Lost amongst the wreckage of the current financial crisis is the latest news of the Bush Administration’s utter disregard for civil rights.

Feds give customs agents free hand to seize travelers’ documents

(09-23) 17:06 PDT SAN FRANCISCO — The Bush administration has overturned a 22-year-old policy and now allows customs agents to seize, read and copy documents from travelers at airports and borders without suspicion of wrongdoing, civil rights lawyers in San Francisco said Tuesday in releasing records obtained in a lawsuit.

The records also indicate that the government gives customs agents unlimited authority to question travelers about their religious beliefs and political opinions, said lawyers from the Asian Law Caucus and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. They said they had asked the Department of Homeland Security for details of any policy that would guide or limit such questioning and received no reply.

How can anyone find this even remotely acceptable under the Constitution? Note that it doesn’t appear to even limit the policy to foreign (non-American) travelers. When you combine this with the Ninth Circuit’s earlier decision, the Bush Administration is blatantly ignoring the Fourth Amendment which states:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

THE WEAKERTHANS - WATERMARK

I count to three and grin.
You smile and let me in.
We sit and watch the wall you painted purple.

Speech will spill on space.
Our little cups of grace.
But pauses rattle on about the way that you cut the snow-fence,
braved the blood,
the metal of those hearts that you always end up pressing your tongue to.
How your body still remembers things you told it to forget.
How those furious affections followed you.

I’ve got this store-bought way of saying I’m okay,
and you learned how to cry in total silence.

We’re talented and bright.
We’re lonely and uptight.
We’ve found some lovely ways to disappoint,
but the airport’s always almost empty this time of the year,
so let’s go play on a baggage carousel.
Set our watches forward like we’re just arriving here
from a past we left in a place we knew too well.

Knew too well.
Knew too well.

Hold on to the corners of today,
and we’ll fold them up to save until it’s needed.
Stand still.
Let me scrub that brackish line that you got
when something rose and then receded.
Hold on.

Laptops fair game for airport customs searches

Customs agents at U.S. airports don’t need any evidence of wrongdoing to search the contents of passengers’ laptop computers, a federal appeals court ruled Monday.

Reinstating child pornography evidence against a passenger at Los Angeles International Airport, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said a computer is no different from a suitcase, a car or any other piece of property subject to search at an international border.

Although police need probable cause - specific evidence of criminal activity - to search someone on the street, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that no such evidence is necessary for a border search. Courts have also ruled that an international airport is the equivalent of a border.

Border agents would need grounds for suspicion before conducting a body search, but a “piece of property simply does not implicate the same dignity and privacy concerns as highly intrusive searches of the person,” the court said. Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain wrote the 3-0 decision.

Hopefully, when this makes it to the Supreme Court (and I’m sure it ultimately will), they’ll make the right decisions with regards to privacy.

It’s reasonable to ask someone to turn on their laptop to ensure that it’s not a bomb, but what reason could someone possibly have for looking at files stored on the computer without some sort of probable cause?

To me, despite the Ninth Circuit’s decision (which is surprising, since the Ninth Circuit is usually one of the more “liberal” Courts of Appeal), this smacks of a direct violation of a person’s Fourth Amendment rights.

For those that aren’t familiar, the Fourth Amendment states:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

In today’s age of electronics, I’d call a person’s laptop to effectively be “papers, and effects” … even if the defendant in this case is a pervert carrying child porn, the Customs officials should have never looked at the the files on the laptop without probable cause.

And nowhere, in any of the articles that I’ve found thus far, has there been any indication that this was the case. Instead, they’re claiming that “hey, we can open your luggage to make sure you’re not carrying drugs, so that means we can search all of your business and/or personal documents on your laptop at will as well.”

Talk about a slippery slope … once again I think that Blackstone’s Formulation should rule the day. As a reminder, Blackstone’s Formulation states, “it is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.”

… for the airport in an hour to start my long journey home.

Of course, my travel luck fails me again, as American Airlines will not allow me to check in online for some reason … and I don’t have an assigned seat, despite being confirmed.

Cannot wait to get home to Utah, though … to sleep in my own bed, to head up to Ogden for the final race of the UTCX series tomorrow (especially to watch some mushy girlie-girls kick some ass, preferably NOT mine).

If all goes well, I’ll be home by 10:00 pm. Keep your fingers crossed, and pray for me if you’re so inclined.

So I get to the aiport about 12:30 to catch my 2:30 flight to Columbus (changing planes at O’Hare), only to find out that American Airlines is having massive delays with flights coming in and out of Chicago (hmmm … why am I not surprised); and that there’s no way I’ll make my connecting flight.

