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US border forces are seizing Americans' phone data and storing it for 15 years

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Re: US border forces are seizing Americans' phone data and storing it for 15 years

#321

Post by tristor »

MockObject wrote: post #309
tristor wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's happened to me twice, both times crossing from Canada to the US on a land border entry. There was a short period of time where the CBP was doing this in droves on Canada land border entries. The way it's generally structured is they ask permission, and if you refuse, they can't really do anything without a court order and can only hold you at most 72 hours. The time I was held up for 2 days was because they…

That sounds dreadful. Do you suppose there was any particular reason for this treatment, or was it pure random chance?

Most likely random chance, but it’s possible it’s due to how many times I crossed that border. At the time I was doing contract work for a company in Canada but staying in upstate New York so was crossing the border nearly daily for several months, similar situation the second time but on the other coast.

You could say it’s random chance and the frequency of my crossings rolled the dice enough my number came up or that I was singled out due to frequent crossings being somehow suspicious, either way nothing really came of it as everything I was doing was business related and above board.

Re: US border forces are seizing Americans' phone data and storing it for 15 years

#322

Post by sometimeshuman »

I am planning on travel to Mexico soon. A few days ago my sister in-law sent photos and videos of my nephew in bed with his 7 year old girl friend in the family WhatsApp channel. He is only in his underwear and she is topless and crawling around in her underwear and giving him hugs. She repeatedly does this with my nephew's bath-time as well. Out of context it looks creepy and perhaps would be flagged by an AI classifying for exploitation.

So if the AI has me marked as a person of interest and they seize my phone at the border, it won't be a good day for me. Am I just being paranoid and lacking perspective because I have never been a parent who spends a lot of time with naked children ? Is this so common that I shouldn't be concerned ?

Re: US border forces are seizing Americans' phone data and storing it for 15 years

#323

Post by JohnFen »

cr555 wrote: post #27

"That's when they can plug in the traveler's phone, tablet or PC to a device that copies their information, ...". would really like to know which "devices" they are talking about. fkn hard to do a full android backup these days.. this world. im tellin ya. on another note: lets talk about how one would go about keeping ones privacy intact aka having a party in the capitol. 1. will they be able to get into my cryptroot…

> fkn hard to do a full android backup these days.

No it's not. It's very easy. I do it all the time using adb.

> will they be able to get into my cryptrooted pinephone / hdd in those 5 days?

They don't need to. They can take a binary image of your encrypted partition(s) and take all the time they want to break into it later. Assuming they're sufficiently motivated.

Re: US border forces are seizing Americans' phone data and storing it for 15 years

#324

Post by galangalalgol »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #211
galangalalgol wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So maybe we don't want all the rich people? And we probably want some of the poor people. There is a shortage of all sorts of labor afterall. The real issue is that there is no good way to verify the identity or non-criminal nature of any of the migrants. You can create a solid ID at the time of entry and start tracking there at least.

Every country asks for your criminal record and does background checks before issueing visas. You are trying to reinvent a system that existed for decades

I was thinking if the gp really wanted open borders you might not even require an ID but yeah requiring an ID is normal at any controlled border crossing. My understanding is that sometimes even between schengen states that id is checked.

Re: US border forces are seizing Americans' phone data and storing it for 15 years

#325

Post by hnbad »

thingification wrote: post #281
tarunupaday wrote: post #242

This (and similar issues) is the main reason that I donate a non-trivial (10%) part of my earnings to ACLU (and 2 other) organization. Our rights and freedoms do not come without struggle. And they sure do not last without somebody constantly defending them. And it’s only bravado to assume that we can stand against the might of federal agents as individuals without dedicated organizations fighting for us. Please dona…

Not claiming that ACLU does nothing useful -- I certainly don't know enough to say -- but what do you think about this (which suggests to me a damaged commitment to civil liberties): https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2022/01/30/the-aclu-reverses-... What other organisations do you donate to along the same lines?

