> “In [Fiscal Year] 2025, out of the over 419 million travelers CBP processed at ports of entry, CBP only searched the electronic devices of 55,318 international travelers,” the agency wrote, or 0.0013%.
The harassment is targeted at critics & opponents of the current regime. The message is very clear: Be afraid of us. Be very afraid
There are 33 days remaining until election day. Vote out all the incumbents.
Technically the law applies to '100 miles of a port of entry' [1] so they can use it to come into your home too, obviously selective homes. Most population of US lives within '100 miles of a port of entry' [2]
They cannot enter a home without probable cause or a warrant. And outside of an actual port of entry, say at a random checkpoint they set up, they can only check IDs and look into cars the same as regular police. To perform an actual search of a vehicle in those circumstances still requires a warrant. From your first link at the cbp.gov website:
>Border Patrol checkpoints do not give Border Patrol Agents carte blanche to automatically search persons and their vehicles, other than in the manner described above. To conduct a legal search under the Fourth Amendment, the agents must develop particularly probable cause to conduct a lawful search. Probable cause can be developed from agent observations, records checks, non-intrusive canine sniffs, and other established means. Motorist's may consent to a search but are not required to do so.
Your quote makes clear that no warrant is required, or even likely to ever be used, as long as "agent observations," "records checks," and "canine sniffs" are an option.
I'm sure that "other established means" are a very restrictive requirement if they fail to have an "observation."
These are criteria that any police officer can use, a dog sniff outside your vehicle, a big bag of pills labeled "methamphetamine" sitting on your dashboard, an outstanding warrant when they run your id after a lawful stop. If they abuse them you have the right to argue for dismissal of evidence in court and if appropriate you can sue for damages and collect lots of cash from whatever level of government was the abusive one. Tort liability is a thing.
Sure, they can lie about probable cause, but they would then have that evidence thrown out in any case that derived from the search. Similarly, I can kick in your door and search your house and your only recourse is violence or the legal system. The whole question here is not whether a search is possible, but whether there is any legal consequences of it.
I will be curious to see statistics from past years. I'm wondering if this is a new thing. I'm pretty sure US customs and border patrol have always had this power. I think basically every country exercises this power
"It has always been this way, this is normal" is the typical first response to tyranny. It puts you on their side, which is fine if that's where you want to be. Just be aware of it. If you think it's wrong, you definitely don't want to be taking the side of "it's normal," because whether or not it's normal is irrelevant when your government is doing immoral and tyrannical behavior in your name.
Asking whether or not something is new or how frequently it's been done in the past isn't saying it's acceptable nor does it put them on the side of tyranny. In fact, a sign of tyranny would be a significant uptick in the number of these searches, and how else would you be able to see that worrying signal without answering the question they asked?
You quoted something that wasn't part of the question, which was "I'm wondering if this is a new thing".
Their impression was that it wasn't and that other countries do similar things. Stating your understanding of a situation helps guide discussion and helps people answer your inquiries. Doing that should be encouraged, not somehow treated as an endorsement of tyranny.
Sure but that means November will have no impact on what CPB does. It’s always happened and will continue to happen just like stock trading with insider information by congress members will continue to happen regardless of November results. The vote came up and it was voted down and I don’t see that changing. I don’t see the spying on citizens changing. The NSA spied on Congress and they did nothing about it.
It’s disingenuous to imply that November will have an effect on either of those topics.
Enough alarm bells are ringing to suggest that this is not normal. The persecution of political enemies isn't even a veiled threat, they are spoken outright in public.
Right like the ~400 subpoenas on Republican lawmakers by Jack S with the tenuous linkage to the Jan riot. You might have reason to subpoena 10 or even 30 lawmakers who may have had some linkage but going after ~400 seems dubious.
Subpoenas are an investigating tool. It's part of gathering the data. I think you may be confused. It's not in any way a punishment.
Do you think at that point he had it out for Republicans in general? Republican congressmen were appalled by what happened on Jan 6th, and it was only because they thought Trump would just go away that he wasn't convicted in the Senate.
Trying to frame that investigation as some sort of political witch hunt is ridiculous.
An event like the Jan 6th putsch attempt would, in pretty much every democracy that has got some sense of self-preservation, result in at the very least intense public hearings, and outside of the European Union that bans the death penalty under all circumstances, followed by the chief perpetrators getting strung up at the same gallows they brought to hang Mike Pence off of.
The fact that barely any consequences came for those instigating the putsch, except a few of those dumb enough to do stuff like parade around in front of cameras, is completely inexcusable.
The brought a mock up of a gallows -the same kind other protesters bring to anti-Trump rallies. Should we punish people who went into the Congressional buildings? Yes! (Keep in mind we have hosted protests in Congress too) Do they need to subpoena ~400 lawmakers and $10 donors to the campaign? I think it’s obvious that that is overreach and intimidation.
> The brought a mock up of a gallows -the same kind other protesters bring to anti-Trump rallies.
I'm not aware of this being a widespread practice at anti-Trump rallies.
> Do they need to subpoena ~400 lawmakers and $10 donors to the campaign? I think it’s obvious that that is overreach and intimidation.
Well... it's not unlikely that there might have been "inside help" from lawmakers and/or their staff or even general Congressional staff. The purpose of an investigation is to go, dig deep and fully take apart whatever conspiracy there was.
As for the donors - anti-terrorist laws in pretty much every country don't care if it was just a $10 donation. Donate to a cause that ends up being terrorists, be labeled as a terrorism supporter.
the gallows mockup was one of the reasons for the reaction to the Jan 6th stuff.[0] , although as far as what political party the owning group is using it for or against is sort of up for grabs.
My math teacher used to say that “obviously” means “I don’t know how to prove” and “trivially” means “tenuously at best”. Thanks for the demo of this in action.
It has always been this way; but for the hundreds of years before computers that fit in the palm of your hand that have your entire life on them, it was to ensure you weren’t bringing dangerous goods or produce into the country. It was a physical search of physical items.
The issue now is that my entire life is literally on my phone.
Now, within 100 miles of the border, should CBP choose to, they can search me without a warrant and search everything in my phone, and even retain it if they’d like. If I want to challenge that, I need tens of thousands of dollars and time.
This is the very definition of an unreasonable search; but to change that we have to change the politicians and change the judiciary. It’s up to us, but until we get it changed, we may as well consider the 4th amendment a dead letter, and that means trouble for all of us.
> It has always been this way; but for the hundreds of years before computers that fit in the palm of your hand that have your entire life on them
Or, maybe it might help to stop putting our entire lives on our phones.
If a border patrol agent coerces access to my phone, they're not going to find much. A few default apps, Lyft, an a music player. They're not going to find any social media, any photo album full of personal pictures, any banking apps or really anything that helps them understand what kind of person I am. I'm not going to like them going through it, but the blast radius is limited.
And that's me, a regular Joe, not wanted by Interpol. If you're at high risk, you should already have normalized this "app minimalism" mentality.
Why should people give up their right to free expression and being secure in their papers simply because you have voluntarily given up that right in advance?
I agree with both of those things! I'm just suggesting a precaution. People SHOULD be able to cross the road without getting run over, but we look both ways as a precaution. We shouldn't have to, but we do.
Wikipedia's map is wrong. The "border" includes international airports. There is very little of the population that is not within 100 miles of this "border."
The map also does not show Hawai'i, which would be one green blob, there is no part of Hawai'i not 100 miles from the border. All of the New England states are similarly small enough to be completely covered, even by the erroneous picture of the physical border.
You basically get a few, mostly uninhabited spots out in the West that aren't covered.
I've been hearing about the US searching phones for many years, but not a single time for any other (non-dictatorship) country. The advice for travelling to the US in my circles is "wipe your device, install some believable bullshit, restore from backup when you're through". Not for any other "normal" country.
Only new-ish because cell phones are now not only ubiquitous but also contains troves of typically private information. Historically, individuals didn't have their entire lives, financial details, personal details, etc on their bodies when traveling. The border exception to the 4th was used primarily for enforcing customs/trade regulations. That carve out is now used to harass citizens.
Not to blame the victim, but maybe we should not be keeping so much personal information about our lives on a device that is at risk like this. A border patrol agent who gains access to my phone is going to be pretty disappointed to find basically nothing about me on it.
It is pretty certain that not every country exercises this power, though it seems that a few other English-speaking countries also do this.
During the last quarter of century, in many hundreds of border controls through many countries of Europe and Asia, including in places with tight security like Israel, I have never seen any case of searching for information in any belongings of the travelers, like computers or smartphones or even notebooks or the like.
Israel is a country that long before 9/11 had extremely effective methods for testing travelers at border control, and unlike the Americans they kept their methods unchanged after 9/11. Unlike USA, they have never relied on technical means, like X-ray scanners or SSD/HDD searching, but they have relied on trained humans who interviewed the travelers and assessed whether they lie about their purpose or not.
