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The US is charging an American citizen for wiping his phone at the border

gizmodo.com

21–30 of 56 posts

Re: The US is charging an American citizen for wiping his phone at the border

#21
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Visiting another country is a privilege, not a right.

That, whatever it means, cannot mean losses of personal rights.

It means you aren't entitled to visit a foreign country. You aren't entitled to them letting you in.

Of course in a perfect world we all trust each other and have open borders, but that's a privilege we have to work for. I'm European and enjoy the open borders, but also am well aware that such a situation is not a given.

Cannot mean loss of personal rights, sure. Showing up at a border and being required to give up personal rights isn't ok.

But many people in this thread are writing as if they actually believe they have a right to go anywhere, and that simply isn't the case. It's the kind of thing you need live in a strong passport country to believe.

Re: The US is charging an American citizen for wiping his phone at the border

#22

Disgusting. I’ve never had to let anyone touch my phone in my entire life in any country I’ve visited. Is there a list of countries that does this? At this point it’s obvious I won’t ever be traveling to the US, but I’m curious if genuinely authoritarian countries like China are actually less of a police state at the border than the USA.

I travelled to the US three times and once had my devices checked. Travelled to China more than 50 times, never had anything checked.

That's because they already checked in advance :)

Re: The US is charging an American citizen for wiping his phone at the border

#23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think almost all countries do this if your name is on a list (as this person's is). It's the nature of the lists and what gets your name added to them that varies from country to country.

Visiting another country is a privilege, not a right.

Rights are universal, whether a state cares about them or not.

Re: The US is charging an American citizen for wiping his phone at the border

#24
post #12
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn't something that actually exists

less than a minute of an duckduckgo search: https://www.sysmocom.de/products/sim/sysmousim/index.html

This does at best 1% of what the parent mentions. Is that going to hold all your data across all your phone apps?

Re: The US is charging an American citizen for wiping his phone at the border

#25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think almost all countries do this if your name is on a list (as this person's is). It's the nature of the lists and what gets your name added to them that varies from country to country.

Visiting another country is a privilege, not a right.

[deleted]

Re: The US is charging an American citizen for wiping his phone at the border

#27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think almost all countries do this if your name is on a list (as this person's is). It's the nature of the lists and what gets your name added to them that varies from country to country.

Visiting another country is a privilege, not a right.

This is a US citizen, so that’s a moot point

Re: The US is charging an American citizen for wiping his phone at the border

#28
> Graphene OS has a duress password and PIN, which “will irreversibly wipe the device (along with any installed eSIMs) once entered anywhere where the device credentials are requested.”

iOS kinda also offers such a solution, though a bit more suspicious to perform: "Erase all data on this iPhone after 10 failed passcode attempts"

Re: The US is charging an American citizen for wiping his phone at the border

#29
post #16

"If you’re a fan of privacy in our age of creeping digital authoritarianism, there’s one famously effective way to pass through U.S. Customs at an airport without worrying about a device search: travel with a burner phone only." What about setting your phone from the get go to store all data on the micro sim card ? Then, when traveling through airports, swap out for another micro sim that has some small, useless data…

At least on Android they've removed the ability to encrypt data stored on external media, so in exchange for the ability to do this you're carrying around everything unencrypted (except what individual apps might encrypt themselves).

This is not true at all, adopted storage is encrypted.

Re: The US is charging an American citizen for wiping his phone at the border

#30

> Graphene OS has a duress password and PIN, which “will irreversibly wipe the device (along with any installed eSIMs) once entered anywhere where the device credentials are requested.” iOS kinda also offers such a solution, though a bit more suspicious to perform: "Erase all data on this iPhone after 10 failed passcode attempts"

Can be set to less attempts via MDM profiles.

Same for Android.

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