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10/28/2005 12:45:38 PM · #1 |
I don't know if this problem is ever likely to come up with others, or in border crossings other than U.S. - Canada, but I thought I'd pass on my tale just in case--
Yesterday I flew into Ottawa from the United States. I've had no trouble travelling to Canada before, and all my documentation is perfectly up to date; however, I've never flown into the country with a laptop.
Once the customs officer sees my laptop, she asks me to power it up, and then do a search on the hard drive for all image files.
Given that I take a lot of pictures, to you and me it probably comes as no surprise that there were 15,000 search results, but I think it set off a flag for her.
She made a brief perusal through my pictures (as brief as a perusal through 15,000 files can be) and then Called for Backup.
Backup Boy comes along, asks me a few questions, and then conducts another search of the hard drive, this time for ALL multimedia files. And then he begins a painfully methodical search through everything. EVERYTHING. 17,000 files this time.
Over the course of two hours, he looked through all my school art projects; photos from my various vacations and challenge photos; photos I took of my girlfriend for the Nude III challenge; the music videos I downloaded; and everything else, too.
Two hours. At the end of that, they told me I could go. Never once did they bother to tell me WHAT they were looking for, or how long it would take, or WHY I was being subjected to this relentless search. And they wouldn't let me make any phone calls in the meantime, either. So by the time I got out of the airport, the family members who were planning to meet me had left, following confusing instruction from a customs officer, leaving me stranded in Ottawa's near-freezing after-midnight chill. Rather than having a pleasant drive with my family, I was forced to spend $148 on a taxicab to get to my destination.
SO BE WARNED! Perhaps only travel with your laptop if you must, and if you do, use some kind of encryption on your sensitive data, because getting your data raped for two hours SUCKS!
Damon
Message edited by author 2005-10-28 12:47:12. |
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10/28/2005 12:49:27 PM · #2 |
Holy crap...I didn't know they could do that. Sorry for your horrible ordeal. :(
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10/28/2005 12:50:18 PM · #3 |
Originally posted by mycelium:
Over the course of two hours, he looked through all my school art projects; photos from my various vacations and challenge photos; photos I took of my girlfriend for the Nude III challenge; the music videos I downloaded; and everything else, too. |
Did he vote on any?...
But seriously, I think if you had encrypted the data, and they had spotted that, you would have been there for longer than 2 hours. Thanks for sharing the story. |
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10/28/2005 12:54:08 PM · #4 |
I think they are looking for pornographic stuff.
I got the 3rd degree when I drove into canada. about my laptop and why I had a camera with me and so on. They never searched it, just asked me out a bizzilion times if I had porn on my laptop.
James |
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10/28/2005 12:56:23 PM · #5 |
These were Canadian officials? That makes it even worse. The sick mentality that has crept into the american psyche is spreading.
You got enough time to call the airport and speak to a superior to get us some more information about what law or authority they did this under? You would be surprised at how many things get done by security officials or guards or the sort which have no grounding whatsoever in law.
Message edited by author 2005-10-28 12:58:07. |
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10/28/2005 12:56:23 PM · #6 |
Everyone in our office travels a lot between US cities and Ottawa with our laptops. We have never had this type of experience. It's been years since we even had to turn them on. We just place them in a seperate tray through x-ray.
Sorry your experience in our city was so poor. |
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10/28/2005 12:59:52 PM · #7 |
Originally posted by jab119:
I think they are looking for pornographic stuff.
James |
I think you're right. One of the questions that Backup Boy asked me was, "Do you have any pictures of... young girls?" --but of course my answer of "no" was not enough, and they had to verify themselves...
Originally posted by jhonan:
But seriously, I think if you had encrypted the data, and they had spotted that, you would have been there for longer than 2 hours. |
You might be right. They didn't conduct any kind of open-ended search; they only looked up what Windows' search engine returned for specific queries. Unless they went further digging, I think anything that wasn't a standard extension (.jpg, .bmp, .ai, .mpg, etc.) would have passed right under the radar.
Originally posted by laurielblack:
Holy crap...I didn't know they could do that. Sorry for your horrible ordeal. :( |
Thank you. As much as I want to warn people about this possible problem, I want to vent my frustrations! Rahhh! |
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10/28/2005 01:03:03 PM · #8 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
You got enough time to call the airport and speak to a superior to get us some more information about what law or authority they did this under? You would be surprised at how many things get done by security officials or guards or the sort which have no grounding whatsoever in law. |
I've got something that may in some ways be better - at the wedding I'm attending will be two Canadian Customs officers, less than six months out of training. I'm hoping to get a chance to talk to them and see just what the deal was. I'll share the outcome of that inquiry here.
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10/28/2005 01:05:35 PM · #9 |
Wow, sorry you had to go through 2 hours of that. I can only imagine that it wasn't fun!