You're getting downvoted because you didn't anticipate and properly defend yourself against angry people who don't understand the is/aught fallacy. They mistake "is this true?" for "this should be true". Actually, it's not even the is/aught fallacy, it's something weirder. I have yet to figure it out. Still working on that one.
There are some instances where powers need to be exercised in a hurry, but there should always be proper reporting and a paper trail, with stiff reprimanded for misuse or abuse of the system. Accidents can happen, but they should be infrequent and should follow protocol.
It would be great if citizens had more direct involvement in these cases too. I don't see why egregious abuses shouldn't be tried by jury.
Police and intelligence agency employees should be held to a higher standard than civilians (like military personnel are subject to UCMJ), and breeches of protocols should lead to harsher punishments imposed upon them. It would be fine to pay them more if it required more training and accountability.
In most of Europe, police carry guns. But they are afraid to fire those guns, because there will be a disciplinary process and they are likely to lose their job or go to jail if they can't show there was no other alternative. But if there is a situation where it is necessary to fire the gun, it will be.
45x included accidents. I'll compile the citations, one moment.
> "From 2014 through 2023, the South region had the most line-of-duty deaths yearly compared to other regions. There was a 38% decrease in line-of-duty deaths in the region in 2023 (20 deaths) compared to 2022 (32 deaths). Last year marked the lowest number of line-of-duty deaths in the South since 2015 (19 deaths)."
> "A look at police crime statistics shows that fatal attacks on police officers are relatively rare. While violent acts against police officers are increasing overall—last year the statistics recorded 38,960 cases, a rise of 0.8 percent—no more than two police officers have been killed in the line of duty in any year since 2011." (Translated)
Your comparison to Germany with "30x" the risk is pointless when less than two are murdered per year. Measure that against police misconduct that results in bodily harm/death per year.
They don’t get tried in part because of Qualified Immunity (which has some rationality but I think we’ve taken it much too far), and in part because the structure of the system doesn’t incentivize it.
The people who would charge the officers are the same people who rely on the police to provide evidence. Both groups work closely together. Malfeasance by police typically provides the prosecution with evidence they want or people to charge. There’s no incentive other than morality to charge them, and a lot of reasons to find a way to rationalize it as untrue, or necessary, or whatever.
Those terms need to be clearly defined. SCOTUS has declared that the police actually have no duty to protect and to serve the people.
And with an overwhelming amount of evidence, the police operate with effectively no accountability and repeated demonstrate that they abuse their powers freely.
So yes, laws without teeth are pointless but the state's monopoly on violence should only be granted when it can be demonstrated to not be abused.
The question is whether the people who control the police are subject to democratic processes. They are not. We live in an oligarchy whose control over the government is exercised through two small private clubs who have written themselves into the law. To which it has been decided that infinite money can be donated, that money given without explicit quid pro quo is simply a gift, and that money given after something has been done is simply a "gratuity."*
It's an evil country, and the most lucrative middle-class profession is to generate daily the vocabulary to justify its evil acts.
I can tell you who doesn't ever get searched at the border. In fact, I bet you could tell me. Peter Thiel doesn't get searched at the border. Kamala Harris doesn't get searched at the border. Jeffrey Epstein never got searched at the border. Tom Cruise doesn't get searched at the border.
If you vote out all the incumbents then you encourage them to ignore you. You will vote against them whether they support, ignore, or oppose what you want. Also, removing the people who agree with you makes it harder to form a majority for your cause.
While I can't really object to voting out all the incumbents, let's be realistic -- that is not going to change the fact that when you cross a border you are going to be subject to having your belongings searched, and that this search will be very targeted, applying to less than a fraction of a percent of border crossers. It does not matter which nation you are entering, it's been this way for at least 100 years. The idea that border crossings are just places where you are waved through is a libertarian fantasy.
It is worth pointing out that both when you enter a prison and when you enter a country, you are subject to getting searched. My parents now avoid traveling through the UK because they have been searched even though they are just transiting through the airport.
this 100-mile border rule has been on the books for a while long before Trump. and people have been saying for a while that it could lead to fascist actions against individuals. if you give an institution the power to silence its critics it will use it eventually regardless of how 'just' it claims to be. it's not really a single-party-does-it-wrong issue, at least not since neoliberals took over the left-wing party
which is to say - you sure can vote. but if you really want to do something, there's plenty of local hacktivist groups around doing things like logging ALPRs to maps, attending townhalls to yell at pro-surveillance councilmembers and the like
my experience with those groups is that anybody who's remotely tech savvy and/or a spreadsheet whiz is a godsend. I was one of two people in a 30+ person group who knew how to, for eg, set up breakout rooms, keep virtual attendees engaged, automate email sends, etc. if there's one thing movement organizers are generally bad at it's knowing how to use the technical tools to actually stay organized
you can also be the person who gets them to move off of Google and onto at-least Proton (though ideally something like Cryptpad). anybody with a halfway-competent understanding of OpSec could've prevented a lot of the things that led to the doxxing of individuals and people leaving the movement due to harassment
If you think the current administration hasn't pushed this so far beyond, and so much faster, what any previous administration has done - since maybe the red scare - I don't have a bridge to sell you. Because honestly, you shouldn't be anywhere near anything involving public welfare.
> The number of warrantless device searches at the border and the significant invasion of privacy they represent is only increasing. In Fiscal Year 2022, CBP conducted an all-time high of 45,499 device searches.
I really doubt the previous administration was trying to deprive people of their liberty based on their political beliefs. The current administration very clearly is. I can't speak to any changes in the phone search policy, but your right to freedom of expression is gone at the federal level.
Both things are simultaneously possible:
* This admin is actively hostile in a specific way (eg towards immigrants)
* All govts have been hostile for a (very) hot minute (see: patriot act, snowden stuff that happened across different presidents).
And a bonus:
* This is not a new thing, a is related to why people occasionally talk about "the swamp"/the "deep state"/"3 letter agencies". NSA has self interest to stay alive regardless of admin.
And this aspect (of "some parts of the govt aren't really affected by the elected reps) isn't a new thing at all either - see: Yes (Prime) Minister.
There have been discussions on HN about this topic across administrations. That is not to say that there aren’t differences in degree, but the government has long maintained that it has special rights to conduct searches at the border that would not be permitted elsewhere.
Given that travel hadn't recovered from covid in 2022, that 45k to 55k increase mean even less.
Has the % of people searched actually decreased?
I don't trust the current U.S. gov (or any U.S. gov, really), but the figure isn't actually increasing in a significant way. The US. remain as unwelcoming to visitors as they have been since 2001. Nothing to see in this report.
I’d look for a change in slope. A permanent change that adversely affected tourism would decrease the slope, but maybe not so much as to make it negative.
Between 1995 and 2015 (capturing data before and after 2001) the US's change in tourism increased at a faster rate than France, Italy, Greece, Germany, Austria, and the UK. Spain may have increased at a slightly faster pace, but it's close.
This is meaningless without a denominator. How much has international tourism increased in those years? What percentage of international tourists visited the US before and after 2001?
Many of us have been warning that the systems built by presidents before Trump, would be abused by a president like Trump, and here we are. I think the critics of the system are the ones with public welfare in mind and ask you to take a deep breath.
Well they did but I would be willing to bet that their successors will not remove laws allowing this. They may relieve it little bit but why would they remove such potentially valuable tool?
Government always want to have as much control as it can possibly acquire.
"The previous administration is only doing what the last administration did!" seems to be the rallying cry of the Trump administrations.
If Obama and Biden really did suck that much, and if Trump's the savior that they claim, he should be doing less of it, not more.
Of course, that's blatantly ignoring the whole premise of Trump - a wannabe dictator implementing totalitarianism for the far-right in exchange for an opportunity to use the presidency for his personal gain in direct violation of the emoluments clause of the Constitution - but that would be the improvement, not just the targeting of people you don't like with the same tactics.
Unfortunately you have made it about politics, so half the people won't listen to you, and half will agree without understanding the problem of the situation.
Surely you understand that making it about "Trump" implies you can fix it by voting, which you can't, because the laws were there under Democrat administrations too.
As soon as you say "Trump man bad" then the underlying discussion that needs to be had is lost.
It is obviously political, but the same practices happened under Biden and Obama. It is very clearly a both-sides issue, and I'm not sure how voting for dems is supposed to help.
Not OP, but I wouldn't so sure to read that intent into it. There are plenty of people on the left that are critical of the dems. We can both be critical of this practice under Obama as well as under Trump. Voting out incumbents, to me, would mean getting rid of all the officials that have been complacent in this practice, on both sides.
Yeah, people are unfortunately not informed on just how much power border agents wield. Not only in the US, but in many (most I'd believe) other countries, too. I've worked on cases (intel side) where the law-enforcement side would just wait for the surveillance objects to cross the border, as that's where they could do most data collection with the least hassle.