So they rebook me on the directly flight from SLC to Columbus on Delta. This, of course, was the flight I wanted to take to begin with, but the tickets were “too expensive” for my company to pay for them.

So for once I’m actually grateful for delays; even though it does mean I get to sit in the airport for another couple of hours before I can get on my flight.

Ah well; at least I can get cocktails (and food, of course) at the lounge, and make the company pay for them!

I just hope I don’t run into similar “problems” on my way back on Friday, since I’ve got to get up early on Saturday morning for the final Utah Cyclocross race of the season up at Fort Buenaventura, in Ogden.

It’s hard to believe the season is almost over; it seems like just a couple weeks ago that it started … and for me, while I haven’t been racing much, this has been one of the best seasons ever.

I’ve met loads of fabulous new people who are just as addicted to the spectacle (and fun) of cyclocross; and think I’ve started to develop a few good friendships with people. I just hope that the relationships survive the end of the season, and that these people remain an integral part of my social circle, rather than just being “cyclocross friends” whom I only see for 10 weeks of the year.

Sitting at the airport … again … waiting for a delayed flight … again … and all I want to do is go home and go to sleep in my own bed. Is that too much ask for?

Sigh.

And I get to do it again in a couple of weeks to go to Columbus, Ohio … I wonder if it’s too late for me to back out of that trip.

A couple years ago, I was tagged by the best chick at my wedding, the devine mamazilla, the wonderful Lindy Bunny, to list my idiosyncrasies.

I did then … but it’s time to repost, and expand.

G-bunny even sent me a handy-dandy definition to go along with everything to help set parameters:

id·i·o·syn·cra·sy n. pl. id·i·o·syn·cra·sies

1. A structural or behavioral characteristic peculiar to an individual or group.
2. A physiological or temperamental peculiarity.
3. An unusual individual reaction to food or a drug.

So here we go:

1. I’m a mean, cruel rotten bastard. Except I’m also a really wonderful kind and generous man. Except when I don’t want to be, which is most of the time. Except that I’m working really hard to have a more positive outlook on life and stuff.
2. I like cheese. Cheese doesn’t like me.
3. I was 39 years old before I ever owned my own motorized vehicle. Since I got it, I’ve hardly ridden my bike at all, except that I’m racing cyclocross now, and despite the fact that I really suck at it, I’m loving it.
4. I really like the cheese from Liberty Heights Fresh. It still doesn’t like me.
5. I can dance. I don’t like to dance, but I can. Too bad it takes me 4-6 cocktails to get over myself enough to actually let myself dance, because God forbid that all of those dumbfucks out there whom I don’t know and whose opinion I really don’t give a rat’s ass about might judge me.
6. I like pizza. Pizza doesn’t like me, either.
7. I fall for women who aren’t available. Want me to get hooked on you? Start dating someone else.
8. I wear socks and flip-flops (well, slides, actually) in public, on purpose. Short white socks. And Bermuda shorts that come below my knees. And I shave my legs. I’m a cyclist. It’s what we do.
9. I once had a phone number that spelled GAY-MONK, while living in a house that was painted lavender, on a street that was named “Younglove” … talk about playing games with the psyche!
10. I like beer and vodka, but not at the same time. Hmmm … maybe that’s not so idiosyncratic after all.
11. Cabernet? Yes, please!
12. I have a tendency to piss off people I care about, when I least want to do so. That’s an idiosyncracy I’d love to ditch.
13. I’m a firm believer in retail therapy. Unfortunately, I don’t have the bank account to get really therapeutic.
14. And yet, I still have 4 computers, 2 televisions, 2 pairs of snowshoes, 4 pairs of skis, and 5 bicycles.
15. I’m a Democrat, and I love Utah. Okay, not all of it, but I like thinking that my vote might actually effect some change, rather than just being another “yes” man like I was in NorCal.
16. Most of the time, when I buy shoes, I buy two pairs of the same shoe, but in different colorways.
17. I hadn’t bought a new pair of pants in at least 2 years … until last month.
18. I last bought underwear in an airport. Okay, granted it was Brook Brothers, which happens to have a shop in Port Columbus International, but still … who buys underwear in an airport?
19. I eat when I’m not hungry, and don’t eat when I am hungry.
20. I’m finally learning how to ski powder, but still fall over in the lift line.
21. Like I said, I’m a cyclist. That’s idiosyncratic enough for most people.

So now, faithful readers … all 3 of you … TAG! You’re it. I expect to see your posts within the week … or not.