I don’t think that’s true, people weren’t carrying around every photo they ever took, and even then they took a lot less photos. People did not carry around all their banking statements all the time, etc. It’s an order of magnitude problem; yes, sometimes, people carried around those things and their diaries or whatnot, but this is more akin to giving the people the keys to your house, so they can make a perfect copy of to rummage through at their hearts content and find everything in it, and then wiretap your house.
This process came about because the public hasn’t demanded privacy protections as much as it has demanded safety, not out of any logical extension for existing policies.
Basically I don’t think that this logically extends from suitcases to full phone access in the same way I don’t think that the right to bear arms allows you to train and arm a private army with tanks and fighter jets. At some point, it stops being a logical extension of a rule and starts being of a different kind due to changes in magnitude.
Here, a country may be concerned about objects being physically brought into their country, but to be concerned about a persons digital life is a concern of a different kind, because of the scope of that search. It’s not a logical extension in the minds of most people who understand that magnitude of difference. I really hope I can convince you too!
I don’t think that border patrol was (in any meaningful numbers) catching financial crimes because people brought their bank accounts or private letters across borders. I really do not buy that this is a necessary step to fight crime at all (if it were, where are the unsolved crimes? What tragedies would have been prevented?) I think this was catching people moving cash/drugs/weapons off the grid and it can still function in that capacity without forcing digital searches.
Instead, this just grossly invades the privacy of tourists who don’t think to bring a burner phone.
>Basically I don’t think that this logically extends from suitcases to full phone access
I get that you don't think that is the case, but you're not really explaining why you believe so.
> but to be concerned about a persons digital life is a concern of a different kind
But as I said, they're just inspecting the same thing they've always been inspecting. The medium is different and it incidentally happens to be housed with a bunch of different data that historically was kept separate, purely for technological reasons.
You're implying that the cause here is "concern over a person's digital life" but you present no statement or proof that's what these policies are actually aimed at. I think it's fairly obvious that it's a simple reconfiguration of a policy to adapt to changing habits. And if it's not obvious I think the statements from government agencies explaining these policy changes shed further light on why it's being done. But you need to have a reason you believe this to not be the case. It can't just be.
Let's review some statements that hit on some of the above points:
>Individuals entering Canada who are concerned about how this policy might be applied may wish to exercise caution by either limiting the devices they travel with or removing sensitive personal information from devices that could be searched. Another potential measure is to store it on a secure device in Canada or in a secure cloud which would allow you to retrieve it securely once you arrive at your destination.
>Customs’ interest in relation to digital files is in the following enforcement areas:
> * Intercepting prohibited or restricted items
> * Identifying infringements of intellectual property rights
From page 64:
>Our Act does enable us to enforce the law in relation to the following prohibited goods when
they are in a digital format:
> * Objectionable material and images – “objectionable” has a very broad definition under
the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993, and can capture material
ranging from violent or degrading sexual images to material that encourages criminal
acts or terrorism
> * Designs for weapons or for other items of potential military use
> * Designs and blueprints for making nuclear, biological, chemical or radiological
weapons.
Pretty far away from "concerns about a person's digital life."
>in the same way I don’t think that the right to bear arms allows you to train and arm a private army with tanks and fighter jets.
This analogy in no way is relevant to data organization and transmission. It's pretty hyperbolic and distracts from any point you are trying to make.
Let’s for the sake of argument assume that the governments stated reasons are what they are going after.
Is the off chance that someone carries objectionable pornography, designs for nuclear or chemical weapons on their personal phone (instead of emailing them encrypted, or following the state’s own guidelines on how to avoid being searched) worth the ability to search everyone’s personal phone without some kind of judicial oversight? How many people are estimated to be doing so? How many people did they used to catch via the old papers method but cannot anymore? The burden of proof should be on the state who wants to infringe on the privacy of travelers.
I mean, to me the fact that they acknowledge that anyone serious about privacy can take measures to circumvent it pretty much blows the story that this will be effective at catching people smuggling weapons designs or other serious crimes out of the water.
>This analogy in no way is relevant to data organization and transmission. It's pretty hyperbolic and distracts from any point you are trying to make.
I’m trying to make the case that clearly magnitude affects whether or not something is a reasonable extension, perhaps poorly. But you’ll surely concede that doing something at increased scale often changes the nature of that thing? And that’s what I’m saying here, you aren’t just giving away what would have been in your suitcase, you are giving away the keys to your house, car, mailbox, safety deposit box, diary and family photo album. That means it changes the nature of the request, and can’t be considered along the same lines as a suitcase.
>Let’s for the sake of argument assume that the governments stated reasons are what they are going after.
Okay but there's no "sake" about, that's literally what we are trying to establish. If you don't believe that a logical progression of existing laws and processes into new mediums is there reason why these policy changes are taking place, contrary to basic reasoning and explicit statements from these governments while pushing for these changes, you have to have an actual reason why you believe this not to be the case.
>I mean, to me the fact that they acknowledge that anyone serious about privacy can take measures to circumvent it pretty much blows the story that this will be effective at catching people smuggling weapons designs or other serious crimes out of the water.
There are plenty of ways to get away with murder but that doesn't mean we take it off the law books because of its efficacy. That's a really silly view point.
>But you’ll surely concede that doing something at increased scale often changes the nature of that thing?
As I said in my original post, it's worth discussing and certainly worth finding a solution too. But the particular governments we're talking about have well stated reasons for their policy changes, they aren't doing it to be draconian. We all started clumping our data together. Governments didn't increase the scope of what they were looking for.
>That means it changes the nature of the request, and can’t be considered along the same lines as a suitcase.
But that's exactly what it is. There's a reason we have have "files" and "folders" as basic user data organization schemes. Border policies haven't actually changed in any of dramatic fashion. Again we just started storing more data by other data, data they were already inspecting. You might argue that this little fact is the basis for why the policy should be changed, but you have to actually argue it.
This process came about because the public hasn’t demanded privacy protections as much as it has demanded safety, not out of any logical extension for existing policies.