If for whatever reason you think you're being investigated or surveilled (who knows for what these days, could be enough to just associate with the various protest groups / orgs), you can just assume that the border will be where they'll try to clone / download your data (phones, laptops, whatever)
I'm lucky to live in a country (Poland) where border agents can either let you in, arrest you if there is an arrest warrant, or detain but only with a lawful basis for detention (as in, you are posing a threat to others) and detention may be used only when other measures have proved pointless or ineffective.
This makes returning to the country nice and pleasant. The border agents never ask you creepy questions like: Where are you going? Where will you be staying? What do you intend to do? (it's what US border agents ask their citizens). They just say hi and let you in.
The obvious difference between your experiences and the person you're replying to is that he's residing there and you're visiting. You're right that your rights are far more limited when you're a visitor to a country crossing a border, but he and this thread are talking about what rights residents to a country have regarding the border.
My point was that Polish citizens do not get asked. This is different for Americans. US citizens entering their own country have to answer these bizarre and sometimes creepy questions.
I’m British, I entered Britain yesterday morning and didn’t say anything to anyone from leaving the plane to asking for a coffee at Ealing Broadway - it’s all automated. The job of the border is to check you are the person your passport claims to be, which seems reasonable.
I did have to put my hotel on the landing form when I entered singapore last week but nothing more - again didn’t talk to anyone until checking in at the hotel. In China they did talk to me, asked me if I was there for business or tourism the week before, nothing more.
I know the US border is perhaps the least friendly border I’ve ever crossed — and that includes going in and out of Gaza, but I assumed that US citizens didn’t get that treatment.
I don't understand why they would even bother asking a US citizen who is returning home these questions: Where are you going? Where will you be staying? What do you intend to do?
Wouldn't everyone just answer, "home", "home", and "go home"? What would even be the point?
UK is crazy for this. Border police can detain anyone they like for literally no reason and if they do you have no right to lawyer or no right to silence. Your devices can also be taken and you must hand over any passwords.
I know the UK is an authoritarian state and not really comparable to the US, but as a Brit it's kinda weird hearing Americans complain about flock cameras and arbitrary border searches – these are common place things in the UK and no one cares (well, apart from me and maybe one or two others).
> Americans complain about flock cameras and arbitrary border searches – these are common place things in the UK
We complain about those things because we can clearly see that "the UK is an authoritarian state" because they are common place in the UK.
> no one cares
More like people pretend to not care for fear of being locked up for seemly arbitrary reasons, which seems to happen quite a lot over there based on the news reports, because "the UK is an authoritarian state".
Summary is they can’t detain people for no reason, they can detain people for specific offences relating to immigration and citizenship, customs and excise and also the normal stuff any regular police officer can arrest people for.
I’m no apologist for how much state authority they have, but it’s not as bad as you’re making out.
The UK border agents (technically counter-terrorism) can stop you at the border, force you into a room, ask for your passwords to all your devices and you don't have the right to refuse.
You also don't have the right to a lawyer to be in a room with you and you are compelled to answer all their questions and they do not need to tell you why they stopped you.
Then, if you are lucky they return your devices 7 days later after they have been through everything.
They serve you a RIPA notice and you either provide the password or they prosecute you. Penalties are 2-5 years in jail depending on the nature of the investigation.
I avoid flying anywhere near the UK or its territories.
If you are a UK citizen, they will charge you under the terrorism act if you refuse to answer their questions or if you try to conceal anything or if you refuse to provide all the passwords to all your devices.
As for what happens when you can genuinely not remember your passwords, I honestly don't know. The guy in the video just gave them access to everything because he travels a lot and did not want to have to explain why he has a terrorism charge to his name every-time he has to apply for a new visa.
Maybe you can refuse and stay silent and fight the charge later in court with a good lawyer but who knows. IANAL so do your own research before doing anything.
As for what happens if you are a foreigner and refuse to unlock your devices/ answer their questions, they can deport you and potentially ban you from entering the country for a certain amount of time or indefinitely.
> As for what happens when you can genuinely not remember your passwords, I honestly don't know.
This is pretty scary. I don't know any of my passwords because they are random strings of letters, numbers and symbols, and they're only kept in a password manager that sits on my powered-off PC at home. How do these border agents expect me to recite my passwords from memory?
Lawyers make YouTube videos. Lawyers, academics and legal advocacy groups often write copiously about these issues. You can find ways to interact with a lawyer which can be useful short of a prohibitively expensive retainer or representation.
The decision matrix around these things is often obvious. Most people simply comply. If you want to be one of the few people willing to stand up to these things, then good I commend you. But you're going to have to put in some basic effort.
Or you could be extremely lazy and watch some random guys overwrought personal narrative which the commenter basically admitted was completely uninformative in explaining how the system actually works and then extrapolate from this video to make broad claims while simultaneously conceding you know pretty much nothing, and therefore are wasting everyone's time. I'm not asking anyone to become a lawyer but is that really the best evidence they could come up with? It just seems like a basic information literacy failure that should not be encouraged.
Yes the law is convoluted and complicated. Free societies that need to balance the same tension humans have always struggled with - between freedom and safety - and try to do so in a fair way despite all the impulses and incentives for abuse are going to be complicated. Justice used to merely be the mob. Are you sure you don't want the law to be complicated? You resent the modern need for the expertise of specialized lawyers? Do you complain medicine has gotten too complicated when the doctor doesn't begin by hacking your limbs off?
> Or pretend that I forgot my pin and accidentally lock my phone down
Err our policing and judicial systems weren't born yesterday. You'll be treated as having refused to unlock/decrypt, as devices are so ubiquitous and people unlock tens or hundreds of times a day.
> these are common place things in the UK and no one cares
That seems like a YP not an MP. Just because you and your fellow countrymen gave up long ago is not the problem of those fighting to not lose those rights now. Except maybe you guys make it easier as an example of for the government to show as an example of other countries are already doing it. Thanks for that.
The fight might be a losing cause, but at least it is being fought as long as it can be fought instead of just laying down and accepting it like the UK seems to have done.
Welcome to the "democratic" regimes of US, UK, Russia and Turkey. Arbitrary border searches, interrogations and imprisonment, if you are on the wrong end of the political spectrum.
They don't.
But cameras - like where I am now - came in gradually, and the public only get to see motorway crashes and the stuff the .gov want you to see.
If the aussies have facial recognition, so do the brits.
I dream of a future where the disk image in my laptop both functions as an operating system, but can also be decrypted into secret files. We'll keep the extra entropy in a pile of AI slop next to the other piles of AI slop. That way, under scrutiny, it just looks like an OS full of AI slop.
For me, it isn't the lack of warrant (I am a UK Citizen but I expect we have similar problems here), it is the lack of transparency and accountability.
If was arrested on suspicion of something, I can get legal assistance and I can know what I am suspected of and why before any of my property (or in this case, potentially very private and sensitive information) could be taken. If the arrest is manifestly wrongful or not based on any evidence, then I expect it would be easy enough to resist investigation.
On the other hand, having someone at the border who can justify an arbitrary search on the basis that "they might suspect of something", without having to clearly justify that basis and that if they then take property (or information), potentially copy it completely opaquely and then have zero accountability if that is misused is extremely frustrating but I guess you need to lobby your lawmakers to make the system fairer and to ensure legal protections of privileged information is completely upheld - period.
This is actually exactly why I avoid this advice: wiping your phone, and setting it back up later, is a pain in the ass. Especially when you're meant to be on vacation, or exhausted from returning from one. And if it's a pain in the ass, it likely won't get done. The below isn't perfect, but minimizing legal things that CBP can make a case of doesn't have to be all-or-nothing
At this point recommending the minimum that normal people will actually follow feels more effective: photos, main messaging app, and password database.
Photos are backed up; normal people use Google photos, my partner and I use a NAS, but everyone should have a "Free up space" / "Delete photos that are backed-up from device" option. This makes it easy and gets you space for more vacation photos
Main messaging app can be Telegram, Whatsapp, or (in my case) Element. Deleting it from your phone won't cost you your messaging history, but gets your most sensitive chats out of any potential spotlight
I can handle a password database, but "Chrome saves my passwords" means signing out of Chrome is all normal people have to do
For US citizens entering the US: If you're concerned about protecting your data from this threat, you should use GrapheneOS (or less good would be a latest iPhone in lockdown mode and BFU) and not talk to the police. The 5th amendment does not seem to have an exception at the border, so you can't legally be compelled to hand over your password by border agents (there's not strong case law here). They can lie, they can detain you, search you, they can seize your stuff. You shouldn't be the one arguing with them, you should be silent (besides identification) and ask for an attorney (you don't have a right to an attorney at a routine search). As a US citizen, you can refuse and still enter.
GrapheneOS has demonstrated to be robust against physical access even in AFU [1]. It's still a good idea to shut down / restart because BFU is much more secure. To maintain convenience while avoiding reliance on the rate limiting of the secure element, you can use a long random passphrase as your primary unlock (you enter it every time the device is in BFU) and a fingerprint with a second factor pin as the secondary unlock.
