Why Does Border Patrol Need the Ability To Delete Messages?
A lawsuit attempts to find out how federal agents are implementing Wickr, a communications service that has an auto-erase function.
The same government that wants to demand access to all our secure phone and online communications nevertheless wants to destroy its own to keep it out of the public's hands? Say it isn't so!
Yes, probably few are surprised, but it's worth taking note whenever our own grabby government uses privacy technology to keep secrets. On Sunday, NBC News reported about Customs and Border Patrol's (CBP) use of an Amazon-owned app called Wickr, a conferencing, file-sharing, and messaging service that can be customized to automatically delete messages.
The purchase and use of the app by CBP has prompted concerns by the National Archives and Records Administration that the agency could be using the app to delete messages or communications that are supposed to be stored under the Federal Records Act. The chief records officer of the National Archives sent the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) a letter last fall expressing his concerns and asking for documentation about policies for proper use. CBP hasn't fully responded to his questions. Now the agency is being sued by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) because it hasn't responded to Freedom of Information Act requests for documentation about how Wickr has been implemented.
DHS famously wants to access as much of our data as possible with as few privacy protections as it can get away with. CBP historically has demanded access to electronic devices of people attempting to cross the border into the country legally, without any warrants or even suspicion of criminal activity. Only recently have federal judges ruled that border agents need to be able to articulate a reasonable suspicion before demanding to access the private contents of travelers' phones, tablets, or laptops. CBP searched thousands of these devices every year and even copied their contents, often without ever finding any evidence of wrongdoing.
Of course, the CBP's bosses at DHS are notably against the public having unrestricted access to tools like end-to-end encryption. Encryption makes it all the much harder for the government to access our private data without us knowing and without our permission. Federal law enforcement leaders like FBI Director Christopher Wray want to force online communication platforms to give government bypasses or back doors around the same kinds of tools that help CBP staff keep communications secret. Not only would this compromise Americans' privacy protections against secret domestic surveillance, but it would also potentially render all our records vulnerable to criminal hackers and foreign governments.
There is also the massive accountability issue here. The CBP has authorization to use force against not just foreign travelers at the border but also against Americans within 100 miles of border crossings, and yes, some of them have gotten overly violent with citizens, just like members of other law enforcement agencies. As a federal government agency, the CBP is supposed to operate with transparency about its behavior and the behavior of its agents.
The communications between officers can help establish intent to engage in misconduct or violent behavior. The ability of a government agent to conceal or delete these messages impacts the ability to investigate and, when necessary, prosecute bad behavior. And when the federal government fails to police misconduct on its own, the ability to delete these messages also makes it harder for outside media outlets or accountability organizations like CREW to monitor what's going on.
"Privacy for me, but not for thee," is a terrible position for anybody to take, but it's downright dangerous coming from a law enforcement agency full of armed officers.
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The same government that wants to demand access to all our secure phone and online communications nevertheless wants to destroy its own to keep it out of the public’s hands? Say it isn’t so!
Authoritarians abusing an low(er) information system, like an anonymous one? Say it isn’t so!
Next you’ll probably tell me that they can just delete the messages in one place and they’re deleted everywhere like the system is distributed rather than decentralized or, worse, all the systems everywhere delete the messages, according to the common protocol, whether the central authority tells them to delete them or not.
In these days of budget constraints, they are simply u sing automation to reduce the administrative workload to allow more time for core functions like fighting global climate warming change.
That’s, global anthropogenic climate warming change, to you.
LOL ask Hunter
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes.
“Why Does Border Patrol Need the Ability To Delete Messages?”
I’ll tell you why. It’s because border patrol workers are racist psychopaths who need to erase evidence of their crimes against humanity. Remember the incident with horses and whips?
They should try getting more respectable jobs. For example they could become Koch-funded libertarians and write for Reason.com. Like Scott Shackford, they could make a career out of explaining to ciswomen that they’re bigoted prudes if they don’t want to be exposed to ladydick in the locker room.
#OpenTheBordersToHelpCharlesKoch
#InDefenseOfBillionaires
They could learn to code.
B-. You’re making Scott out to be more of a bigot than he actually is:
Like Scott Shackford, they could make a career out of explaining to ciswomen that they’re bigoted prudes if they don’t want their primary-school daughters to be exposed to ladydick in the locker room.
Admittedly, the satire game just keeps getting tougher every day.
Remember the incident with horses and whips?
Yes I do remember that story, and “story” it was. That whole thing was a false concoction using very carefully edited video to support that lie. Debunked
Just like the “war footage” from the “Ukriane” during Putin’s “invasioin” that were soon oriven to be from Afghainstan, Israel, SYria, etc, going back tweonty years orso.
Nothing a democrat says should ever be taken at face value. They are intrinsically dishonest. Just look at every single leftist that posts here. Vey one one of them is a total lying shitweasel.
Either for those reasons or They don’t need it. But we need for those who use it to. Be automatically incarcerated.
Governments hoard information. So I’m kind of doubtful on this. Sure they may say that it’s been deleted, but do they delete anything? They’re all professional liars who use force for a living. I call bullshit. It’s all archived somewhere.
I’m glad it’s not the secretary of state, or IRS, or FBI, or the president’s son doing this.
Really dodged a bullet there!
No, those people are all fine as long as they’re Democrats. It’s like you’ve never played before.
Same reason tweens like the auto-delete feature of snapchat.
Wickr posts are indelible legally-binding proscriptions, not like, an artificial social construct… a figment of your imagination, man!
If the FBI can delete Hunter Biden’s laptop, and Twitter can delete the story, why do we think that the BP can’t delete a potluck invitation?
Nixon’s tapes are jealous of Hunter’s laptop.
~~insert Delete Delete Delete gif here~~
It s obvious that they simply want to prevent exposure of wrongdoing vie FOIA requests. Thus all who support the use of this should be fired. All who use it need to be incarcerated.
????s like these need to be butchered, it likely would lower the price of pork!