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Man sues feds after being detained for refusing to unlock his phone at airport

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Re: Man sues feds after being detained for refusing to unlock his phone at airport

#161

Post by plaidfuji »

ardy42 wrote: post #35
danboarder wrote: post #6

Suggestion: for international travel, when possible stow your powered off phone in checked baggage, and bring a non-important factory-reset phone or tablet for entertainment or to connect to the cloud if needed for work etc. If needed keep your work files in a hidden folder on an SD card in your camera... lots of annoying but increasingly necessary workarounds to deal with the growth of authoritarian states.

Instead of a factory-reset decoy phone or tablet, bring a lightly used decoy with enough fakeish stuff on it that it looks legit on casual inspection. Keep your real phone powered off, deeper in your luggage. No need to go though all that nonsense with hidden SD cards. Be compliant with the border control people and offer up your decoy without complaint. You win if they don't search your stuff at all, and you win if…

It seems like the risk that they would discover both phones is not worth the reward of hiding the content on your everyday phone. I agree in principal that you shouldn’t be compelled to unlock your phone at the border, especially on the way out, and I hope that we can change our laws to fix that. But as a traveler who just wants to get on my plane, I’m gonna swallow my pride and let them dig through my chat history or whatever, rather than risk them finding that I have a decoy phone, which basically guarantees I’m spending the night in some extralegal black site.

Re: Man sues feds after being detained for refusing to unlock his phone at airport

#162

Post by rypskar »

IfOnlyYouKnew wrote: post #142
rypskar wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Norway we can click on smiley faces after security to say how the experience was, going from good to bad, there was an article in the news the other day about how they used the results from this survey for setting bonuses for the agents working in the different airports

I have seen those in multiple countries, and couldn't really say there is any correlation with friendliness. But they do have managed to vastly improve my mood, via a different sort of mechanism: when I'm being treated rudely, I tend to linger at the machine, usually waiting for fellow passengers to clear security. During that minute or two (or five), I train my Nintendo skill on the :( face. My high score must be in…

I always assumed it was for travelers to be able to give a quick feedback to get the frustration out of their system and be done with it. So was a bit surprised to see that they where using the data, of course when workers know how much money they get depends on them providing a good service, they will try to give a good service

Re: Man sues feds after being detained for refusing to unlock his phone at airport

#163

Post by throw2016 »

The fact that border agents can search your personal effects is totalitarian, not unlike the stasi and other authoritarian regimes. The fact that this is 'normalized' in a democracy is astonishing.

This case also highlights the massive gap between civilized rule of law and what actually happens in these interactions, the dehumanization and arbitrary intimidation is not compatible with a democratic civilized society, and this culture of enforcement and lack of accountability is akin to a police state.

Re: Man sues feds after being detained for refusing to unlock his phone at airport

#164

Post by cbm-vic-20 »

dijit wrote: post #121
Rumperuu wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens if you decline the millimetre scanner in a UK airport? Gov't guidance states that ‘...the individual must either be screened by an alternative method which includes at least an enhanced hand search in private...’ [0]. Is that just a standard pat-down, or is it more ‘eeny meeny miney mo, I wonder where my glove will go?’ [0] https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm...

They make it look more intimidating than it is, it's a standard pat-down in a room, the most invasive thing they did was put a finger in my waistband and rub around it. Same as a normal in-public patdown tbh.

I (an average white dude) always ask for the public pat-down. Never in private. I want as many people as possible to see this.

Re: Man sues feds after being detained for refusing to unlock his phone at airport

#165

Post by cbm-vic-20 »

grecy wrote: post #98

The "unlock your phone" part is obviously a problem, and the focus of HN's attention. What gets me is an Officer can say to your face "You are not under arrest" but then handcuff you, take you someplace against your will, and detain you there without access to a lawyer. How can that possibly be the conduct of Officers in a free country? I could even understand if the Officer just plainly said "we can not let you boar…

This might be the "internet tough guy" in me, but if I was travelling alone I'd ask the officer if I was under arrest, and if they answer no, I'd ask if I would be under arrest if I walked away. If the officer says yes, I'd get up and walk away (not towards a "secure area"), proceed to get arrested, and immediately ask for my lawyer, and would say no more.