Even if you factory reset your phone and backed up data (to an E2EE cloud provider, over Tor and memorized the credentials), you should still not disclose your password because it could allow evidence to be planted or your device to be compromised. Nothing you say to the border agents can help you in court, it can only be used against you.
The duress pin is generally not how you should handle a situation like this. You do not need the duress pin to prevent access, its purpose is if you're being physically coerced as well as to give the attacker the dillema of whether to enter a coerced password (it even gives this benefit for people that don't use the duress password).
Sure, if police are behaving illegally and the information that would be disclosed is worth the possible punishment, then that's a personal decision.
[1] Based on leaked Cellebrite documentation, GrapheneOS was the best performing device against AFU attacks. It also has a customizable reboot timer to bring the device back to BFU after a set time of not unlocking. The options are between 10 minutes and 72 hours of unlocking and 18 hours is the default iirc. Apple and Google added this to their phones after GrapheneOS without the option to customize. Theirs are set at 72 hours.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
I’m always confused when people say this. It’s vague as heck! That one little word in there, “unreasonable,” makes it completely up for interpretation.
I have some astoundingly bad news for you about the entire system of trial by jury which is that virtually the entire thing depends on twelve average people defining the word "reasonable" in the context of your offense.
One of the Constitution's big failings is this sort of thing; deeply vague wording. What counts as interstate commerce? What counts as reasonable? What's considered press activity? What's considered illegal speech?
If you were writing a new one today, you'd define some stuff more.
Thats partially that we insist on interpreting it in this contorted lens of “how the founding fathers meant it”, when words like “reasonable” seem like they’re clearly meant to reflect the current opinion of the populace. If people find it unreasonable, it is, and vice versa.
I don’t think “interstate commerce” is unclear at all. That’s one where started with an end goal in mind and rationalized everything in between. There is no sane English reading of that passage that resembles the current interpretation at all. We just repeatedly mentally Google Translated it to Spanish and back until it was vague enough to allow what we wanted.
These are all Supreme Court cases that were specifically about the 4th amendment and happened in the last 10 years.
The 4th amendment is over 200 years old and yet requires constant supervision by the Supreme Court to define the word reasonable or to police the lower courts understanding of precedent.
So you are wrong, with whatever presumption you are making that the word "unreasonable" is well defined.
> “In [Fiscal Year] 2025, out of the over 419 million travelers CBP processed at ports of entry, CBP only searched the electronic devices of 55,318 international travelers,” the agency wrote, or 0.0013%.
And...
> In Fiscal Year 2020, CBP processed more than 238 million travelers at U.S. ports of entry. During that same period of time, CBP conducted 32,038 border searches of electronic devices, representing less than .014 percent of arriving international travelers.[1]
In other words, now it's as likely[0] to get your phone searched as in 2020. It's interesting how the media shapes people's perspective, isn't it?
”[the CBP agent] said if I didn’t give them my phone, my interrogation was going to take much longer and they could retain my phone indefinitely”
I would take a punt at filing a complaint about that. Threatening someone with selective enforcement must fall short of professional standards at CBP, as stated on their .gov page:
They’d probably say it wasn’t selective enforcement, because the phone scan is a faster way to complete their investigation compared to an interrogation. It’s the same disclaimer used for a manual search when you opt out of the body scanner.
I don't like this. I think about a year ago when there was a big push for chat control in the EU, almost like an instinct, I started working on ways to be more soverign with my data.
I'm just a regular guy who really has nothing to hide, but that doesn't mean I need to be complacent with just allowing a future I don't like be propped up in front of my eyes.
What I've come to realize is there is really no safer place for your data and communications than just your own home. At the very least, I would like a judge to review the evidence of my alledged wrong doing before the government can raid my castle and get what they need.
Why do I, as a regular citizen feel the need to invoke and create my own protections on personal data and communications?
There's something deep inside me that feels the need to be prepared for this odd future where the government feels they have the right to access everything. It's deeply troubling on many fronts.
I disagree with this framing. Privacy is never been about having something to hide. There's a big difference between having something to hide and it just not being someone else's business. It also implies a kind of light criminality imo.
I don't hide my bank details it's just none of your business.
This is me exercising personal control, preventing misuse and exploitation, and protecting the little dignity I have left this centry.
> I'm just a regular guy who really has nothing to hide
Yeah, you do.
Post your nudes.
Post your full financial details.
Post your whole medical history.
Post every crime you might have committed, even as a juvenile.
Post all your credit cards and bank account details.
Hmmmm, so you ARE hiding those, eh? Quit framing this as "nothing to hide", because we ALL have things we hide... Not because they're illegal or anything, but because it protects us.
Sorry, but its not 'I have nothing to hide so who cares'...it's 'I have nothing to hide, and you also have absolutely no right to access my data and I will make that as hard as I possibly can.'
This is different than arguing 'I have nothing to hide and also because of that you get free reign to everything'?
But really, I don't take nudes cause why?, my financials are remarkably average, I have no medical history that I care about people knowing (broke my hand once), I've haven't broken any law's, I don't use credit cards...?
That doesn't mean you are allowed to access my devices on whims, track my daily movements relentlessly.
So why does the government get to do all of those things? Especially when they've already demonstrated that they're not very good at using them to achieve the stated goal of improving security.
Exactly and if they can't keep FBI data locked down how are they going to keep what they harvest from the plebes. You really want your insurer, landlord, employer, bank knowing all this?
This feeling is exactly what led to people leaving Europe to found what later became the United States. The Bill of Rights is basically a laundry list of things the King did to his servants - staging troops in their homes, rifling through their papers, stealing ideas, taking property without compensation, trying people in secret trials without a jury, trying people over and over until they got a conviction (or an acquittal if the accused was a friend of the King), levying huge bail amounts to prevent the accused from working so they would agree to plead guilty, CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT (one of the King's favorites), and laws being made/removed at the whim whenever they benefitted the King.
All of that is coming back, probably. So enjoy that!
> I'm just a regular guy who really has nothing to hide
I think you are wrong. We all have things to hide.
A joke between friends taken out of context. Your angry messages to a spouse or parent after a fight happened between you and them could be used out of context also. And what about your YouTube history and playlist or your web history...
> just your own home
Your home can be searched and all your devices at home can be seized as well. Granted it's probably a higher threshold than having everything on your phone but it's no a panacea either.
>Your home can be searched and all your devices at home can be seized as well.
You need a warrant to search my home. That's my whole point. Warrantless access is the issue.
Get a warrant, and I will happily show you anything you want. Nothing will be found because at the end of the tunnel, I actually have nothing to hide, I'm just a regular guy is my point.
I agree that is why I said that it was higher threshold to get access to your data but warrants can be obtained for many different reasons and not always good ones either.
All I am saying is that if they want your data, they'll get it. It's just easier at the border.
>All I am saying is that if they want your data, they'll get it. It's just easier at the border.
That's fine, and I will do everything I can to make it as difficult as possible, not because I have something to hide at the end of the day, but because screw that what a terrible future to pass on to the next generation.
Too bad phones aren't easy to do a full back up of, wipe, then restore after you are past the border agents. Or can keep all user data on a microSD card that you remove and secure before the search.
Explain how? I've yet to find something reliable like this. At best you can have a decent number of apps automatically reinstalled to the original state, but not all, and most settings don't transfer, etc. And that requires root access, which most people don't have afaik.
I used to do this kind of thing with TiBackup when Android phones were easy to play with and experimentation was more common.
I'd back up the phone to an SD card and/or send the backup offsite over the network.
After that, I could nuke whatever I wanted -- or factory reset it, switch to a different OS (we often called them "ROMs" back then), play with that for a bit, switch back and forth, or whatever.
When the time was right, I'd use TiBackup to restore the backup. It didn't even have to be the same phone. Apps and data were restored to where they had been. Home screens looked the same. Settings and preferences went back to how they were. The same web stuff remained in browser cache, alongside the same cookies.
There were occasional outliers that didn't come back perfectly, of course, but broadly speaking: It worked very well. Those outliers were few and easy to deal with.
This required root access. But for a time (years), that was easy.
(I will never accept any defense of any proclamations that we must be restricted from doing whatever the fuck we want with the hardware that we own. If I can do things with a desktop PC, then I should also be able to do those same things with a pocket computer.)
> If I can do things with a desktop PC, then I should also be able to do those same things with a pocket computer.
I understand the sentiment behind this argument, but please stop making the argument for freedom to do computing on own devices by making a comparison between desktop PC and pocket computers (mobile devices).
I believe that the bad-faith actors are just gonna force same state of things on desktop PCs as well moving forward, instead of enabling freedom of compute on mobile devices.
Elsewhere in this very thread I talk about how we need a modern solution for full true image backup for phones; I'm also an example of somebody who could use it, as I have phones where if I was to back up and wipe them I would lose the ability to use some extremely expensive old thermal cameras that work by attaching to them, - if I wiped and reinstalled, even having the apps, they require reaching out to servers for initial authentication that no longer exists. A full image backup would solve this.
