Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What could happen if you refuse to unlock your phone at the US border?

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

411–420 of 494 posts

Re: What could happen if you refuse to unlock your phone at the US border?

#411

Post by zeveb »

tptacek wrote: post #373
zeveb wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They just have to decide you're suspicious enough to confiscate equipment and bar you from entry. That's fine with me. I don't take anything to a foreign country which I'm not willing to lose, and I have no problem turning around & heading back home if the country I wish to visit turns out to have unacceptable rules. If someday I visit someplace that has an implicit rule, 'all visitors must have Facebook accounts,'…

Hold on, once again, because you're oversimplifying the situation here. You might be comfortable being turned back at the US border, but there are plenty of people who aren't in that situation --- they're children, or are coming to take care of their children, &c --- and being turned back at the border can mean it's very difficult to return to the country under any circumstances for years afterwards.

I think you're looking for an argument, but I'm not. It's always been possible for a country to turn a visitor away (talk to folks who've been to Israel and try to travel to an Arab country …), and that does have consequences which one must be prepared for.

I'm certainly not going to claim that 'all your password are belong to us!' is a good or desirable policy, but I am going to claim that anyone who travels between countries must be prepared to deal with the local regime, no matter how ill-conceived its rules may be.

Re: What could happen if you refuse to unlock your phone at the US border?

#412

Post by askvictor »

Are there any Android distributions that can boot to a different environment depending on what code is entered at boot time? And said partitions are hidden from each other (i.e. once booted, the other partition is impossible to detect)? This was described in Cory Doctorow's "Little Brother" novel, and on the face of it seems like a reasonable proposition - any major flaws in such a plan?

Re: What could happen if you refuse to unlock your phone at the US border?

#413

Post by jensvdh »

MichaelGG wrote: post #277
knz wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living with your SO under a tourism visa isn't a crime as long as you leave before your visa expires... And is it the role of CPB to prevent under the table employment? Surely there are better ways to address that issue if it's a concern. Building walls and inspecting social media seems like a political smoke screen for avoiding more effective enforcement measures - requiring farmers/factories/roofing companies to pr…

Right, but many times, especially if you're coming from a "worse" country, the agent is not going to believe you're going to return. So people lie about it, and thus get caught out. Yes, it is the role of CBP to make sure you're coming under the right visa. It's no different than making sure you're not coming to stay while on a temporary visa. No whether or not this is important or just silly politics is a different…

So you're saying as someone from a "good" European country (Nordic) I basically have to not worry about any of this?

Re: What could happen if you refuse to unlock your phone at the US border?

#414

Post by michaelmrose »

tptacek wrote: post #3

Worth remembering: US citizens can play chicken with CBP and lose nothing more than their computer/phone hardware (perhaps having it returned 6 months later). But non-citizens, possibly including LPRs, cannot: if an alien attempts to cross the border with a device they can't unlock "because they don't have the corresponding 2FA token with them" (as one friend suggested they do), they'll be detained, their devices con…

So the logical thing is to at that point delete your facebook profile forever and never make another one and little of value is lost

Re: What could happen if you refuse to unlock your phone at the US border?

#415

Post by bflesch »

z5h wrote: post #318
bflesch wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And? The target country doesn't lose anything through this if some entitled internet privacy advocates without big business stop travelling to it. Everyone who is serious about coming actually handles immigration/border tax like an adult. Nobody cares about your private life unless you are trying to affect others negatively.

Wrong: The target country loses money. Wrong: Everyone who is serious about travelling can make their own choices about tradeoffs. That's what being an adult is all about. Correction: "Nobody cares about your private life unless you are trying to affect others negatively, OR if they can use that information for personal gains, even if at a loss to you." I'm done fixing your mistakes. Cheers.

"some people who wish to attempt travel, but are unwilling to sacrifice personal private."

If people value their privacy higher than the economic benefit from their travels, the economic impact of them not proceeding is most likely minimal.

The state and its agents don't use information for personal gains, their job and passion concerns society as a whole, and they want to make sure that no bad guys come in.

Re: What could happen if you refuse to unlock your phone at the US border?

