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US Customs block Canadian man after reading his Scruff profile

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Re: US Customs block Canadian man after reading his Scruff profile

#211

Post by vinay427 »

smsm42 wrote: post #165
davedx wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, who cares about business, tourism and desirable immigration? None of those things are worth much to the US economy I guess. (Our family was seriously considering a touring camper holiday to the US in a year or two. Now: no way in hell.)

Unless it causes a very noticeable drop in tourism - not on anecdotal level, but on the level of millions - about 70M tourists visit US yearly, so to make noticeable change, it probably should be like 10M at least - there will be no change. Note that there are literally millions of citizens who don't get a dime from tourists, don't care too much about tourists, but worry a lot about (real or imagined) threat of terro…

The difference is that just about everyone in the US actually is positively affected by tourists (tax dollars) but not affected by terrorism (very low incidence of terrorism in the US). I'm not sure where the millions of Americans who don't get a dime from tourists exist.

Re: US Customs block Canadian man after reading his Scruff profile

#212

Post by fortytw2 »

dbg31415 wrote: post #63

Here's what I want: A way to hit a button and have the contents of my laptop or phone encrypted locally, shipped off to some secure cloud storage, and then purged from my laptop. I'll take the empty device through. I can just tell them that it's a gift for a friend, or something work asked me to bring over to a co-worker. Then when I'm on the other side, I hit the button... download, decrypt, and restore my stuff --…

this doesn't help at all - in this scenario, if a gov't body wants you data, they lock you up in some room and beat you until you give them all of the passwords to the encrypted data...

Re: US Customs block Canadian man after reading his Scruff profile

#213

Post by vinay427 »

b3lvedere wrote: post #180
czechdeveloper wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not US citizen. I have no one to contact and no one cares about me. And I will never travel to USA.

It's a beautiful country though. Most people are very friendly and they love foreign accents :)

Unless they're the "wrong" accents in which case you will face discrimination for it in many places. That being said, the better parts are at or near the top of the global spectrum in terms of discrimination from my experience.

Re: US Customs block Canadian man after reading his Scruff profile

#214

Post by vinay427 »

nxtrafalgar wrote: post #194
system16 wrote: post #70

After many unpleasant dealings with US Customs, I avoid flying to or through the US completely even if it costs me more. The last time I flew from Canada to Singapore through the US, the US Customs officer - on Canadian soil - was hostile, asked me numerous questions about my travel, itinerary, who I was intending to meet, and my personal finances. When I questioned if all this was necessary as I'm not even traveling…

As a New Zealander, it amazes me that the US and Canada do not have closer relations with regards to customs and so forth. I understand that both countries are large, but this situation seems a little ludicrous. I recently travelled to Australia on business - which, I suppose, is the larger neighbour in the same way the US is to Canada. Through immigration and customs at both airports, I was never obliged to actually…

This has more to do with Australia than the Aus/NZ relationship. They also have this process with other "low risk" citizenships such as that of the US.

Re: US Customs block Canadian man after reading his Scruff profile

#215

Post by OJFord »

Buge wrote: post #207
kogepathic wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone proposing clever technical solutions. Burner phones and encrypted cloud data etc... you are solving the wrong problem. Yes, and this is why I will happily pay airlines more to transfer in another country that is not America (e.g. Canada, Mexico). It sucks because it makes travel more expensive, but US airports are not traveler friendly (they could start by having international transfer zones so you don't h…

Canada also requires your password at the border. Recently one guy even faced 1 year in prison for refusing. At least in the US you don't face prison time. New Zealand asks as well.

> Canada also requires your password at the border. Recently one guy even faced 1 year in prison for refusing.

That can't be true; at least, there must be a hell of a lot more to it.

Why would Canada want to pay provide prison space for a foreign national who's committed such mundane a crime as non-cooperation, and without ill-affect on any Canadian citizens?

Re: US Customs block Canadian man after reading his Scruff profile

#216

Post by OJFord »

pdpi wrote: post #204
Freak_NL wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you will quite possibly be denied access simply because they cannot harvest your social media profiles for profiling. Kennywinker 's comment is right that technological cleverness won't help much here. Carry no devices, and you are suspicious and/or non-cooperative (unless you are over the age of sixty). Carry devices with no data, and you are suspicious and/or non-cooperative. Carry devices with carefully prepa…

> Then you will quite possibly be denied access simply because they cannot harvest your social media profiles for profiling. Not just because they can't. Because you specifically took steps to prevent them from doing it.

> Because you specifically took steps to prevent them from doing it.

... or I'm travelling with my local SIM to avoid roaming charges?

Re: US Customs block Canadian man after reading his Scruff profile

#217

Post by vinay427 »

briandear wrote: post #196
FusilliGary wrote: post #96

Can we acknowledge that this specific event happened last October, before Trump was elected? I am 100% not a Trump supporter, but the article is definitely trying to have people infer that it has to do with Trump's travel ban when it does not.

Correct -- there have also been a lot of disingenuous stories about record numbers of overseas Americans renouncing citizenship.. yet that trend began due to FATCA which was passed by Democrats in 2010. The renunciations started to spike once the impact of that law was felt by overseas Americans and so-called 'accidental' Americans (automatic Americans at birth but no connection to the US.) There are a lot of these s…

It isn't a national origin ban if it only covers Muslim-majority countries with a priority process for religious minorities:

> "to prioritize refugee claims made by individuals on the basis of religious-based persecution, provided that the religion of the individual is a minority religion in the individual's country of nationality."

I wouldn't go as far as to say that it's a ban on Muslims, but it strategically bans (arbitrary groups of) Muslims. Also, if we're going to talk about portrayals, it's worth reminding readers that the countries on the list (Trump signed it, not Obama) have not historically been sources of terrorists.

Re: US Customs block Canadian man after reading his Scruff profile

#219

Post by gspetr »

fortytw2 wrote: post #212
dbg31415 wrote: post #63

Here's what I want: A way to hit a button and have the contents of my laptop or phone encrypted locally, shipped off to some secure cloud storage, and then purged from my laptop. I'll take the empty device through. I can just tell them that it's a gift for a friend, or something work asked me to bring over to a co-worker. Then when I'm on the other side, I hit the button... download, decrypt, and restore my stuff --…

this doesn't help at all - in this scenario, if a gov't body wants you data, they lock you up in some room and beat you until you give them all of the passwords to the encrypted data...

I'm not sure I read the parent same way you did. What he proposed is a way to circumvent border data check by having no data on your devices during that time. If there's no encrypted data then device passwords will do nothing for them.

Re: US Customs block Canadian man after reading his Scruff profile

#220

Post by Canada »

system16 wrote: post #70

After many unpleasant dealings with US Customs, I avoid flying to or through the US completely even if it costs me more. The last time I flew from Canada to Singapore through the US, the US Customs officer - on Canadian soil - was hostile, asked me numerous questions about my travel, itinerary, who I was intending to meet, and my personal finances. When I questioned if all this was necessary as I'm not even traveling…

Yeah. I think I'm pretty reasonable when it comes to complying with laws of other countries. Whatever they want from me, I'm happy to help. I just want to be treated with respect.

US and Canadian border guards will search your stuff without telling you why, seem disappointed not finding anything, curtly dismiss you leaving you to repack. And it's like they're disappointed when it turns out you've committed no offense.

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