Rooting is now far more difficult unfortunately, and isn't even available mostly; but I don't see a real method to do a full proper image backup of phones today.
Yes, I also used Ti[tanium?] Backup, and now use NeoBackup. Those still don't quite hit the spot for me of a full and reliable backup. It's close in many ways, but I've found system settings to be largely nontransferable, and many times apps would just seem to break or crash after restoring. So I have no idea how people do anything close to it without root, although I suppose it's possible at this point if you use a Google account and apps they probably have something.
You can buy an android which can easily be rooted if you want
They might start restricting what you can do in your PC. Let's keep both free to modify in any way we want without comparison.
You can declaratively manage your phone with something like github.com/devindudeman/nix-android so you'd point at a decoy config file and rebuild before crossing the border and then point at the up-to-no-good config file once across.
Of course you do have to be able to reference those files somehow, so they have to be online, but if there are no references to them on the device then the border folks would have to somehow know about them and be able to access them in order to link you and your device to the declared configs. There are a lot of ways to hide such a thing.
Presumably the most sensitive thing here is your social graph and messages. I haven't verified if nix-android handles them in a way that would make sense here, but it's at least plausible that it might.
The challenge is that if you make it easy to restore, then security matters so much or a random person out there is going to restore your entire phone on another device. Privacy needs strong security, and strong security often involves great inconvenience which most people don't want to deal with.
I wonder if there's a way for "targets" of CBP to easily maintain phones that can be toggled between their "real work" profile and some boring anodyne "CBP-safe" profile?
Locking/disabling the phone, I think, only creates suspicion as we've seen in a previous case not long ago. But if phones can have a cloud back-ups, shouldn't it be possible to have TWO different "back-ups" that can be chosen at will?
With the current political climate, that might be tantamount to destruction of evidence or contempt, and be the worst of all options. The problem isn’t any particular technical thing, it’s that the US government has become authoritarian and fascist, there is no legal “gotcha” that will ultimately work here.
Yes of course. Basically they have ruled the entire warrant requirement for searches and prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures is suspended within 100 miles of any border or international airport (which is most of the US).
The law makes it clear that the rules are only suspended in the customs zone of the airport and within 100 miles of the airport. They seem to follow that. The checkpoints you see in Washington state or down near the border with Mexico do not show up around denver or dfw. The reality is bad enough we don't need to exaggerate it. And they can't just grab every phone as they walk around LA either, they have to signal their dog to alert on you to give them probable cause...
The rules are not suspended within 100 miles of the airport, it’s only land and sea borders. (Look it up.) The person you were responding to is wrong and we need to push back against this becoming accepted “folk wisdom” or it will lead to more rights violations.
It's 100 miles of land & sea borders. Plus the airport zone. The airport does not create a new 100 mile zone.
For example, ATL is not within 100 miles of a sea or land border, so the CBP zone is just the airport, not the 100 mile circle around the airport. But, ORD and LGA are both within 100 mile zones.
Of course, it's all kind of a moot point, as the current administration seems happy enough to deploy immigration forces nationwide and Congress is spineless and incapable of pushing back.
This gets repeated in every discussion here and it’s absolutely not true. (It’s only land and sea borders which is bad enough as is.) Please stop repeating it or it will become accepted “folk wisdom” and then they’ll actually push it as a policy.
A comparison would be physical keys found during a police search - under what circumstances can the police legally use those keys to search other, locked locations?
How true is that? Can police search a house without warranty in NYC say and have that entered as evidence (plus anything that lead from that) in court?
No, but cbp could have a k9 at any bottleneck they want and those dogs read their partners body language, so if they are a racist idiot it might alert on excessive melanin providing probable cause. Assuming they didn't just train it to alert on command. And if it alerts yeah they can demand to search your phone. I don't hear about it getting used, but that could be because they are careful not to use it on anyone who might start a case that could get it ruled unconstitutional. They openly use it where they think there is actually smuggling.
3.2 Electronic Device: Any device that may contain information in an electronic or digital form, such as computers, tablets, disks, drives, tapes, flash drives, SIM cards, global positioning systems, unmanned aircraft systems, vehicle infotainment systems, smart watches, mobile phones and other communication devices, cameras, music and other media players.
3.3 Basic Search: Any border search of an electronic device that does not qualify as an advanced search as described in section 3.4, in which an officer conducts a review or analysis of information residing in electronic or digital form on the device. A basic search may include documenting information observed on the device during the search that relates to immigration, customs, or other law enforcement actions in CBP systems.
3.4 Advanced Search: An advanced search is any search in which an officer connects equipment, wired or wireless, to copy and/or analyze the contents of an electronic device. Use of external equipment (including a CBP standalone computer) merely to make the contents of the device available for inspection (including, for example, to bypass a password, overcome encryption, translate content, view files contained in an external drive or other electronic device lacking a screen, or charge a device) does not constitute an advanced search. Documenting notes and observations, as noted in section 3.3, does not constitute an advanced search.
5.1.4 An officer may perform an advanced search of an electronic device only in instances in which there is reasonable suspicion of activity in violation of the laws enforced or administered by CBP or, in the absence of individualized reasonable suspicion when there is a national security concern. All advanced searches require supervisory approval at the Grade 14 level or higher (or a manager with comparable responsibilities). In cases where the inspecting officer and approving supervisor rely on the presence of a national security concern, without reasonable suspicion, to conduct an advanced search, approval from the Director, Field Operations; Chief Patrol Agent; Director, Air Operations; Director, Marine Operations; Special Agent in Charge; or their delegate, is required prior to conducting the search. In compelling circumstances where operational considerations prevent prior approval, notification shall be made as soon as possible. Notification must include an explanation of the national security concern, the compelling circumstances that precluded prior approval, the relevant facts and information supporting the search, and the results of the search.
5.1.5 All searches of electronic devices will be documented in appropriate CBP systems. Officers will document any supervisory approvals required under this Directive and, in the case of an advanced search, the factors establishing reasonable suspicion of a violation of a law enforced or administered by CBP or a national security concern, as well as relevant observations, impressions, and actions taken, as appropriate.
5.1.6 Searches of electronic devices should be conducted in the presence of the individual whose information is being examined unless there are national security, law enforcement, officer safety, or other operational considerations that make it inappropriate to permit the individual to remain present. Permitting an individual to remain present during a search does not necessarily mean that the individual shall observe the search itself. If permitting an individual to observe the search could reveal law enforcement techniques or potentially compromise other operational considerations, the individual will not be permitted to observe the search itself"
American society should have done something about the excessive power these agents have had for a long time at the border and in the travel authority. The things they would ask, and their attitudes and behavior were almost like drug induced paranoia with confabulations.
Neighboring the country in Canada, the US seemed like shorthand for USSR when it came to the border and travel. This sort of policy will make the US unpopular and inhospitable for conferences or any other important gatherings that it's taken for granted.
> “In [Fiscal Year] 2025, out of the over 419 million travelers CBP processed at ports of entry, CBP only searched the electronic devices of 55,318 international travelers,” the agency wrote, or 0.0013%.
By my math, that's a little over 0.013% (ten times the cited figure).
> The agent took the phone away and only returned after approximately 45 minutes, during which Kennedy believes that data on the phone was copied. He was then released with no charges.
Does the owner, Mr. Kennedy has actual knowledge/proof if the phone was copied, or this is a guess? Might be missing from the article.
The more free they have to tell you you are, the less free you actually are. In the DPRK they drill it into you constantly. In China, a few times a day. In the USA, only once a day.
Carry a burner old phone and ship your actual. Be prepared to smash the phone or otherwise brutalize it if they demand to search it, then let them have at it.
Smash the phone? That's terrible advice. For just about everybody, destroying the phone is probably going to get them in a lot more trouble than the contents ever would.
If you don't cooperate they can hold you for a while and make all kinds of threats but, if you are a citizen, ultimately they cannot deny you entry.
If I were truly paranoid, I'd probably travel with flip phone and an iPad with typical (non-sensitive) apps on it and a remote desktop client that I could use to connect to my computer back home. Make sure the remote desktop client isn't installed on the iPad during border crossings.
I don't travel with any of my shit anymore, I take my old phone/laptop with nothing but music, separate debit/credit cards, tickets/itenerary, and whatever other little things. No contacts, no icloud, no saved passwords, etc. Been doing it for over a decade.
TSA once gave me SSSS for 5 years after they tried making me answer a survey that asked me to prioritize things like "health", "safety", "privacy" as a ranked list and I refused to do that. Fuck em and anyone dumb enough to work for them. I was already used to showing up 4 hours early because they always make me take every single synth/sequencer/etc out so they can swipe it down to check for terrorism particles
I also get groped every single time because my dick shows up on the scanner. So goddamned worthless
#1. The download and restore backup method would work for people in general- except it doesn't capture what people would need. Exmaple: I have some thermal cameras that rely on old 32 bit apps that do not run on anything android 12 onwards- If i wipe those old phones, and restore- the apps often wanted to reach out to a server for initial activation- they would fail upon reinstall and i'd be out of the apps that are required to control my cameras and related equipment,which is worth several thousand, and has no equivalent spec wise and form factor today in 2026. And it'd be all dead weight and rendered useless.