#416

Post by llamataboot »

subpixel wrote: post #404
llamataboot wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This, to some extent was already happening. The last time my partner came into the US on a visa waiver (from the EU) before our fiancee visa was approved, her entire PUBLIC facebook wall was printed out and waiting for her in an interrogation room at O'Hare. (This was a few years ago now) -- it was a little eerie b/c her facebook is not under her "real name" - that is not the name on the flight manifest. So it took s…

The most troubling thing to me is that all of this is device-agnostic. They know you have a Facebook account and they can find it even if it's not in your name. So now when you return to the US they may very well demand that you provide them your Facebook login credentials. If you're not a USC and face getting put right back on a plane to Turkey, will you refuse?

We are discussing in advance. I will refuse any device requests or password requests and ask for a lawyer if detained. She is seeking clarification from an immigration lawyer about what is required from her as a green card holder. She will likely comply with handing over (wiped) devices but would also refuse handing over passwords.

Re: What could happen if you refuse to unlock your phone at the US border?

#417

Post by anigbrowl »

danbruc wrote: post #407
anigbrowl wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rights are only as strong as your ability to assert them.

So I should probably bring guns and explosives to the airport to lend some weight to my rights in case somebody has a differing opinion. That could turn out quite interesting... And now I am left wondering if comments like this make it harder to get through the airport. How humorless and paranoid is the system?

Well there are few penalties for ignoring international law, so while I share your love of the concept I have to recognize that without teeth international law isn't going to protect you from a bad government, wherever that happens to be. A few people have been prosecuted in the International Criminal Court, but I don't think that's a serious deterrent to most international actors.

Re: What could happen if you refuse to unlock your phone at the US border?

#418

Post by llamataboot »

tptacek wrote: post #372
infinite8s wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Say you bring no electronic hardware. Could they make you login to your social media accounts from one of their computers?

Yes, they can.

This is unclear. They can ASK, but as far as I know it's unsettled territory whether this is refusable.You can definitely refuse it as a USC and I would bet, as an LPR. Gets trickier when on any other visa as then your entry is essentially all "discretion"

Re: What could happen if you refuse to unlock your phone at the US border?

#419

Post by emptybits »

ashark wrote: post #119
biscuitsandbbq wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was crossing into Canada and 3 agents demanded my phone and password (as well as my SO) under threat of detention. They took the phones in the back for 45 minutes before they came out. Asked questions about a conversation I had about marijuana with a friend months ago, basically accusing me of being a drug dealer when even in the most wild reading of that conversation, that cannot possibly be the case. Anyway, who…

Cheap Android phone. Temporary, cheap SIM (or none—you can get one where you're going) with a different number from your real one. Only way to go. Bonus that it's 100% reasonable to do this because you don't want to risk having your main phone stolen/lost, too, so it's not even a weird (suspicious) thing to do.

Eventually, this might be seen as non-suspicious. Maybe. I hope so. It's quite prudent.

BUT for now it's also something only a very, very small percentage of the population would consider doing and then actually do. Border agents would know this, empirically. So if you're doing something that's highly unusual for the general population then you are, unfortunately, doing something weird and suspicious.

TL;DR: it doesn't matter that it's reasonable; it's still fringe and, sadly therefore, suspicious

Re: What could happen if you refuse to unlock your phone at the US border?

#420

Post by mattm »

MichaelGG wrote: post #283
dave_sullivan wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Real" spies and terrorists and whatever can obviously afford to setup enough cover. > It's bizarre how people don't think ahead to their border crossing and are willing to admit they are going to live with their SO, or work as a nanny -- while under a tourism visa. So we're not catching "real" spies and terrorists; we're catching nannies trying to get paid under the table; do you think maybe we've got bigger fish…

You're gaining a more efficient CBP, enforcing visa rules and avoiding overstays like they do now, just with higher accuracy. Now if you want to argue that visa classes are silly and the US should just let anyone come in for whatever, fine, but that's a totally different argument. And yes, it's possible that this isn't worth the gains to CBP. But the US is pretty powerful and can force quite a bit of crap on people w…

The guy that had this happen to him recently was American and working for NASA AFAIK. If catching overstays is the issue why do this to citizens?
Post reply on HN