United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the largest federal law enforcement agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security has become the talk of the town after its recent act of violating an Apple employee’s constitutional rights. Just two days ago, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a complaint against the border control officers for violating the constitutional rights of Dr. Andreas Gal, an Apple employee while he was returning from a business trip to Sweden.
I was subject to an unlawful border search and together with the @ACLU I’m filing a civil rights complaint against @CBP https://t.co/6Mp08ffdMm
— andreasgal (@andreasgal) April 2, 2019
Who is Dr. Andreas Gal?
Dr. Andreas Gal, a successful entrepreneur and technologist, a U.S. citizen who currently is an employee at Apple. He is also the former Chief Executive Officer at Silk Labs and the former Chief Technology Officer of Mozilla Corporation. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of California at Irvine. He has taken a lot of initiatives to prevent warrantless mass surveillance and spread the use of encryption at Mozilla.
What exactly happened?
The letter by ACLU highlighted CBP’s detention and intrusive interrogation of Dr. Gal and they attempted to check his devices.
Last year on 29th November, Dr. Gal arrived at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) while returning from a business trip in Sweden. He holds the Global Entry status that allows expedited clearance for pre-approved, low-risk travellers upon arrival in the United States.
After landing at SFO, the immigration agents checked his passport on the jetbridge, he then proceeded to the Global Entry kiosk in the customs and border area. Gal was given a receipt marked as ‘Tactical Terrorism Response Teams’ (TTRT) on it.
Gal presented the receipt from the kiosk along with his U.S. passport, to an immigration officer there. After reviewing Dr. Gal’s passport and Global Entry receipt, he instructed him to go to Customs Area B but kept Gal’s passport. He was then interrogated by three CBP officers who were armed with holstered handguns at Customs Area B. Dr. Gal was asked a number of questions regarding his travel plans, his employment history, his work at Apple, and his electronic devices. He was even asked questions about his work at Mozilla and travel to Canada. Even after repeatedly being asked by Dr. Gal about the baseless process of interrogation, the officers didn’t answer.
In a statement to The Register, he said, “There I quickly found myself surrounded by three armed agents wearing bullet proof vests. They started to question me aggressively regarding my trip, my current employment, and my past work for Mozilla, a non-profit organization dedicated to open technology and online privacy.”
He was travelling with an Apple iPhone XS and an Apple MacBook Pro, both were issued to him by Apple for software development reasons. The laptop even had a sticker which read, “PROPERTY OF APPLE. PROPRIETARY.” Whereas the phone had a sticker with a serial number but not Apple’s name where its lockscreen displayed “Confidential and Proprietary,” and also had a number to call if the device is found.
The officers even asked Dr. Gal to pull up his itinerary on his mobile phone and searched his wallet and all his luggage and asked questions about everything they found. Gal told the officers that he would email them the itinerary instead and he needs to speak with a lawyer and his employer before giving CBP officers full access to his mobile phone. But the CBP officers ordered Dr. Gal to enter the passcode to his mobile phone and laptop and hand it over to them.
I’m no lawyer, but I don’t understand how law enforcement can search your phone, but not your house, without a warrant. Your phone is a treasure chest of confidential info. The @ACLU has complained, according to this @washingtonpost story. https://t.co/Dd9pohCb4U
— Walt Mossberg (@waltmossberg) April 3, 2019
According to the ACLU report, “Gal never refused to provide the passcodes to access the electronic devices in his possession, he only asked that he be allowed to consult with an attorney to ensure that he would not violate non-disclosure agreements with his employer.”
After the intense interrogation session, Gal was allowed to leave with his devices but without his Global Entry card and he was told that his privileges would be revoked because he refused to comply with the search.
Gal said, “My past work on encryption and online privacy is well documented, and so is my disapproval of the Trump administration and my history of significant campaign contributions to Democratic candidates. I wonder whether these CBP [Customs and Border Patrol] programs led to me being targeted.”
If they’re company owned devices, there is no way the carrier can make the decision in the first place. By not allowing him to contact legal or corporate, they broke the law. Also, it’s not the carriers property to give consent to. This is ridiculous.
— Joe G📲🎭 (@redhotnerd) April 3, 2019
Are developers who travel endangered?
Here it’s important to note that the questions that were asked to Dr. Gal were not limited to his identity or citizenship, they were much beyond that. After this incident, a question that arises is how secure are the developers with respect to work-related travels? Developers, data analysts, testers or researchers carry a lot of sensitive data while their work-related travels. If they come across with such an interrogation, then they might end up leaking out their company’s sensitive data and which would go against the company’s law.
"it remains that CBP examines the electronic devices of less than one-hundredth of one percent of travelers arriving to the United States."
— kif (@kifleswing) April 3, 2019
To know more about this news, check out the post by ACLU.
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