"Nadav Har'El" <n...@math.technion.ac.il> writes: > It isn't bull, especially if you're innocent. Sure, if you're a > terrorist and your only email account is full of terrorist plans, you'd > rather be deported then surrender your account. But if you're an > innocent tourist (or business man), who invested your yearly savings > in this trip (flight, hotel trip, etc.) or your business rides on it - > wouldn't you do almost anything to not give them an excuse to deport > you? Allow them to read your mail, do a cavity search, take off your > belt and shoes, throw your water to the garbage - just so they'll let > you continue?
Obviously not, whether travelling for business or pleasure. Serious unpleasantnesses will take the fun out of a vacation and indicate that you cannot do business in the country anyway. Besides, agreeing only opens a door to provocations. Trivialities (relative!) like taking your belt off happen when you leave, not when you arrive. To clarify: I would have no problem logging into my work email if I travel on business - there is nothing personal there and, as I mentioned before, it is usually consistent with the policy. I would not show my real personal email account under any circumstances though. Trying to enter an unfriendly foreign country is an easy case. Leaving one may actually present a more serious problem. You *want* to leave by all means, and what if the choice is between a cavity search and a detention or another serious trouble? For giggles, I was *very* thoroughly patted down - fully clothed - by a femail security officer when leaving Moscow two months ago (I was there on business). I was imagining what would happen in, say, California or if I were there with a wife or a girlfriend, but I quickly decided it would be a better idea to chuckle it off than to protest. ;-) What if you are coming home? Here is what happens in another, generally considered democratic (for a lot of good reasons, too), country: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/24/us_border_control_laptop_searches/ Seems an interesting discussion to me, written by the former head of the US Justice Dept. Computer Crime Unit. Note, by the way, that while the author elucidates the dangers he does not argue for forbidding computer searches altogether. On the contrary, he does say some computer searches are reasonable. His discussion of where the line should be drawn is, IMHO, interesting, even if it is in the context of a different legal environment, and even if there is no clear answer. -- Oleg Goldshmidt | p...@goldshmidt.org _______________________________________________ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
