Wow this is some dystopian shit. I had no idea.
If someone has access to your phone they can always find something.
I wonder if there's a technological solution for this other than wiping the phone clear?
New Zealand travellers refusing digital search now face $5k Customs fine
371–380 of 647 posts
Re: New Zealand travellers refusing digital search now face $5k Customs fine
#372Freedom isn't free! Have to keep fighting for it. Or figure out / be lucky enough to become part of the ruling group. Edit: I also find it funny when people get passionate about their "free" country's national anthems when they're one bad underpaid, undereducated border patrol agent away from not having any rights.
Who's the ruling group? AFAIK, everyone passes through the same border agents...
The ruling group includes some members of Congress and the executive branch. Current and former presidents and vice-presidents are not screened, nor are cabinet secretaries or members of Congress with security details at US airports. Not sure how the US president is treated when passing through other nations' borders but I'm guessing it is not the same border experience that everyone else goes through.
According to the "Port Courtesy Handbook" it sounds like many foreign dignitaries go through a modified and expedited border check at the US border that the rest of us do not use. "A Port Courtesy or “Courtesy of the Port” provides Foreign Government Officials and their traveling parties expedited processing and clearance upon arrival into the United States. Requests for Port Courtesies are managed by the Office of the Chief of Protocol in coordination with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP)." https://www.state.gov/documents/organization/170352.pdf
Re: New Zealand travellers refusing digital search now face $5k Customs fine
#373I recently had to go to America for a wedding, due to these types of policies I always go through my phone and clean almost everything out of there. Photos, logout of Google, clean up downloads, etc. I don't have anything to hide, however having some random customs dude go into Google Photos which has over a decade of my life documented doesn't seem exactly ideal.
While I generally agree with some of the sentiments expressed here -- such as "People who have nothing to hide still shut their bathroom door." -- maybe we could lighten up and not pile onto this comment, given that it is on the side of not really wanting to give over this info and having cleaned out the phone recently, etc. Focusing entirely on that one phrase -- I have nothing to hide -- twists the meaning intended…
It's just that a lot of us believe that we should educate people who think privacy has anything to do with whether you have anything to hide.
Re: New Zealand travellers refusing digital search now face $5k Customs fine
#374It's troubling to watch one of the most amazing places on earth transform itself into a totalitarian purgatory. Access to physical phone/laptop is only the first step -- mark my words. Big Brother's bureaucrats are never satiated. Next, we will have demands for passwords and unrestricted access to : email, facebook, photo sharing, hacker news posts, social media, etc. I see sudden spike in the market for burner phone…
Riddle me this - what is the alternative? Don't look at a phone? Why do we look inside suitcases? Why have the concept of customs? We search things across borders for things our country does not want. We don't want drugs. We don't want fresh fruit (which will trip up more people than drugs). We don't want child porn. And if a phone is a container for that content, we want to be able to explore the container. Of cours…
One of the problems with this is that it is trivial to evade for someone intent on serious wrongdoing. A person who manufactures child porn for money, for example probably won't use their phone to transport it across a border. They'll transfer it over the internet, most likely in a surveillance-resistant manner.
Instead, these kinds of searches catch people who don't know they're doing something illegal, or who the government finds undesirable due to their associations or business activities that are legal in their home jurisdiction. They may also be used to map out networks of contacts.
I do not want governments doing the things in the second paragraph.
