WASHINGTON: This past October, Ed Ou, a Canadian photojournalist, was detained and had his devices seized after refusing to unlock them for United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials. Ou was held for several hours, and was eventually denied entry into the U.S. There was also evidence that his devices were tampered with. “Ed’s ordeal is yet another indication that the government is treating the border as an all-purpose dragnet for intelligence gathering,” wrote American Civil Liberties Union staff attorney Hugh Handeyside in a story about Ou’s treatment. Although CBP has since 2009 claimed the right to search and/or seize electronic devices such as mobile phones, laptops and cameras at borders and airports, there is increased concern among journalists and their advocates that CBP will demand access journalists’ electronic devices as they cross into the U.S. Those who comply could be compromising sources, fixers and other associates that they are ethically bound to protect.
As a photojournalist who has worked in authoritarian countries in the Middle East for more than a decade, Ou says the experience has altered his outlook. “I’ve had to think of the world not in terms of places that respect journalists and places that don’t,” Ou told PDN. Now he assumes that his digital data could be compromised anywhere. “The Canadian government requires the same thing,” he says. “This is not just an American issue; this is a global issue.” “I haven’t had any experience with [electronics searches] myself, but it is definitely something that I consider when I travel,” says photojournalist Bryan Denton, a New York Times contributor and U.S. citizen who is based in Beirut, Lebanon. Denton’s wife, Wall Street Journal writer Maria Abi-Habib, does have direct experience with CBP overreach, however. She was traveling with her U.S. passport (she is a dual U.S.-Lebanese citizen) in July 2016 when she was detained and asked to unlock her phones by CBP officials at Los Angeles’s LAX airport. She told CBP that she couldn’t grant their request because the phones belong to the Wall Street Journal, and suggested to officials that they take it up with WSJ’s lawyers. She was eventually released with her phones unsearched. Denton says his wife’s ordeal has been instructive, and suggests he would take a similar tack, referring agents to The New York Times’ in-house counsel if asked to unlock his phones. “The only other place I’ve heard of people being asked for their passwords is in North Korea,” Denton says.
Organizations such as the ACLU, NPPA and Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute are challenging the warrantless search practices, and Oregon Senator Ron Wyden is putting political pressure on the Department of Homeland Security, but until laws change, journalists have to take steps to protect their data when crossing borders. Ou also notes that, even if a journalist or citizen isn’t crossing a border or worried about a government attempting to access their data, they should be concerned about security. There are hackers, scammers and others who might steal and exploit your communications, he notes, and digital security should be “as standard and reflexive as locking the door to your home when you leave.” Here are some of the things they can do to protect themselves and their sources.
