[Infowarrior] - DHS Report on Border Laptop Searches

[Richard Forno]

DHS privacy report: Laptop searches at airports infrequent
Jaikumar Vijayan
25.09.2009 kl 17:45 | IDG News Service
http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=F2595FA7-1A64-67EA-E4B4ED6EA03241AB
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's annual privacy report card  
revealed more details on the agency's controversial policy involving  
searches of electronic devices at U.S. borders.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's annual privacy report card  
revealed more details on the agency's controversial policy involving  
searches of electronic devices at U.S. borders.
The 99-page report, which was released Thursday, also offered details  
on the agency's efforts to address privacy risks in social media and  
the use of imaging technologies that produce whole-body scans at  
airport security checkpoints.

The report is the first DHS privacy assessment released to Congress  
since the new administration took office. It covers the activities of  
the DHS Privacy Office between July 2008 and June 2009.

For the most part, the report is a compilation of privacy-related  
activities across the DHS during this period. However, it also offered  
lesser-known details about some DHS programs. For instance, numbers  
released in the report indicate that warrantless searches of  
electronic devices at U.S. borders are occurring less frequently than  
some privacy and civil rights advocates might have feared.

Of the more than 144 million travelers that arrived at U.S. ports of  
entry between Oct. 1, 2008 and May 5, 2009, searches of electronic  
media were conducted on 1,947 of them, the DHS said.

Of this number, 696 searches were performed on laptop computers, the  
DHS said. Even here, not all of the laptops received an "in-depth"  
search of the device, the report states. A search sometimes may have  
been as simple as turning on a device to ensure that it was what it  
purported to be. U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents conducted  
"in-depth" searches on 40 laptops, but the report did not describe  
what an in-depth search entailed.

The numbers add new perspective to the issue of border searches of  
electronic devices. While the DHS has insisted on the need to perform  
such searches, privacy and civil rights groups maintain such searches  
are intrusive and violate an individual's constitutional rights  
against unreasonable searches.

Social networking tools get close look

The report also noted the "myriad of complex legal, security and  
privacy issues" raised by the use of social networking tools in the  
federal government. As part of an effort to address such issues, the  
DHS Office of Policy and the Office of Public Affairs have established  
a Social Media Roundtable Working Group with representatives from  
offices throughout the department, the report said.

The privacy office is also implementing a compliance process to ensure  
that the department's use of social media tools complies with all  
privacy laws, including the Privacy Act and the Homeland Security Act.  
The DHS privacy office is asking all of the department's component  
units to conduct so-called privacy threshold analyses to identify the  
uses of social media within the DHS and their impact on privacy.

The report also noted the "heightened public interest" around the  
Transportation Security Administration's use of imaging technologies  
to search for items that passengers might be hiding beneath their  
clothing. The report said the TSA has taken steps to mitigate the  
privacy impact of the technology, for example, by having the person  
viewing the scans in a remote location and by placing a blur over the  
facial image. TSA is also working with technology providers to further  
anonymize images by converting them to an abstract image, such as a  
cartoon, the report said.

The report chronicled similar efforts to monitor the privacy  
implications of a range of projects that privacy groups are also  
watching. Examples include Einstein 2.0 network monitoring technology  
that improves the ability of federal agencies to detect and respond to  
threats, and the Real ID identity credentialing program. The DHS's  
terror watch list program, its numerous data mining projects and the  
secure flight initiative were also mentioned in the report.