Comments on: Canada customs siezed my laptop.

Question: Canada customs siezed my laptop.

Meatbomb — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 00:58:29 -0800

Please: recommend a lawyer in Vancouver, BC? I am in sudden need of trusted legal advice, connected to seizure of laptop by Canadian customs for "verification of contents".

Although I am not a terrorist or pedophile, having them go through all my stuff with a fine tooth comb freaks me out - who knows what they'll find, and what they would feel is enough justification to permanently confiscate the machine and / or press charges? This totally sucks, I need a lawyer right now.

Looking for a lawyer, but with no clue who to trust as I have no previous dealings in this area, and can't even define exactly what area of law / specialty I need here... I hope that some MeFite local to BC can suggest a trusted lawyer person who can help me, or at least point me in the right direction as to where to look.

Email in profile if you wish to speak privately.

By: blue_wardrobe

blue_wardrobe — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 02:15:03 -0800

Were you issued a "seizure receipt form"?

By: Meatbomb

Meatbomb — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 02:34:50 -0800

Yes, a "notice of detention".

By: onshi

onshi — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 04:03:35 -0800

From the Law Society of BC (essentially the province's bar association):

http://www.lawsociety.bc.ca/public/finding_lawyer.html

"Lawyer Referral Service - Another option is the Lawyer Referral Service run by the BC Branch of the Canadian Bar Association. This service will give you the name of a lawyer near you who has requested referrals. You can arrange a half-hour interview for $25 plus tax. Call (604) 687-3221 or 1-800-663-1919. More information is also available on the BC Branch website at www.cba.org/bc."

By: thewalrus

thewalrus — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 06:07:53 -0800

Cameron Ward, a well known civil rights lawyer! Google "cameron ward Vancouver" for more info. This is exactly the sort of case he specializes in.

By: thewalrus

thewalrus — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 06:10:26 -0800

I guess I should ask, are you an American visitor or do you live in BC? Not that it helps any but US customs is now in the habit of seizing and copying the contents of southbound laptops as well.

By: misha

misha — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 14:49:42 -0800

Meatbomb, whatever happened with this? Update, please!

By: Meatbomb

Meatbomb — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 15:21:30 -0800

My update totally sucks, misha.

By: tehloki

tehloki — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 22:54:52 -0800

Sorry to be off-topic, but why did they take your laptop in the first place? I travel with my laptop often and I'm sort of frightened by this seemingly random seizure of property. I had no idea this kind of crap went on in full force in Canada.

By: Meatbomb

Meatbomb — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 08:10:14 -0800

tehloki: the customs agent first found some euro porn dvds that she didn't like, and decided that the computer should be sniffed at as there was porn there as well.

So if you are paranoid, as I now am, my advice would be to have zero porn visible in your CDs/ DVDs, and have your on-disk porn cache heavily secretified, such that a random dork at customs couldn't sniff it out with a casual look.

Me, I had all my porn in a subfolder of My Documents called "pornography". Don't do that, for example.