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US Customs block Canadian man after reading his Scruff profile
111–120 of 398 posts
Re: US Customs block Canadian man after reading his Scruff profile
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe but you'd have to prove a gay man was more likely to be turned back than a straight woman suspected of being involved in sex work. Never the less, their being non-Americans would seriously deflate most Americans' concerns about profiling.
> you'd have to prove... Fortunately and unfortunately this is not how rallying works. You'd have to convince the right club, event and advocacy group organizers that this would produce turnout, coverage and possibly even results. Note the size of the protests against Donald Trump's recent immigration ban.
On the other hand border agents, DHS, even under Obama pretty much had little critical oversight on how they adjudicated law and were quite immune to public opinion. [what was that Cuban, then boy who was returned to Cuba at Fidel's request despite public opinion?]
Re: US Customs block Canadian man after reading his Scruff profile
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
Quite. Once you have such an E2E encrypted cloud, the next step is to simply not bring your device over the border, but rather buy/rent one in the country you arrived in and load your stuff on that one. The only problem is finding hardware you can sort of trust.
My phone almost always costs around a thousand dollars, roughly the amount the guy persecuted by the CBP was complaining about losing on flights. It's also instrumental for getting me from the airport I land at to my hotel, as well as remembering the name and address of the hotel I need to travel to from the airport. I would do what you suggest but a) the Apple store isn't always open when I land, and b) I have no wa…
And besides, it still wouldn't help. They could hand you a device and tell you to log into your social media accounts. If you say you don't have the passwords because of whatever technical measures you cooked up to make them temporarily inaccessible, you're back to, "Don't do that next time. You're not entering today."
Re: US Customs block Canadian man after reading his Scruff profile
#114Over the last few years I've gone from wanting to visit the US and planning it as one of the next few holidays I'd like to do, to wanting to visit the US but holding off until 'later', to now simply not wanting to visit due to these sort of policies and actions at the border. It's a shame; US citizens are generally lovely people, the US natural environment is beautiful and, hell, the US makes killer craft beers that…
Don't let the shitbag xenophobe minority convince you to not visit our country. Stick it to 'em by bringing your foreign ass here and enjoying the hell out of the place.
Re: US Customs block Canadian man after reading his Scruff profile
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
> you'd have to prove... Fortunately and unfortunately this is not how rallying works. You'd have to convince the right club, event and advocacy group organizers that this would produce turnout, coverage and possibly even results. Note the size of the protests against Donald Trump's recent immigration ban.
On the other hand border agents, DHS, even under Obama pretty much had little critical oversight on how they adjudicated law and were quite immune to public opinion. [what was that Cuban, then boy who was returned to Cuba at Fidel's request despite public opinion?]
I think the political mood has changed. Note that this happened in December (edit: October) yet is finding coverage two months later.
Re: US Customs block Canadian man after reading his Scruff profile
#116Everyone proposing clever technical solutions. Burner phones and encrypted cloud data etc... you are solving the wrong problem. Instead of engineering a way for the few people who care deeply to avoid this at great effort, engineer a way for this to not be legal. Write your congressperson, donate time and money to political parties, make privacy at the border for ALL (not just citizens) a priority in every election.
And for people who are not US citizens, the solution is pretty simple too: Don't travel to the US.
Re: US Customs block Canadian man after reading his Scruff profile
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the other hand border agents, DHS, even under Obama pretty much had little critical oversight on how they adjudicated law and were quite immune to public opinion. [what was that Cuban, then boy who was returned to Cuba at Fidel's request despite public opinion?]
I think the political mood has changed. Note that this happened in December ( edit : October) yet is finding coverage two months later.
Actually October, according to the article.
Re: US Customs block Canadian man after reading his Scruff profile
#118> US Customs officers didn’t even need to ask for his passwords — they were saved in their own system This is also horrifying. So there's a government database of plaintext passwords and a massive body of people have legitimate access?
OTOH, not changing all your passwords after having to divulge them under duress is pretty careless, too.
True, but it'd be especially painful if you use a password manager. Presumably they're going to demand the master password, so you're left changing everything.
If you were dealing with a reasonable system, a compromise might be to unlock the accounts for them (without them seeing the password) and allow them to review the contents in your presence. That way you know exactly what they've seen, and that they're not holding onto anything, but they should still be able to do any necessary screening. Unfortunately the system appears to be weighted rather more toward maximum intimidation than reasonableness.
Re: US Customs block Canadian man after reading his Scruff profile
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why Canadians?
In some Canadian airports, there's "pre-clearance", where you go through American customs while still on Canadian soil. Right now, they can't hold you, because you're in Canada -- so if they aren't going to let you in, you can just leave, back into Canada. There was a recent (Canadian) bill that gives US customs the ability to hold and search in pre-clearance, in Canada.
If the alternative is just to go back to Canada, why would they want to hold you anyway?
Re: US Customs block Canadian man after reading his Scruff profile
#120Argh, you couldn't invent this kafkaesque stuff: "When he went through secondary inspection at Vancouver airport, US Customs officers didn’t even need to ask for his passwords — they were saved in their own system." "They said, ‘Next time you come through, don’t have a cleared phone,’ and that was it. I wasn’t let through. " -- I know that US/Canada privacy laws might not give people protection in this situations, bu…
And, of course, the United States is based on the concept of natural rights. Hence the Bill of Rights saying, "Congress shall may no law".
Americans 4th Amendment right wasn't created by the 4th Amendment, but merely acknowledged by it. All human beings have an inherent right to privacy -- to suggest otherwise as a US citizen is self-contradictory.