101–110 of 152 posts
Going on a trip in the short term and just got a phone with facial recognition unlock. I think it's important to turn this feature off before returning to the US as it could easily be misused in this exact situation.
Disable biometric auths of any kind, and turn the phone off before approaching CBP.
Fantastic that he posted his experience, but it sounded like a pretty standard experience with authorities for many Americans. Genuinely curious why this is news compared to what happens to many other people?
It has never happened to me, and I have crossed borders 100+ times, mostly Europe to UK and South Africa. Worst is Israel, and their checks were believably focused on finding explosives. It’s important for people to know that such behavior is not the norm among civilized countries.
Here's the thing: If it was a legitimate search with real public security purpose, there is no excuse for letting him go without completing the search. If it was not a legitimate search with real public purpose, there is no excuse for the threats or retaliation. Irrespective of the legitimacy of the search, the behavior here is unjustifiable.
Dunno what to do about this. I think TSA is a sham and a waste of my money. I think border control is taking my money and using it to abuse people. I don't think it's ok that I can pay to avoid the poor people line at the airport. I've written my reps and the president, I call about once a month, but it has no measurable effect. Smarter people than me have done audits on TSA and published them in famous newspapers to…
> Partner and I are considering abandoning the USA. Any thoughts about where you'd move? Some places in the world are better, but it feels like our whole civilization is trending in this bad direction.
Scandinavia is being tossed around as an option, pending further research on each nation, but generally I've been quite inspired by hackers I've met from there and I haven't seen shockingly dystopian news out of the region in a while.
Taiwan is on the shortlist mostly because the government is so preoccupied with dancing a knifeblade with the PRC that the citizens have plenty of room to pass extremely liberal policy. Internet fast as hell and the healthcare system is pretty nice as well. Plus, it's crazy cheap.
We're always open to suggestions. New Zealand is something we're looking at but are conflicted about.
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>His employer is Apple. I was always worried about this same scenario when traveling with an Apple-owned laptop.. Does Apple not have a policy for this? I would suggest asking them. I asked my employer when I joined (even though my job had absolutely zero international travel). They had a simple policy: Always comply with law enforcement in whatever country you're in: If they want me to enter my laptop password, my c…
I just looked up my own employer's policies/guidance, and they say: 1. Comply with legal government requests (in any country; there's also a pre-approval form for international travel with a corporate laptop, and a list of countries that they will not let you take your corporate laptop to at all). 2. If you are a US citizen, the US must let you back in even if you don't consent to a search, though they can seize your…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don't have to get out of the car. CBP only have power to stop you to ascertain the citizenship of the passengers. They need reasonable suspicion to further detain you, or probable cause to search you or your car. You can consent to the search, but you don't need to. If you refuse consent and they lack probable cause, the evidence would be suppressed. For more details: https://www.aclu.org/blog/immigrants-rights/i…
He claimed their dog indicated on our car... but that's a bunch of BS because the dog was already sitting next to them when we pulled up and didn't do anything further(exactly the same thing the dog did for the car in front of us). He then tried to get us to say we had personal use amounts of drugs on us and he was only looking for massive amounts of narcotics(the "amount cartels have" according to him). I was with a…
Again - nothing distinct about being near the border for that.
As you said, it's not objective whether the dog legitimately signaled. But IIUC you have limited ability to demonstrate that. (anyone know of cases around this?)
Here's the thing: If it was a legitimate search with real public security purpose, there is no excuse for letting him go without completing the search. If it was not a legitimate search with real public purpose, there is no excuse for the threats or retaliation. Irrespective of the legitimacy of the search, the behavior here is unjustifiable.
* It was a legitimate search wrt information available at the time, and then more/better information became available, and it was no longer legitimate. (Assuming a certain definition of "legitimate".)
* It was a legitimate search, and cloning and/or compromising the devices took time.
(Just devil's advocate, for intellectual curiosity, not disagreeing with public interest concern.)
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Every time an article like this pops up I am validated in my decision to no longer travel to the United States.
This is the part I don't get. Surely they realize there are a large portion of people that will avoid that county just on principle that they may be hassled at the border. I can imagine that these policies have cost them millions of dollars. Imagine going to a county and being turned around all because you had an employers laptop you promised not to unlock for anyone. Or how about a personal laptop with naked picture…
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This slightly confuses a few issues: - Under Martinez-Fuerte, CBP can briefly question anyone at a checkpoint within 100 miles of the US border to ascertain their citizenship. The only privilege over usual reasonable suspicion / probable cause searches is to ascertain citizenship (so searching your glove compartment or your pockets isn't granted). - There's a border search exception _passing through the border_, whic…
Thanks. I was going to say—I expect (as a citizen) that within 100 miles of the border I can be searched without a warrant by CBP and be detained if I refuse, but I don't expect that I can be compelled to unlock my devices and be detained if I refuse.
"Show me what you have concealed in your pockets" vs. "Show me what you have concealed in your devices" -- aren't these two commands legally equivalent?
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For what its worth, SFO does not use the TSA [0]. The posted article does not mention the TSA at all, only Border Patrol and Customs agents. I've had terrible TSA experiences at other airports, but never a problem with the security at SFO. [0] https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/artic...
CBP is a waste of oxygen too. They're so incompetent the TSA could do their job and we wouldn't notice the difference.