While not recently, I used to do a lot of business travel. I travelled to Boston about a year after 9/11, with a laptop. I was asked to turn on my laptop and a search was conducted. While officials browsed through my laptop, I was asked to remove my shoes and belt and I was then patted down from head to toe ... not cool!
If I had to guess, I would say that not only where the Canadian officials looking for porn, but they were probably concentrating on child porn. While most of us here wouldn't think anything of 15,000 images on a personal laptop, I have a feeling that we, as fanatical photogs, have more images on our hard drives than the average bear.
I personally wouldn't want to go through what you went through, but I can appreciate the customs officer's concerns. It is, unfortunately, something that has to be worried about. |
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10/28/2005 01:05:50 PM · #10 |
The news article was gone, but here is a bit from a google news search...sounds like it may be linked...
American man jailed for smuggling child pornography into Canada
Canada East, Canada - Oct 7, 2005
... the National Sex Offender Registry in Canada and ordered to ... Pasdeck was arrested after customs officers searched his ... electronic images on a laptop computer and ...
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10/28/2005 01:06:58 PM · #11 |
Originally posted by mycelium:
... Rather than having a pleasant drive with my family, I was forced to spend $148 on a taxicab to get to my destination. |
Send them an invoice for reimbursement. A letter to the local paper describing their "hospitality" might be in order as well. |
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10/28/2005 01:11:32 PM · #12 |
Here's more of the story from the Canada Border Services Agency site...
Prosecutions and Seizures |
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10/28/2005 01:13:30 PM · #13 |
I have never heard of such idiotism, on both sides. Why would you 'smuggle' anything digital over the border like that!? How easy is to access something over the internet these days, anyway. Who would try to carry it on the laptop!? Amazing...
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
The news article was gone, but here is a bit from a google news search...sounds like it may be linked...
American man jailed for smuggling child pornography into Canada
Canada East, Canada - Oct 7, 2005
... the National Sex Offender Registry in Canada and ordered to ... Pasdeck was arrested after customs officers searched his ... electronic images on a laptop computer and ... |
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10/28/2005 01:13:49 PM · #14 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
The news article was gone, but here is a bit from a google news search...sounds like it may be linked...
American man jailed for smuggling child pornography into Canada
Canada East, Canada - Oct 7, 2005
... the National Sex Offender Registry in Canada and ordered to ... Pasdeck was arrested after customs officers searched his ... electronic images on a laptop computer and ... |
Wow, nice find. I'm touched that you've gone out of your way to look into this. Thanks for the tip (and the link you posted just above). It does look like there's most likely a pretty direct link here. Now if only they'd have told me what they were doing!
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10/28/2005 01:24:25 PM · #15 |
Originally posted by srdanz:
I have never heard of such idiotism, on both sides. Why would you 'smuggle' anything digital over the border like that!? How easy is to access something over the internet these days, anyway. Who would try to carry it on the laptop!? Amazing... |
If you send it over the internet, there will be a perpetual electronic trail linking the material back to its source. Transporting it as physical media breaks that chain of evidence. A couple of CDs would be a lot cheaper than a laptop though. |
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10/28/2005 01:27:45 PM · #16 |
Damon, If your passport contains stamps from a country known to traffic in child prostitution ( or one that borders them ), especially within the last few years, it could be a considered as a flag to customs officials that you *may* have child pornography on your laptop. There unfortunately exists a thriving business in some countries to which a lot of men travel specifically to engage in sex with minors, or to photograph them in sexually explicit poses.
I don't think that my luggage has EVER been searched as thoroughly as when I returned to the US from Thailand ( Sorry librodo, I think that Thailand is just gorgeous and I just love the Thai people ( except the tuk-tuk drivers :D ), but it's a fact that a lot of sexual trafficking of children occurs there, as well as in Cambodia ). Fortunately, I didn't take my laptop with me ( only a stand-alone mini hard drive to dump full memory cards to ). |
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10/28/2005 01:30:59 PM · #17 |
Dude, I've had my worst customs experience ever with Canadian officials. This was in Vancouver.
It was while I was in high school, and I was held up for 1.5 hours while they unpacked all my bags, seperately laying out every single item, unrolling socks, unfolding shirts, turning pants inside out. Looking through all my snowboard bags, opening up snowboard wax tins, taking apart my snowboard boots etc. All this because they said they 'knew' I had drugs. If I didn't tell them where I had my narcotics they would find it themselves and give me a more severe punishment than if I just fessed up to smuggling. It was rediculous. I was almost to the point of admitting to having drugs (had not even ever tried drugs) because I was badgered so much by this 6'5" scary drill sergeant man.
In the end they let me go, and they looked like idiots for wasting so much time. I can't think of anything I did to even make them suspicous besides being a high school kid on a snowboarding trip. Customs Suck! |
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10/28/2005 01:31:39 PM · #18 |
I've got a little extra time between patients and I really get worked up about people stepping on our rights with no legal authority.