Re: New Zealand travellers refusing digital search now face $5k Customs fine
#375It's troubling to watch one of the most amazing places on earth transform itself into a totalitarian purgatory. Access to physical phone/laptop is only the first step -- mark my words. Big Brother's bureaucrats are never satiated. Next, we will have demands for passwords and unrestricted access to : email, facebook, photo sharing, hacker news posts, social media, etc. I see sudden spike in the market for burner phone…
totalitarian purgatory Nitpick: in Catholic dogma purgatory is a place of purification, those in purgatory know that they are there for a reason and only for a certain time, afterwards they enter heaven. Hell on the other hand, is for eternity and ugly. That's why the two are easily distinguished in their iconography, both involve imagery of flames, but souls in purgatory look joyful and those in hell look despondent…
Thank you very much for the explanation,
Re: New Zealand travellers refusing digital search now face $5k Customs fine
#376It's troubling to watch one of the most amazing places on earth transform itself into a totalitarian purgatory. Access to physical phone/laptop is only the first step -- mark my words. Big Brother's bureaucrats are never satiated. Next, we will have demands for passwords and unrestricted access to : email, facebook, photo sharing, hacker news posts, social media, etc. I see sudden spike in the market for burner phone…
In the UK and NZ they're already looking to stop people from buying burner phones with cash.
Come on... 2nd hand phone you can buy from gumtree for cash.
Re: New Zealand travellers refusing digital search now face $5k Customs fine
#377Earlier quoted context omitted.
While I generally agree with some of the sentiments expressed here -- such as "People who have nothing to hide still shut their bathroom door." -- maybe we could lighten up and not pile onto this comment, given that it is on the side of not really wanting to give over this info and having cleaned out the phone recently, etc. Focusing entirely on that one phrase -- I have nothing to hide -- twists the meaning intended…
It's just that a lot of us believe that we should educate people who think privacy has anything to do with whether you have anything to hide.
That can be done without unnecessarily vilifying people and turning it into a beat down.
Re: New Zealand travellers refusing digital search now face $5k Customs fine
#378Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is there one? Are you looking for: * Don't leave the country? * Refuse and have the phone cracked anyway? * Refuse letting go of the phone and get arrested?
I would say "don't go to Canada", but I'm not sure how common this is across the world. Does anyone have a sense of how common this draconian approach is? I have a US passport and have been to about 25 countries on six continents and have never experienced this, but borders see such mind bogglingly high numbers pass through that I wouldn't say I have a robust set of data points.
I would say "don't go to Canada", but I'm not sure how common this is across the world.
The more you travel, the more common it is.
The phone thing is somewhat new, ever since certain companies started selling devices to governments that let them crack, examine, and archive your phone.
But being hassled at the border has always been a risk. Before it was terrorism, it was drugs, or just the change in culture.
I've had problems getting into Japan because of my heart medication.
I've read that if you have stamps in your passport from certain Middle Eastern countries, you can't get into some other Middle Eastern countries.
I've also read quite extensively recently that it's become very difficult for Indians to get into Georgia. Entire families, and even planeloads of people have been turned away, if you believe what you read on TripAdvisor.
Re: New Zealand travellers refusing digital search now face $5k Customs fine
#379Remember kids, this is what we get as long as we support the War on Drugs.
It's not about "I just want to get high", it's about removing insidious incentives for the destruction of democracy.
Re: New Zealand travellers refusing digital search now face $5k Customs fine
#380Earlier quoted context omitted.
I get your point....but a similar and more worrying thing is happening at the Canadian/US border right now. Entry to the US can be denied (for life even) if the customs agent suspects the traveler has involvement with Cannabis. That includes having investments in Cannabis companies. So if the take my phone and find any information on it connected to Cannabis I could be barred FOR LIFE from entry into the US. That mea…
Cannabis use is considered a “crime of moral turpitude”. So it’s legality elsewhere is irrelevant to the US. However your scenario is inaccurate. Just as having a google search about murder weapons won’t bar you for life neither will search history about cannabis. They may ask why your interested in it... But learning about a crime is not equivalent to commiting the crime.
Even just having investments in Cannabis stocks can cause a lifetime ban
https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/why-investing-in-pot-could-pos...
>Even though Znaimer didn’t admit to personally using pot, he was given a lifetime ban anyway because of his investments in U.S. marijuana companies, he said.
>In one case, Saunders said an Edmonton man received a lifetime ban from entering the U.S. simply because he was a part-owner in a Colorado building that leases space to a pot dispensary.
So what is stopping them from denying entry due to search history?