( competitors today do not compete now- for example try finding a 640*480 30 hz or better form factor thermal camera that attaches to phones - they dont exist anymore)
\The solution is full imaging- but there isnt a real way to fully image phones and restore backups today. There used to be it seems- but not really with the latest stuff at the time of this post
.
On another note:Veracrypt- The weakness of truecrypt and veracrypt,
Their strongest counter, the hidden OS option only worked if you converted your computer to MBR, which means you can't have a hard drive too large. Making a UEFI hidden OS has not been done yet, but all computers are this now.
And the Hidden Volume option- isn't 'as' useful, and of course, your OS might make a copy and put it somewhere, you have to be careful. As a example: Any time I open a file, using the software tool Everything to search and confirm this- you can easily see Windows makes copies and temp files and whatnot in randomly named locations- that's the sort of software and OS behavior that will screw people over.( The year of the Linux desktop isn't here yet..)
Solution:We need fully image-backup capable Phones. I mean fully. Not just backing up some apps- as this refuses to backup apps you have that are no longer on app stores, or that Play Protect doesn't like, etc.
We need to be able to fully image a device, a forensic image backup, for phones that people can use, then encrypt and upload so they are good if they lose a phone.
Next- Plausible deniability is a way forward- but you need multiple profiles, that are cryptographically indistinguishable, along with the phone being hardened so GreyKey /Cellebrite won't be able to exploit a way in. This needs to be built this way from the ground up ideally, eventually.
There has been research about making devices that treat all block space the same way so you can't tell if someone has 1, or 50 profiles or partitions, etc- and even stuff that overlaps. Often it needs to be fixed size partitions, but it is apparently NOT impossible to create.
I am aware of Shufflecake attempting to make a solution for Linux, and yes, a Hidden OS option that is forensic- invisible.
But nothing has come out yet - and especially, nothing in this vein for phones.
It would be nice to see the day where, if you travel to a hostile country, you can tell them you have just one profile, and if they ask, you could theoretically mention a 2nd, and then show it- but you might have 3 more - and they'd all be immune to forensic inspection if the system is built right.(Yes, there's often issues you have to be careful of ,like setting this up so you dont destroy data when in other profiles, but that's not as important)
This is how you solve this problem in the long run-make computing devices impossible to analyze, but standardized.
We tech guys keep thinking of tech solutions, but as someone who reluctantly has to cross a border of an even more hostile country every now and then, you have to remember that border agents are not stupid and will mark you as suspicious if your open profile does not look real enough or there are traces of encryption on the device (when they connect the phone to forensic tools, they can easily see if something looks off). Being paranoid about security is a huge red flag.
The only thing you can do is travel with a clean device on which you maintain a completely innocuous social presence, such as chats with parents and non-foreign friends, and some social media with normie activity. Even that would not be enough if you're an activist or otherwise personally targeted, as your real accounts are already known in that case and your only option is not to travel at all, but it reduces your chances of getting in trouble (or arrested, depending on the target country). Though it still won't help in the long run as security services collect and organize more and more data about everyone.
The full image backup solution solves that, as you never have to travel with your stuff and can upload and download it-
But also, things like the hidden OS, or shufflecake - they're building these so they're would be no traces.
Which is why I said this sort of thing needs to be standardized - if every phone or device naturally gets extremely high levels of security, and it's built in by default to all of them- it's not unusual anymore, is suspicious. And stems the overall ongoing data collection on everyone that you highlighted.
No, the market simply is producing quantities of low end thermals now, resolution isn't quite where it was at. This includes ones produced by European, Chinese and Israeli companies, over the past decade.
ITAR does not prohibit owning or importing tech like this, just exporting ( which would require export licenses, etc)- but the US part of the market is not competitive, the best tech now in this field available to consumers- is foreign , as of now- so ITAR has lost importance in terms of preventing high end tech from getting out - we don't have the high end tech at this time, nor are developing on the cutting edge.
I responded to comments on this thread or on other threads but just in case you think this is a US thing only, it is not.
The UK border agents (technically counter-terrorism) can stop you at the border, force you into a room, ask for your passwords to all your devices and you don't have the right to refuse.
You also don't have the right to have a lawyer be in a room with you and you are compelled to answer all their questions and finally they do not need to tell you why they stopped you.
Then, if you are lucky they return your devices 7 days later after they have been through everything or they can keep them forever if they find something suspicious.
I remember going down a rabbit hole of Youtube border security videos (like the TV show "Cops" but for customs and the border) and was shocked at how much power they have. It doesn't seem to be uniquely American either as the show takes place in Canada and Australia as well.
They'll go through everything: phones, journals, mail. They'll straight up call people in someone's phone and question them if they think it's relevant.
I know the focus is on him getting searched and all, but I think what’s important is the auto-tagging or flagging of people based on something like a post made online or similar. This is far worse as it implicates mass surveillance, mass AI use to automate what should be done after due diligence, and how that obviously can and will he used politically as opposed to criminally.
You have the right to say that, but if you do, then in the best case they will seize the phone for a few months to send it to a lab for analysis. In the worst case, they will detain the person and have a judge order the person to stay detained until the person hands over the password, although this may require pre-evidence of guilt.
> “In [Fiscal Year] 2025, out of the over 419 million travelers CBP processed at ports of entry, CBP only searched the electronic devices of 55,318 international travelers,” the agency wrote, or 0.0013%.
The harassment is targeted at critics & opponents of the current regime. The message is very clear: Be afraid of us. Be very afraid
There are 33 days remaining until election day. Vote out all the incumbents.
Technically the law applies to '100 miles of a port of entry' [1] so they can use it to come into your home too, obviously selective homes. Most population of US lives within '100 miles of a port of entry' [2]
[1] https://www.help.cbp.gov/s/article/Article-1253?language=en_...
[2] https://www.southernborder.org/100_mile_border_enforcement_z...
They cannot enter a home without probable cause or a warrant. And outside of an actual port of entry, say at a random checkpoint they set up, they can only check IDs and look into cars the same as regular police. To perform an actual search of a vehicle in those circumstances still requires a warrant. From your first link at the cbp.gov website:
>Border Patrol checkpoints do not give Border Patrol Agents carte blanche to automatically search persons and their vehicles, other than in the manner described above. To conduct a legal search under the Fourth Amendment, the agents must develop particularly probable cause to conduct a lawful search. Probable cause can be developed from agent observations, records checks, non-intrusive canine sniffs, and other established means. Motorist's may consent to a search but are not required to do so.
Your quote makes clear that no warrant is required, or even likely to ever be used, as long as "agent observations," "records checks," and "canine sniffs" are an option.
I'm sure that "other established means" are a very restrictive requirement if they fail to have an "observation."
These are criteria that any police officer can use, a dog sniff outside your vehicle, a big bag of pills labeled "methamphetamine" sitting on your dashboard, an outstanding warrant when they run your id after a lawful stop. If they abuse them you have the right to argue for dismissal of evidence in court and if appropriate you can sue for damages and collect lots of cash from whatever level of government was the abusive one. Tort liability is a thing.
Sure, they can lie about probable cause, but they would then have that evidence thrown out in any case that derived from the search. Similarly, I can kick in your door and search your house and your only recourse is violence or the legal system. The whole question here is not whether a search is possible, but whether there is any legal consequences of it.
Assuming that the election actually works.
What about having UN observers on the ground to ensure fair elections, like the countries this administration is so found of?
We already established precedent (Biden election results disputes) that we don't get to question how fair the elections are.
Every president since 9/11 has extended the state of emergency that allowed this shit to happen in the first place.
Good luck with that vote.
Only one has weaponized it against their critics. They are not the same.
I will be curious to see statistics from past years. I'm wondering if this is a new thing. I'm pretty sure US customs and border patrol have always had this power. I think basically every country exercises this power
"It has always been this way, this is normal" is the typical first response to tyranny. It puts you on their side, which is fine if that's where you want to be. Just be aware of it. If you think it's wrong, you definitely don't want to be taking the side of "it's normal," because whether or not it's normal is irrelevant when your government is doing immoral and tyrannical behavior in your name.
Weird response to a pretty benign question.
Asking whether or not something is new or how frequently it's been done in the past isn't saying it's acceptable nor does it put them on the side of tyranny. In fact, a sign of tyranny would be a significant uptick in the number of these searches, and how else would you be able to see that worrying signal without answering the question they asked?
> how else would you be able to see that worrying signal without answering the question they asked?
Was anyone ever refused entry because they had an image poking fun at Kamala Harris? There, your question has been answered.
> Weird response to a pretty benign question.
How was this question:
> I think basically every country exercises this power
You quoted something that wasn't part of the question, which was "I'm wondering if this is a new thing".