Re: Man sues feds after being detained for refusing to unlock his phone at airport

#166

Post by PietdeVries »

owenversteeg wrote: post #158
test1235 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

just to clarify ... a member of gatwick airport security staff said that you? >"Hey idiot, get your goddamn bags off the (expletive) belt! Hurry the hell up!" >"God (expletive) damn you! Are you trying to make my (expletive) life hard?! Just take your bags and go, you're holding up my line!" That all sounds so un-british I can't imagine this playing out. Which part of security were you in? I've flown through heathrow…

Really? I've gone through a good number of British airports and I've seen similar scenes play out (typically not directed at me, though.) British security/police seem to take their power a bit too far very often, in my experience. They have absolutely no problem with a little shouting. Of the first-world immigration officials I've had to interact with I'd rank them perhaps second worst, for general cluelessness and a…

"British security/police seem to take their power a bit too far very often"...

And that is the actual problem here as well. At the airport you end up in a "your rights end here" zone. According to the original story, the questioned person had no right to a laywer as he was not arrested. But he was also not free to go. So there you are: stuck between a rock and a hard place... Sure, you have every right not to unlock your phone. But you will go nowhere, miss your flight, your connecting flight, etc. And all the officers just go home when their shift is over and forget your case ever happened...

Re: Man sues feds after being detained for refusing to unlock his phone at airport

#167

Post by Shivetya »

danboarder wrote: post #6

Suggestion: for international travel, when possible stow your powered off phone in checked baggage, and bring a non-important factory-reset phone or tablet for entertainment or to connect to the cloud if needed for work etc. If needed keep your work files in a hidden folder on an SD card in your camera... lots of annoying but increasingly necessary workarounds to deal with the growth of authoritarian states.

I would prefer a phone where I can have more than one partition. For all intents and purposes the presentation looks the same but unless I am in the more secure partition I may not see everything that is on my phone.

This would need some work on the app side, like being able to push anything I want from nonsecure to secure partition with a swipe or similar gesture. once pushed to another partition the only way to return it to the open partition would be swap to secure and copy it back.

Re: Man sues feds after being detained for refusing to unlock his phone at airport

#168

Post by jki275 »

URSpider94 wrote: post #86
trevyn wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the inbound customs checkpoints I've seen in the US and overseas are after you pick up your checked luggage. It sounds like this specific case was outbound, but outbound inspection at commercial airports is unusual in the US.

Formal checkpoints, yes. A cluster of agents standing in the jetway and pulling people aside as they board the plane - not uncommon.

In the US? I've traveled internationally almost continually for the last six years or so and have never seen that or any outbound customs checking.

Re: Man sues feds after being detained for refusing to unlock his phone at airport

#169

Post by LordAtlas »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #91
dawnerd wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I travel frequently and those machines at lax always throw me off. And they expect you to stand right up next to someone else while you empty your pockets. Literally feels like I’m cattle.

> Literally feels like I’m cattle. That might actually be the intent - make people feel uncomfortable so they get more uncomfortable if they're up to no good.

I refer you to Hanlon's Razor.

Re: Man sues feds after being detained for refusing to unlock his phone at airport

#170

Post by Tor3 »

kmlx wrote: post #124
philpem wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had this at Gatwick last year... "Hey idiot, get your goddamn bags off the (expletive) belt! Hurry the hell up!" At which point another passenger decided to take advantage of the confusion and tried to steal my phone... "God (expletive) damn you! Are you trying to make my (expletive) life hard?! Just take your bags and go, you're holding up my line!" Approached the airport, "we do not comment on security matters".…

Helsinki: "why am i being checked?" smiles looking stupid "no really, why am i being checked" "i don't know, i just work here" "so you just follow orders blindly? can someone explain what's going on" no one could explain anything because Helsinki airport is a piece of..., same as Gatwick or Luton. regarding TSA, since I don't have facebook, snapchat, instagram it's always scary talking to them.

> Helsinki: "why am i being checked?" smiles looking stupid "no really, why am i being checked"[..]

In Helsinki, and in a lot of European countries, there's a little gadget in the security check which will randomly select someone for a manual search. It takes the security officer out of the equation.

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