To prove I'm a total geek, I was even perusing the Customs Act to see what it really says. here is a link to the pertinent section 99.1.
It seems like a lot is based on "reasonable grounds" which probably gets overapplied in many, many situations. But it also has some explicit rights to search things (which I guess would make sense)...
99.1 (1) If an officer has reasonable grounds to suspect that a person has entered Canada without presenting himself or herself in accordance with subsection 11(1), the officer may stop that person within a reasonable time after the person has entered Canada.
(2) An officer who stops a person referred to in subsection (1) may...
(b) in respect of goods imported by that person, examine them, cause to be opened any package or container of the imported goods and take samples of them in reasonable amounts.
So the pertinent question for your border friends is whether a) having a laptop is reasonable grounds for a search or b) having 17,000 pictures on your hard drive is reasonable grounds. if it isn't, well, I'm not one for lawsuits, but I would encourage you to call a superior and raise some hell to keep some other poor bastard from getting the same treatment.
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10/28/2005 01:34:49 PM · #19 |
When I was traveling every week as a consultant in 2001, I was singled out more tiems than I thought I should have been for mild searches and questioning. My friends told me I just looked like a criminal :(
Apparently, mycelium, you look like a pervert. ;-)
Just yankin yer chain. Sorry to hear about it and I agree that it is definitely worth taking some action on - but maybe after you get out of the country safely. :) |
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10/28/2005 01:38:28 PM · #20 |
Originally posted by GeneralE:
Originally posted by mycelium:
... Rather than having a pleasant drive with my family, I was forced to spend $148 on a taxicab to get to my destination. |
Send them an invoice for reimbursement. A letter to the local paper describing their "hospitality" might be in order as well. |
I agree - It will make no difference but it's a good way to get some mental relief and you never know what a local rag might stir up (unlikely cause it's politically incorrect now days to question stupidity and abuse of power when it's "national security").
It bugs me to no end that a 1 oz LED on a laptop is enough to have them think it's a real computer most of the time. Wonder if on startup you display a countdown from 10 would they notice :-)
Originally posted by woutje:
I personally wouldn't want to go through what you went through, but I can appreciate the customs officer's concerns. It is, unfortunately, something that has to be worried about. |
I think it's just a waste of time for this pretense as there are MUCH more productive ways to go after crimes then hassling people at an airport for hours - like finding the distribution centres and shutting them down.
Originally posted by mycelium:
I've got something that may in some ways be better - at the wedding I'm attending will be two Canadian Customs officers, less than six months out of training. I'm hoping to get a chance to talk to them and see just what the deal was. I'll share the outcome of that inquiry here. |
Maybe a response of something like - I would love to take some pictures of your special day for you to share but I am too afraid of been detained at customs :-) |
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10/28/2005 01:39:45 PM · #21 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
So the pertinent question for your border friends is whether a) having a laptop is reasonable grounds for a search or b) having 17,000 pictures on your hard drive is reasonable grounds. if it isn't, well, I'm not one for lawsuits, but I would encourage you to call a superior and raise some hell to keep some other poor bastard from getting the same treatment. |
Seems like an accurate assessment. I'll keep those questions in mind, and surely place a call to a higher-up. And in any case, I think GeneralE's suggestion of a letter to the local paper is a good one, too.
Thanks again for giving me the benefit of your research. |
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10/28/2005 01:46:40 PM · #22 |
I got a pat down going through customs in Amsterdam that made me think the officer and I really should have spent more time getting to know each other first.
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10/28/2005 01:47:39 PM · #23 |
Originally posted by woutje:
While most of us here wouldn't think anything of 15,000 images on a personal laptop, I have a feeling that we, as fanatical photogs, have more images on our hard drives than the average bear.
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I don't know about the "average" bear but I can say "this" bear can come up with 15,000 images no problem :-)
R.
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10/28/2005 01:53:00 PM · #24 |
Originally posted by bear_music:
I don't know about the "average" bear but I can say "this" bear can come up with 15,000 images no problem :-) |
Not related, but I would consider you smarter than the average bear - **hands you a picanic basket** |
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10/28/2005 01:54:11 PM · #25 |
Originally posted by RonB:
....I don't think that my luggage has EVER been searched as thoroughly as when I returned to the US from Thailand.... |
Other half had a similar thing last time we came from Thailand to US but the conversation went like (after a longish flight and wait at immigration)...
- Where are you coming from? -> Thailand
- How long? -> 10 days
- Where is the entry/exit stamp? -> There isn't one in that passport.
- How did you get in/out -> Used another passport.
..... this is where things started going wrong in retrospect
- You have another passport? - Yes several.
- Why do you have other passports? - Cause I can.
..... at this point things went further down hill |
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