1.15.2011

Conservatives who spend so much time worrying about tyranny...

...ought to spend less time whining about health care and more time contemplating this:

Homeland Security's laptop seizures: Interview with Rep. Sanchez - U.S. House of Representatives - Salon.com

When you really think about it, it's simply inconceivable that the U.S. Government gets away with doing this.  Seizing someone's laptop, digging through it, recording it all, storing the data somewhere, and then distributing it to various agencies is about the most invasive, privacy-destroying measure imaginable.  A laptop and its equivalents reveal whom you talk to, what you say, what you read, what you write, what you view, what you think, and virtually everything else about your life.  It can -- and often does -- contain not only the most private and intimate information about you, but also information which the government is legally barred from accessing (attorney/client or clergy/penitent communications, private medical and psychiatric information and the like).  But these border seizures result in all of that being limitlessly invaded.

The border, in this context, means everything within 100 miles of a border, including a coastal border, an area which includes two thirds of the U.S. population

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