http://legalgeekery.com/2008/01/08/think-you-have-a-right-to-digital-privacy-when-crossing-us-borders/ Thu, 09 Feb 2012 03:24:18 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://legalgeekery.com/2008/01/08/think-you-have-a-right-to-digital-privacy-when-crossing-us-borders/comment-page-1/#comment-15 Matthew Sachs Tue, 08 Jan 2008 13:59:24 +0000 http://allocate.wordpress.com/2008/01/08/think-you-have-a-right-to-digital-privacy-when-crossing-us-borders/#comment-15 One thing that should be taken into consideration when evaluating the national security argument is that while the contents of your suitcase might pose a material danger to the US - bombs, smallpox, et al - which is immanetized by bringing them through a border crossing - having the bomb in the country is what makes it a danger - the same is not true of the contents of your hard drive. While there are some data that could be harmful, like a virus or a terrorism plan, physically bringing them into the country doesn't make it any easier for them to wreak their havoc. The transmission of electronic data is largely unaffected by political boundaries, so bringing data physically within the country doesn't actually increase the data's ability to affect it. One thing that should be taken into consideration when evaluating the national security argument is that while the contents of your suitcase might pose a material danger to the US – bombs, smallpox, et al – which is immanetized by bringing them through a border crossing – having the bomb in the country is what makes it a danger – the same is not true of the contents of your hard drive. While there are some data that could be harmful, like a virus or a terrorism plan, physically bringing them into the country doesn’t make it any easier for them to wreak their havoc. The transmission of electronic data is largely unaffected by political boundaries, so bringing data physically within the country doesn’t actually increase the data’s ability to affect it.

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