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Canadian journalist's detention at US border raises press freedom alarms

nytimes.com

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Re: Canadian journalist's detention at US border raises press freedom alarms

#141

Post by kuschku »

lordnacho wrote: post #75
jliptzin wrote: post #21

Don't be fooled, Canadian border patrol proudly engages in this as well. I was recently driving across the border to Montreal on vacation when Canadian border agents, in addition to searching my car and personal belongings, demanded to see my cell phone and turn over the password. I simply asked why, since I didn't think I was doing anything suspicious, at which point the agent angrily responded "because I can and no…

Someone's probably already thought of this: Make a second password which "unlocks" the phone to some innocuous mode that won't hold the meatheads attention any longer. Assuming you aren't specifically targeted.

Android allows creating multiple users.

Re: Canadian journalist's detention at US border raises press freedom alarms

#142

Post by DrJokepu »

exolymph wrote: post #74
DrJokepu wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a right you have in Canada? Can't they just be like "yeah, no"?

Maybe. I don't know. But law enforcement routinely lie, so I default to not taking them at face value. If I had a pressing medical need or something like that, I would probably bet differently.

I was asking because while I have never had a personal experience regarding the subject, one of my wife's (US citizen) friends was once locked up in the United Arab Emirates for the heinous crime of being drunk and it took quite a bit of effort to get him out of jail (and even then he wasn't allowed to leave the country for another 6 months) and he received _zero_ assistance from the US government. Now obviously Canada is not comparable to the United Arab Emirates in this regard but clearly when you're abroad you enjoy no legal protection beyond what the host nation's local laws provide you with?

Re: Canadian journalist's detention at US border raises press freedom alarms

#143

Post by lostlogin »

michaelcampbell wrote: post #91
spinlock wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lulz, you should assume the NSA has access to anything you store in the "cloud".

Of course, but they already have it, and aren't impeding my travel. The Candian Border Control guys don't, and can.

The Five Eyes may actually have it - so even if border guys don't, the Canadians may have access.

Re: Canadian journalist's detention at US border raises press freedom alarms

#144

Post by mzw_mzw »

Disclaimer: US border control, including in this case, is in my view terrible, unjust, and counterproductive. That being said:

There's a weird "OMG A JOURNALIST WAS HASSLED!" angle to the story that, frankly, smells of aristocratic entitlement. Journalists aren't some superior class entitled to swan about the world freely while us filthy plebeians wait in line for toilet paper; at least in America, they're citizens with no more -- and no fewer -- rights than anyone else, and that's the way it should be. The First Amendment is for every citizen, not just those who've managed to get credentials with someone.

Indeed, anyone advocating a reduction to border search insanity is likely harming their cause by linking it to journalists in particular, since journalists are such a widely despised group. There's going to be a nonzero number of people who are going to hear about a journalist being given trouble at the border, even unjustly, and think "good," not "wow, that could happen to me."

Re: Canadian journalist's detention at US border raises press freedom alarms

#145

Post by lostlogin »

mzw_mzw wrote: post #138
saycheese wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you a journalist?

Why should journalists have more rights than ordinary civilians?

So that the rest of us can stay informed and sources can be protected. The tricky hit is regulating who is a journalist - bloggers here in NZ are running into this.

Re: Canadian journalist's detention at US border raises press freedom alarms

#146

Post by twr »

chinathrow wrote: post #46
jliptzin wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, from now on I will back up my phone to the cloud, wipe it before going over a border, then reinstalling after. It's the only sane thing to do.

For that you would need to be able to fully trust your cloud storage provider, the ISPs used in transint to and from, the used encryption methods and last but not least: the baseband firmware of your phone.

It's highly unlikely that the Canada Border Services Agency, of all organizations, is able to defeat competent modern crypto implementations.

It's also quite unlikely that they can circumvent a basic `tar -c /dev/block/* | gpg -se ...` scheme that's trivially doable on unlockable Android phones. (Replacing the bootloader with a maliciously crafted variant that returns false partition data after bootup would work, but once again: CBSA.)

You're probably safe if you just do an iCloud backup and wipe followed later by a restore.

Certainly do replace the SIM card as soon as possible though, IMO. Unless you can verify it somehow.

Re: Canadian journalist's detention at US border raises press freedom alarms

#147

Post by kuschku »

tajen wrote: post #119
buildbot wrote: post #28

Given how everything in most phones is by default encrypted these days, I wonder how diffult I would be for someone like Apple to offer a border crossing mode that has whatever apps you deem acceptable, while firewalling off others in an undetectable way?

> Given how everything in most phones is by default encrypted these days Android isn't encrypted, is it? You can encrypt it BUT say goodbye to your pattern-based login, you'll have to type a password on the Qwerty keyboard every time. So, I don't think anyone enables encryption on Android.

Actually, Android is encrypted per default (required) since 5.0.

You can encrypt with different passphrases at boot and login time, too.

Re: Canadian journalist's detention at US border raises press freedom alarms

#148

Post by xyzzy_plugh »

plg wrote: post #134

Q: do customs agents (in either USA or Canada) have the right to ask for social network passwords, even if you don't cross with a device? e.g. Facebook? Gmail? what about Dropbox? I suppose you could try "I don't have an account on that" but what if they know you do?

"what if they know you do?" -- how?

Re: Canadian journalist's detention at US border raises press freedom alarms

#149

Post by dragonwriter »

mzw_mzw wrote: post #138
saycheese wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you a journalist?

Why should journalists have more rights than ordinary civilians?

They shouldn't, legitimate "press freedoms" don't belong to a special journalistic class, they protect activities no matter who is engaged in them.

Re: Canadian journalist's detention at US border raises press freedom alarms

#150

Post by mzw_mzw »

lostlogin wrote: post #145
mzw_mzw wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should journalists have more rights than ordinary civilians?

So that the rest of us can stay informed and sources can be protected. The tricky hit is regulating who is a journalist - bloggers here in NZ are running into this.

But do you trust the same governments hassling journalists at the border and rooting through their electronic data to decide who is, and is not, a journalist?
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