How does the anti piracy check in airports work?
Question by Animexican: How does the anti piracy check in airports work?
about a year ago, a friend of mine was stoped in an american airport for a random security check, they took his laptop and a guy went through every file until he found limewire, told him “you are in big trouble, you have illegal files” and they took his visa away (he is from mexico) and he cant go to the USA anymore.
I will be traveling to several USA airports one after the others (LAX, JFK amoung others) and I just completly formated my computer just in case but my question is.. how the hell can they prove that what I have in my computer is pirate?? I mean I could have very well burned my own cd’s and there’s no way for them to tell if it’s illlegal or burned by me. So can anyone in detail explain to me how this works? I do NOT want some angry customs agent taking my visa away from me in my honeymoon just because he is having a bad day and saw a .mp3 file in my computer.
I will be taking ONLY the files I have purchased via itunes but that worries me as well, what if the officer is just some ignorant guy that doesn’t know you can actualy purchase download music? What worries me is that even if I only sort out the music I have bought, I feel I may make a mistake and accidentaly take a few cd’s that I burned myself so that is pretty much piracy in their book.
I also stripped my computer for anything that can be considered pirate, even if it isnt. I am taking only freeware and licesned software. I removed Microsoft Office and installed Open Office, I switched from outlook to thunderbird, etc.
I am still worried though.. I mean how deep are these scans? I know the chance of me geting one is very low but what if I do? do they use file recovery software to bring back files I could have deleted back home? to see if I used to have any piracy?
This sucks so much, a lot of the movies I have are honest DVD rips that I ripped myself in my home, I have absolutely NO way of proving that I own this movies unless I take the movies themselves and show them the disks in customs.. which pretty much defeats the whole purpose.
Any ideas? OR if there are any customs agents reading this, please be a nice guy and tell me what to do! I don’t want to get my visa taken away from me, THANKS!
Best answer:
Answer by Connie Goosebung
U.S. Customs doesn`t really need an excuse , or find anything on your computer to lift your visa , Garfield !
They can disallow you entry simply because they don`t like your hairstyle , and there`s almost nothing you can do about it . You can appeal the decision , but it rarely works out in your favor …..
I know it sucks , but thanks to the muslim terrorists , that`s the way it is .
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