This isn't about the 5th Amendment. When you are entering the United States, your Constitutional rights just don't apply. I'm a card-owning (I don't have enough space in my wallet to be a card-carrying) member of the ACLU, and I'm OK with cause-less searching of property at border stations. It makes sense that the government has control over what crosses its borders. However, I don't think that they should be able to compel you to offer a password, and if you don't, keep the laptop. If they don't plan on keeping the laptop before you give them a password, they shouldn't be able to keep it after you refuse to give the password.

In the hopes that Cory reads these, I'd love to suggest that a future printing of the book (I read an advance copy -- it's terrific!) or this feed show how to encrypt AIM convos. There are tools available for pidgin, which work, and are, in fact, useful. I go to a totalitarian school that has been known to read students IM convos and even ("accidentally") began blocking any message that contained the word "proxy," referring to proxies to circumvent the school's Web(non)sense server. So, this encryption stuff is actually useful, and I would be pleased if it achieved greater market penetration.

@Chromal:

I don't think your peanut analogy is quite, well, analogous.

If, God forbid, someone happens to be allergic to peanuts, giving them something that contains peanuts could be deadly. If that someone isn't allergic to peanuts, it hardly matters

Likewise, if, God forbid, someone happens to have a heart condition or be touching something grounded with their other free hand (would that actually cause a problem??), then shocking them with a camera could be deadly. If that someone fit neither criterion, then it would hardly matter.

So, it seems that this camera prank is no more dangerous than bringing peanut-containing foods to school. That is to say, not very.

I'm skeptical about the legality of those EULAs which aren't publicized on the packaging. If you've already purchased the product without having consciously assented to the EULA, I think it's arguable that you therefore own everything inside, with all the accompanying rights that don't violate statute.

Also, it's hard to prove that you agreed to a EULA. You can always claim that the EULA, because of some vicissitude of the software or your hardware setup, didn't prompt you to agree before you installed the software.