Their impression was that it wasn't and that other countries do similar things. Stating your understanding of a situation helps guide discussion and helps people answer your inquiries. Doing that should be encouraged, not somehow treated as an endorsement of tyranny.
The best moment to fix this was yesterday. The second best time to fix it is now.
Ok? That cliche is true of every single problem on Earth.
Sometimes it's helpful to write things or say things out loud even if they're obvious. Like my comment right now.
It’s not even true if you want to be pedantic about it
The quote is actually “the best time to plant a tree was 30 years ago. The second best time is today”
29 years ago, 28 years ago … all better than today. There are an infinite number of times better (and worse) than today.
Sure but that means November will have no impact on what CPB does. It’s always happened and will continue to happen just like stock trading with insider information by congress members will continue to happen regardless of November results. The vote came up and it was voted down and I don’t see that changing. I don’t see the spying on citizens changing. The NSA spied on Congress and they did nothing about it.
It’s disingenuous to imply that November will have an effect on either of those topics.
Actually and very obviously, what's happening now is new and worse.
Enough alarm bells are ringing to suggest that this is not normal. The persecution of political enemies isn't even a veiled threat, they are spoken outright in public.
Right like the ~400 subpoenas on Republican lawmakers by Jack S with the tenuous linkage to the Jan riot. You might have reason to subpoena 10 or even 30 lawmakers who may have had some linkage but going after ~400 seems dubious.
Subpoenas are an investigating tool. It's part of gathering the data. I think you may be confused. It's not in any way a punishment.
Do you think at that point he had it out for Republicans in general? Republican congressmen were appalled by what happened on Jan 6th, and it was only because they thought Trump would just go away that he wasn't convicted in the Senate.
Trying to frame that investigation as some sort of political witch hunt is ridiculous.
An event like the Jan 6th putsch attempt would, in pretty much every democracy that has got some sense of self-preservation, result in at the very least intense public hearings, and outside of the European Union that bans the death penalty under all circumstances, followed by the chief perpetrators getting strung up at the same gallows they brought to hang Mike Pence off of.
The fact that barely any consequences came for those instigating the putsch, except a few of those dumb enough to do stuff like parade around in front of cameras, is completely inexcusable.
The biggest mistake of Joe Biden's life was not making sure that Trump was in handcuffs on the afternoon of January 20th, 2021.
The brought a mock up of a gallows -the same kind other protesters bring to anti-Trump rallies. Should we punish people who went into the Congressional buildings? Yes! (Keep in mind we have hosted protests in Congress too) Do they need to subpoena ~400 lawmakers and $10 donors to the campaign? I think it’s obvious that that is overreach and intimidation.
> The brought a mock up of a gallows -the same kind other protesters bring to anti-Trump rallies.
I'm not aware of this being a widespread practice at anti-Trump rallies.
> Do they need to subpoena ~400 lawmakers and $10 donors to the campaign? I think it’s obvious that that is overreach and intimidation.
Well... it's not unlikely that there might have been "inside help" from lawmakers and/or their staff or even general Congressional staff. The purpose of an investigation is to go, dig deep and fully take apart whatever conspiracy there was.
As for the donors - anti-terrorist laws in pretty much every country don't care if it was just a $10 donation. Donate to a cause that ends up being terrorists, be labeled as a terrorism supporter.
the gallows mockup was one of the reasons for the reaction to the Jan 6th stuff.[0] , although as far as what political party the owning group is using it for or against is sort of up for grabs.
[0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/16/us/politics/jan-6-gallows...
My math teacher used to say that “obviously” means “I don’t know how to prove” and “trivially” means “tenuously at best”. Thanks for the demo of this in action.
It’s been a thing since 1789: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_search_exception
It has always been this way; but for the hundreds of years before computers that fit in the palm of your hand that have your entire life on them, it was to ensure you weren’t bringing dangerous goods or produce into the country. It was a physical search of physical items.
The issue now is that my entire life is literally on my phone.
The issue now is that there is a 100-mile ‘border search exception’ in place. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_search_exception
Now, within 100 miles of the border, should CBP choose to, they can search me without a warrant and search everything in my phone, and even retain it if they’d like. If I want to challenge that, I need tens of thousands of dollars and time.
This is the very definition of an unreasonable search; but to change that we have to change the politicians and change the judiciary. It’s up to us, but until we get it changed, we may as well consider the 4th amendment a dead letter, and that means trouble for all of us.
> It has always been this way; but for the hundreds of years before computers that fit in the palm of your hand that have your entire life on them
Or, maybe it might help to stop putting our entire lives on our phones.
If a border patrol agent coerces access to my phone, they're not going to find much. A few default apps, Lyft, an a music player. They're not going to find any social media, any photo album full of personal pictures, any banking apps or really anything that helps them understand what kind of person I am. I'm not going to like them going through it, but the blast radius is limited.
And that's me, a regular Joe, not wanted by Interpol. If you're at high risk, you should already have normalized this "app minimalism" mentality.
Why should people give up their right to free expression and being secure in their papers simply because you have voluntarily given up that right in advance?
Here's the thing:
People SHOULD be allowed to put their entire lives on phones if they want to.
People SHOULD NOT have to worry about governments using that against them.
I agree with both of those things! I'm just suggesting a precaution. People SHOULD be able to cross the road without getting run over, but we look both ways as a precaution. We shouldn't have to, but we do.
Wikipedia's map is wrong. The "border" includes international airports. There is very little of the population that is not within 100 miles of this "border."
The map also does not show Hawai'i, which would be one green blob, there is no part of Hawai'i not 100 miles from the border. All of the New England states are similarly small enough to be completely covered, even by the erroneous picture of the physical border.
You basically get a few, mostly uninhabited spots out in the West that aren't covered.
I've been hearing about the US searching phones for many years, but not a single time for any other (non-dictatorship) country. The advice for travelling to the US in my circles is "wipe your device, install some believable bullshit, restore from backup when you're through". Not for any other "normal" country.
37signals has been having border crossing guidance at least since 2020. https://github.com/kspr9/basecamp-37signals-handbook/blob/ma...
The USA is definitely not thevonly one. Great Britain has also an extensive history of tyranical privacy-violating border crossing.
As is Israel and Russia.
The point is, the deeper you look, the better you understand how wide-spread the practice is.
> The advice for travelling to the US in my circles is
There's a much simpler advice:
"Don't."
Only new-ish because cell phones are now not only ubiquitous but also contains troves of typically private information. Historically, individuals didn't have their entire lives, financial details, personal details, etc on their bodies when traveling. The border exception to the 4th was used primarily for enforcing customs/trade regulations. That carve out is now used to harass citizens.
Not to blame the victim, but maybe we should not be keeping so much personal information about our lives on a device that is at risk like this. A border patrol agent who gains access to my phone is going to be pretty disappointed to find basically nothing about me on it.
It is pretty certain that not every country exercises this power, though it seems that a few other English-speaking countries also do this.
During the last quarter of century, in many hundreds of border controls through many countries of Europe and Asia, including in places with tight security like Israel, I have never seen any case of searching for information in any belongings of the travelers, like computers or smartphones or even notebooks or the like.
Israel is a country that long before 9/11 had extremely effective methods for testing travelers at border control, and unlike the Americans they kept their methods unchanged after 9/11. Unlike USA, they have never relied on technical means, like X-ray scanners or SSD/HDD searching, but they have relied on trained humans who interviewed the travelers and assessed whether they lie about their purpose or not.
> I have never seen any case of searching for information in any belongings of the travelers,
"I have never seen" is very different from "it doesn't happen".
I'm pretty sure in many countries, border control agents do their worst stuff out of sight of the public.
GPT compiled stats, treat with caution:
The Biden years are a bit of a scramble - covid and the aftermath - but the trend line goes upThese stats aren't also capturing who gets stopped and why, which is pretty important, especially given the current government.
You're getting downvoted because you didn't anticipate and properly defend yourself against angry people who don't understand the is/aught fallacy. They mistake "is this true?" for "this should be true". Actually, it's not even the is/aught fallacy, it's something weirder. I have yet to figure it out. Still working on that one.
> They mistake "is this true?" for "this should be true".
For some reason, HN commenters constantly struggle with this (simple) concept.
The core issue is that on one hand, police needs power to protect the citizens, but at the same time the power might corrupt them.
That would be a fine argument, if anyone had proof that invasive search practices actually made peoples lifes noticeably safer.
And yet, almost every single time such practices are implemented, nothing about actual safety changes...but a whole lot about surveillance does.
"People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security will lose both.
-- Benajmin Franklin, paraphrased
This is why state powers need judicial oversight.
There are some instances where powers need to be exercised in a hurry, but there should always be proper reporting and a paper trail, with stiff reprimanded for misuse or abuse of the system. Accidents can happen, but they should be infrequent and should follow protocol.
It would be great if citizens had more direct involvement in these cases too. I don't see why egregious abuses shouldn't be tried by jury.
