I don't understand America's fascination with snooping through peoples shit.
Neither do most Americans. It's the authoritarians in charge of this shit show that have the fascination.
But why people let them do it?
What could happen if you refuse to unlock your phone at the US border?
351–360 of 494 posts
Re: What could happen if you refuse to unlock your phone at the US border?
#352Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure it's ridiculous to suggest that failing to stop law the misuse of law enforcement tools to harass dissidents early invites worse oppression later. These things have a way of ratcheting up until they get significant push back.
Maybe. Seems like the FBI and federal agencies were harassing dissidents a lot worse in the 60s and 70s through COINTELPRO than they are now. I don't know if it's really worse now so much as different with new avenues of harassment into our digital lives. You think dissidents weren't harassed at the border before everyone carried a cell phone? The post I was replying to was basically a vague reference to creeping fas…
I think a lot of it is that there's so much more digital paper trail and so much more stuff is done electronically nowadays you can't as easily stop being a thorn in their side (i.e activist for some cause) without them continuing to treat you like one.
In the 1960s you could decide that you'd done enough and move to a new city across the country and get a fairly fresh start. Now any trivial interaction with "the system" would get you red flagged at every subsequent interaction.
The cops "randomly" stop an acquaintance of mine fairly regularly and give him much more crap ever since one of his kids got a misdemeanor speeding ticket (threshold is 20-over which is typical traffic speed in some places) in that vehicle with those plates.
>think the US is about to rise into the Fourth Reich?
Not literally but people have diverse sets of political beliefs. It's not a stretch to imagine individual groups that are for/against something being persecuted. Imagine how civil rights activists or the pro-socialist hippies would be treated today.
Re: What could happen if you refuse to unlock your phone at the US border?
#353Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If the Ukrainians start to run from Russia the reception will quite different - case in point - the armenias during the genocide. The whole western world sat and watched two decades of persecution that Armenians suffered which ended up becoming a genocide, even Russia who declared herself the protector of Ottoman Orthodox christians didn't move a finger. And those who managed to flee the country were not always wel…
They were definitely welcome in Bulgaria and the Balkans
in Syria as well
Re: What could happen if you refuse to unlock your phone at the US border?
#354Earlier quoted context omitted.
--> The current best practice for border crossings --- really anywhere in the world --- is simply not to carry anything you're unwilling to unlock for Customs. How do password managers play into this? I'm likely going to be traveling to the US on business. I'll be bringing a travel phone rather than a normal phone (This is my standard travel practice for any country). I could do the same with a computer. I don't mind…
If you're not a citizen, I think this is probably pretty simple: don't carry anything across the border that you would be uncomfortable being forced to unlock. There's nothing you can encrypt with a passphrase that is protected from a border search, unless you're comfortable being sent back home, losing your computer hardware, and not being allowed back to the US at least until the next Presidential administration, p…
> If you're not a citizen, I think this is probably pretty simple: don't carry anything across the border that you would be uncomfortable being forced to unlock.
I think this applies whether or not you are a citizen, whether or not you entering the U.S. or another state, and frankly whether we're talking about electronic data or not. If you don't want it searched, examined or confiscated, don't enter a nation state with it!
> It is a very bad plan to attempt to outsmart CBP with clever encryption strategies. If you want to protect something, don't bring it to a border crossing.
Excellent advice. You can't outsmart customs with clever encryption strategies.
Re: What could happen if you refuse to unlock your phone at the US border?
#355Re: What could happen if you refuse to unlock your phone at the US border?
#356Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right. Since they may ask for social media passwords, would that imply making a travel profile for my travel devices that has password access to things like Facebook and a subset of sites I'd need, but not necessarily all 400+ of my logins? I don't care if they login to my Facebook (well, I think I don't). I just don't want to have them have everything , because then I'd have to change it all. To be very clear, not p…
Why is this being accepted as even remotely reasonable? What about 'login with Facebook' sites? We here know that we should change our password and logout of existing sessions ASAP after being made to do it, but our non-technical family members may not. "Add TSA as a friend" is borderline reasonable, (pun intended) "give us your password" is not even close. It also damages public awareness of importance of maintainin…
> Why is this being accepted as even remotely reasonable?
That it's unreasonable and unacceptable doesn't mean that it's illegal. Despite your and my hopes, not all unreasonable and unacceptable things are illegal.
> What about 'login with Facebook' sites?
Don't do that then.
> We here know that we should change our password and logout of existing sessions ASAP after being made to do it, but our non-technical family members may not.
If you've given access to your account to someone else, you've already lost, whether you log out quickly afterwards or not.
Don't put yourself in a position in which you must log into an account you care about.
Re: What could happen if you refuse to unlock your phone at the US border?
#357Personally i like to travel with a burn phone that only has the contacts i need in case something happens to me and dont bring laptop because m usually not traveling internationally for work.
Re: What could happen if you refuse to unlock your phone at the US border?
#358Earlier quoted context omitted.
I really hope the U.S. never comes close to this and hope I see this trend reversed in my lifetime. But people should be aware that it can happen in a modern society and is already happening in large parts of the world. The US has kidnapped people from Italy, and assassinated its own child citizens. The US (and most western countries) are already close to this, it's just that most citizens felt they were immune up ti…
It's amazing that with the forces of globalization and Internet we think of the planet as whole and then a new government flips to us vs them mentality reversing peace work of years. Less humans kill other humans now than ever in the past. I wonder if the media is to blame for the fear mongering?
The right response to improvement, is to continue to improve. The world ain't perfect yet.
Re: What could happen if you refuse to unlock your phone at the US border?
#359Re: What could happen if you refuse to unlock your phone at the US border?
#360Earlier quoted context omitted.
Neither do most Americans. It's the authoritarians in charge of this shit show that have the fascination.
But why people let them do it?
Because our political system has been taken over by entrenched authoritarian conservatives who have rigged the game such that it is very hard to remove them.
That combined with the fact that the majority of Americans are struggling these days financially, and you have a situation where people care, but they care more about putting food on their table for their family and keeping a roof over their heads, so that stays at the top of their priority list and they don't have time to be active enough to do something about this.