hidden drives), or 2. take the laptop (meaning they will find it later).

So far the only solution I have found is what most companies are doing, don't take ANY data, and download it over a SSH connection later on.

You'd be w/out videos and music... but you'd be able to protect your banking data and passwords.

More links below regarding this story, give a read, pass it on.

Also, the countries that are going to be affected are listed in the article, but I'm sure they are trying to get more on board.

Link First story I found on it, can't get the title as the server is 'too busy'.

We Must act now against ACTA : Jamie.com

US Plots Pirate Bay Killer : Slashdot.

IPJustice : Acta

ACTA Agreement : Excess Copyright

ACTA : Slashdot

Let's stand up to Big Brother : The Province (Vancouver)

Globe and Mail

Ottawa Citizen

I'm a big fan of NWO-oriented conspiracy paranoia. Zeitgeist type stuff. I don't really believe that the people at the top could organise a piss-up in a brewery, let alone the enslavement of the human race, but it keeps me afraid of things I think we should all be guarding against. Things like this.
Multi-national, secretly formulated and implemented legislation that removes a few more of our liberties. Coming July.

Even if my own government doesn't sign up this time round, it's another bit of world-government legislation that may one day effect every single one of us.

Please, get real. In Australia at least, (and I'm sure post 9/11 in pretty much every country in the world) border officials already have the power to search through your luggage and examine mobile phones, computers, pdas, cameras, DVDs - any form media you chose to name, and they can probably look at it.

It's how they nab people engaged in credit card skimming, child pornography, child sex tourism, terrorism, people smuggling, people trafficking, drug running, money laundering etc etc.

Do you honestly think that any country is going to divert resources away from the prevention of the aforementioned crimes to check if a random punter has a stolen MP3 on their ipod? Do you honestly think that a government is going to resource border agencies to follow a treaty set out to do the bidding of big business, as opposed to their own legislation??

on the NWO- there are certainly powerful people who like the idea of global governance, as they already see themselves as part of a global elite, moreso then citizens of specific countries.

I think there is a conscious push towards that direction by various corporate and financial interests (some of which that yes, have been going on for a very long time, like David Rockefeller).

The NWO is sort of a rorschach test, as different groups see it as different things, depending on their perspective.

There is no intention of suddenly creating a literal one world government, and I don't believe in the Alex Jones "endgame" scenario, but there is a definte slow and incremental assualt on national soveriegnty, as institutions like the European Union, World Bank, IMF, WTO, and UN slowly gain significance and power.

As far as the "planning" thing, it's not like there are people sitting in a smoke filled room slaughtering goats and sharing their illuminati decoder rings.

It is more of a reaction to the current situation deal, with top down control of orginizations that help shape the policy and consensus of the world. Groups like the Tri-lateral commission, council on foreign relations, club of rome, project for the new american century, to name a few. Orgs with no real power, but the most important actual power, with is the power to create consensus amongst the elite.

CONGRATULATIONS lslice you are today's winner of the tin-foil hat award. Don't worry picking it up it. We will delivered to you in one of our new environment friendly hybrid black helicopters.

I bet Tom Cruise is behind it all, somehow.

Do you want to hope that's the case? I would rather see some open discussion from my government on this matter, to ensure that I don't get searched just for some mp3s.

Also, when searching for any sort of 'digital crime', I would like a guaranteed assurance, that if they do copy my data, they don't keep it for long.

ie, transparency.

Schneier on Security may well be the best blog on security and security technology. His May 16, 2008 post on Crossing Borders with Laptops and PDAs is quite relevant to this thread.

If you do not add Schneier on Security to your daily blog reading list you are sacrificing knowledge for a bit of time.

What do you suspect they are going to copy? your emails? go through your word documents and look at job applications? Or spreadsheets of your weekly budget? or perhaps they intend to compile the worlds largest collection of pornography.

If you do get stopped, and searched, and they go through your stuff, chances are it's for a reason. Like they have a reasonable suspicion that you are involved in a crime. Border agencies never search people at random. So if you've ever been searched before, chances are you've ticked a box somewhere that makes them think you might be up to something. like how/when/where you purchased your tickets, or your intended address, or the country you've come from, or they way you interact with officials when being questioned.

Governments are not going to copy and retain information that isn't directly relevant to an investigation. Think of the data storage alone - if they stopped 10 people a day, and dumped the contents of their electronic devices onto a hard drive. They would need massive amounts of data storage for very little possible benefit.

At any rate, should your worst fears come true, and this treaty come into force, if you do have pirate software/music/movies etc, then chances are you've broken the law to obtain it. if you don't want to be searched, and have data copied and face penalties for breaching copyright, then dont download pirate material. or do those laws not apply to you??

maybe you should see what is happening south of the border, before you tell me this is never a "random" search.

Link

Frankly I think it's a little on the sad side, that our governments aren't beefing up the border against say... illegal arms, or drugs.

Not like that is a huge issue.

How does that link indicate that the searches were not targeted in some way?

Your link is to a request about something that

and following the link in that article -

and this is from an article in 2006. Surely by now there would be some concrete statistics on the number of business execs who've had their laptop seized. Did they follow up with the mystery woman who waited a year?

Anecdotal evidence and survey replies from 2006 are not strengthening your case.

that's the entire point of my post. No government has announced that they are making this law - the big entertainment companies are pushing for a treaty to protect their slice of pie, and they are trying to get governments to follow suit. This treaty is really pointless without the support of countries like India, China, Thailand etc - where counterfeiting on every level is rife.

As the world's economies head into a downturn (or dare I say, recession) I cannot see any popular support from voters to any government that is going to refocus its border agencies from drugs/guns/terrorists/kiddy porn/ to the protection of the entertainment industry.

In Australia at least, with compulsory voting, Governments may be in bed with big business, but they know that plans that are unpopular with the electorate often lead to their demise (see John Howard and Work Choices)