Maybe it's just me but all unironic use of the term "wokeness", especially as an accusation, should be limited to post New Atheism era or Gamer Gate era YouTube channels by faceless cartoon narrators calling themselves things like Skeptical Panda, Truthoid or ${obscure_bronze_age_ruler_here}.

It just instantly sinks any attempt at seriousness. The website might as well be called Destroying Creationists with Facts and Logic after publishing an article with a headline like that.

Re: US border forces are seizing Americans' phone data and storing it for 15 years

#326

Post by rovr138 »

bagels wrote: post #295
boring_twenties wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was out of my sight for half an hour, I'm not so much as touching it again after that.

What harm would happen if you touched it long enough to put it in a trash can? You were concerned they may have poisoned it or something? I completely understand not wanting to operate it since they could have backdoored it or put tracking devices in it, etc.

He took possession. If anything is on that phone now, it's now a game to see who was the last one to have it and to put whatever is there in it.

Re: US border forces are seizing Americans' phone data and storing it for 15 years

#327

Post by hedora »

sometimeshuman wrote: post #322

I am planning on travel to Mexico soon. A few days ago my sister in-law sent photos and videos of my nephew in bed with his 7 year old girl friend in the family WhatsApp channel. He is only in his underwear and she is topless and crawling around in her underwear and giving him hugs. She repeatedly does this with my nephew's bath-time as well. Out of context it looks creepy and perhaps would be flagged by an AI classi…

It doesn’t really matter if it is common. What matters is what the undertrained CBP officer thinks.

Based on the fact that you are concerned, I’d say there is some agent out there that would flag it and ruin your / the kids’ lives, etc.

Re: US border forces are seizing Americans' phone data and storing it for 15 years

#328

Post by dylan604 »

jollyllama wrote: post #78
dylan604 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they do, but not all people carry laptops where pretty much everyone will have a smartphone. There have been references to Cellebrite devices which target smartphones. So when all you have is a hammer, you focus on the nails. There are stories online of people having a "travel" laptop where they fill their USB/Thunderbolt ports with epoxy or similar to prevent device connections by anyone not just at border cros…

So they just don't scan your laptop or phone if you gum up all the ports? They wouldn't pop out your hard drive? An alternative solution might be to backup to microsds.

Pulling out the hard drive might be effective if it's 2002 or something. If you have a modern laptop like a MBP, then the drive isn't really removable. If you were to remove it, the use of encryption linked to the T2 chip makes the thing useless.

Re: US border forces are seizing Americans' phone data and storing it for 15 years

#329

Post by galangalalgol »

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #95
galangalalgol wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have often wondered why gun control advocates in the US haven't taken the ammunition approach. Is there some precedent in the courts that limitations on ammunition are equivalent to those on the firearms themselves? I.E. ammunition commonly used for legal purposes cannot be banned?

In a sense, steps have been taken to do just that, but not in courts. I am not a proponent of those efforts, but it is important to understand what is going on. Various payment systems are currently trying coordinate in a way to track those purchases. Naturally, once they are tracked, they eventually will be marked as risky and, in banks anyway, derisked in a typical bank fashion. The same approach is taken for porn.…

So that means ammunition must be purchased by bank wire or something? Or of course cash if in person. They already do this for pornography? Yeah, that sounds super scary. Maybe cryptocurrencies are a good thing... I don't want to have to buy a ladder with BTC because I might fall off of it and sue visa.

Re: US border forces are seizing Americans' phone data and storing it for 15 years

#330

Post by galangalalgol »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #191
galangalalgol wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have often wondered why gun control advocates in the US haven't taken the ammunition approach. Is there some precedent in the courts that limitations on ammunition are equivalent to those on the firearms themselves? I.E. ammunition commonly used for legal purposes cannot be banned?

They have. New York doesn't allow free purchase of pistol ammunition. That also includes small caliber rifle ammunition that has been used in handgun applications.

What restrictions are placed? Quantity or do you just sign for it, or show a carry permit?
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