Backpacker stripped of tech gear at Auckland Airport
New Zealand citizen stripped of phone, tablet, laptop and hard drive at New Zealand customs after returning from a talk in London about Edward Snowden's released documents. ● A Customs officer at Auckland International Airport took law graduate Sam Blackman's two smartphones, iPad, an external hard drive and laptop - and demanded his passwords. Mr Blackman, 27, who was breaking up travelling with his journalist fiance Imogen Crispe for a month back in New Zealand for Christmas, was initially given no reason why the gear was taken. The only possibility of why it occurred was his attendance - and tweeting - of a London meeting on mass surveillance sparked by the Snowden revelations, he said. However, a Customs official has since told him they were searching everything for objectionable material under the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993. Mr Blackman said he did not have anything of that nature and could not understand why he had been targeted.