Police and intelligence agency employees should be held to a higher standard than civilians (like military personnel are subject to UCMJ), and breeches of protocols should lead to harsher punishments imposed upon them. It would be fine to pay them more if it required more training and accountability.
In most of Europe, police carry guns. But they are afraid to fire those guns, because there will be a disciplinary process and they are likely to lose their job or go to jail if they can't show there was no other alternative. But if there is a situation where it is necessary to fire the gun, it will be.
Also in Europe more cops have K-9s and aren’t afraid to sick them on suspects.
In the US, anyone can own a gun. Police have to perform a different risk calculus than in Europe.
Police officers are 30x more likely to be murdered in the US South than in, say, Germany.
You just changed 45x to 30x. What is the source?
45x included accidents. I'll compile the citations, one moment.
> "From 2014 through 2023, the South region had the most line-of-duty deaths yearly compared to other regions. There was a 38% decrease in line-of-duty deaths in the region in 2023 (20 deaths) compared to 2022 (32 deaths). Last year marked the lowest number of line-of-duty deaths in the South since 2015 (19 deaths)."
https://www.fbi.gov/news/press-releases/fbi-releases-officer...
Felonious Deaths vs Accidental Deaths
https://le.fbi.gov/cjis-division/cjis-link/statistics-on-law...
> "A look at police crime statistics shows that fatal attacks on police officers are relatively rare. While violent acts against police officers are increasing overall—last year the statistics recorded 38,960 cases, a rise of 0.8 percent—no more than two police officers have been killed in the line of duty in any year since 2011." (Translated)
https://www.bazonline.ch/die-schiessen-369707652687
Your comparison to Germany with "30x" the risk is pointless when less than two are murdered per year. Measure that against police misconduct that results in bodily harm/death per year.
Most line-of-duty deaths are caused by traffic accidents. Cops spend a lot of time on the streets, they are more likely to by hit by a car then shot.
Also, right to have a gun should involve right to not be shot by a cop just because you own a gun.
They don’t get tried in part because of Qualified Immunity (which has some rationality but I think we’ve taken it much too far), and in part because the structure of the system doesn’t incentivize it.
The people who would charge the officers are the same people who rely on the police to provide evidence. Both groups work closely together. Malfeasance by police typically provides the prosecution with evidence they want or people to charge. There’s no incentive other than morality to charge them, and a lot of reasons to find a way to rationalize it as untrue, or necessary, or whatever.
> police needs power to protect the citizens
Those terms need to be clearly defined. SCOTUS has declared that the police actually have no duty to protect and to serve the people.
And with an overwhelming amount of evidence, the police operate with effectively no accountability and repeated demonstrate that they abuse their powers freely.
So yes, laws without teeth are pointless but the state's monopoly on violence should only be granted when it can be demonstrated to not be abused.
This is not the issue. The police are tools.
The question is whether the people who control the police are subject to democratic processes. They are not. We live in an oligarchy whose control over the government is exercised through two small private clubs who have written themselves into the law. To which it has been decided that infinite money can be donated, that money given without explicit quid pro quo is simply a gift, and that money given after something has been done is simply a "gratuity."*
It's an evil country, and the most lucrative middle-class profession is to generate daily the vocabulary to justify its evil acts.
I can tell you who doesn't ever get searched at the border. In fact, I bet you could tell me. Peter Thiel doesn't get searched at the border. Kamala Harris doesn't get searched at the border. Jeffrey Epstein never got searched at the border. Tom Cruise doesn't get searched at the border.
[*] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snyder_v._United_States
> Vote out all the incumbents.
If you vote out all the incumbents then you encourage them to ignore you. You will vote against them whether they support, ignore, or oppose what you want. Also, removing the people who agree with you makes it harder to form a majority for your cause.
While I can't really object to voting out all the incumbents, let's be realistic -- that is not going to change the fact that when you cross a border you are going to be subject to having your belongings searched, and that this search will be very targeted, applying to less than a fraction of a percent of border crossers. It does not matter which nation you are entering, it's been this way for at least 100 years. The idea that border crossings are just places where you are waved through is a libertarian fantasy.
It is worth pointing out that both when you enter a prison and when you enter a country, you are subject to getting searched. My parents now avoid traveling through the UK because they have been searched even though they are just transiting through the airport.
this 100-mile border rule has been on the books for a while long before Trump. and people have been saying for a while that it could lead to fascist actions against individuals. if you give an institution the power to silence its critics it will use it eventually regardless of how 'just' it claims to be. it's not really a single-party-does-it-wrong issue, at least not since neoliberals took over the left-wing party
which is to say - you sure can vote. but if you really want to do something, there's plenty of local hacktivist groups around doing things like logging ALPRs to maps, attending townhalls to yell at pro-surveillance councilmembers and the like
my experience with those groups is that anybody who's remotely tech savvy and/or a spreadsheet whiz is a godsend. I was one of two people in a 30+ person group who knew how to, for eg, set up breakout rooms, keep virtual attendees engaged, automate email sends, etc. if there's one thing movement organizers are generally bad at it's knowing how to use the technical tools to actually stay organized
you can also be the person who gets them to move off of Google and onto at-least Proton (though ideally something like Cryptpad). anybody with a halfway-competent understanding of OpSec could've prevented a lot of the things that led to the doxxing of individuals and people leaving the movement due to harassment
If you think that the current administration is the sole driver of this, and it will end once their term expires, I have a bridge to sell you.
they said vote out ALL incumbents
If you think the current administration hasn't pushed this so far beyond, and so much faster, what any previous administration has done - since maybe the red scare - I don't have a bridge to sell you. Because honestly, you shouldn't be anywhere near anything involving public welfare.
> The number of warrantless device searches at the border and the significant invasion of privacy they represent is only increasing. In Fiscal Year 2022, CBP conducted an all-time high of 45,499 device searches.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/federal-judge-makes-hi...
But sure it's the current administration what pushed this so far beyond. Beyond 40k phones into 50k phones!
I really doubt the previous administration was trying to deprive people of their liberty based on their political beliefs. The current administration very clearly is. I can't speak to any changes in the phone search policy, but your right to freedom of expression is gone at the federal level.
https://www.propublica.org/article/caught-in-crackdown-ice-c...
Both things are simultaneously possible: * This admin is actively hostile in a specific way (eg towards immigrants) * All govts have been hostile for a (very) hot minute (see: patriot act, snowden stuff that happened across different presidents).
And a bonus: * This is not a new thing, a is related to why people occasionally talk about "the swamp"/the "deep state"/"3 letter agencies". NSA has self interest to stay alive regardless of admin.
And this aspect (of "some parts of the govt aren't really affected by the elected reps) isn't a new thing at all either - see: Yes (Prime) Minister.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37267299
(2023)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5192749
(2013)
There have been discussions on HN about this topic across administrations. That is not to say that there aren’t differences in degree, but the government has long maintained that it has special rights to conduct searches at the border that would not be permitted elsewhere.
>I really doubt the previous administration was trying to deprive people of their liberty based on their political beliefs
Well, not for pro-themselves ones at least.
Given that travel hadn't recovered from covid in 2022, that 45k to 55k increase mean even less.
Has the % of people searched actually decreased?
I don't trust the current U.S. gov (or any U.S. gov, really), but the figure isn't actually increasing in a significant way. The US. remain as unwelcoming to visitors as they have been since 2001. Nothing to see in this report.
> The US. remain as unwelcoming to visitors as they have been since 2001
Strangely the stats don't back your assertion. Wouldn't being "unwelcoming since 2001" result in a decrease in travel?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism_in_the_United_States#V...
I’d look for a change in slope. A permanent change that adversely affected tourism would decrease the slope, but maybe not so much as to make it negative.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/international-tourist-tri...
Between 1995 and 2015 (capturing data before and after 2001) the US's change in tourism increased at a faster rate than France, Italy, Greece, Germany, Austria, and the UK. Spain may have increased at a slightly faster pace, but it's close.
This is meaningless without a denominator. How much has international tourism increased in those years? What percentage of international tourists visited the US before and after 2001?
So it wasn't so bad that the number of people visiting the US decreased, but it was bad enough that it didn't increase as quickly as other places?
Anyways, let's compare to more "welcoming" places. This shows the slope of the data, so it's pretty easy to compare the changes between countries.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/international-tourist-tri...
If you have data that shows otherwise, feel free to share it.
There is no recovering from this stat drop to the person you’re responding to. Well done. 45k pre trump is surprisingly high
Every administration pushes it beyond what the previous administration did.
The "everyone does it" defense is how the worst of the worst get away with it.
And the "this one is different" defense is how the slightly less bad get away with it and continue to push the envelopse towards worse.
And, "Both sides are bad" only provides cover to the side that is worse.
You are correct, but everyone does it can ALSO be used to prevent anyone from getting away with it.
But it makes it clear that voting won't fix this.
Are you implying that not voting will somehow lead to a better solution?
Voting increasingly less corrupt options(as good as we can judge) is the way. What else can you do?
This is just adding noise. Even if true, it's still very, very bad. Why even bother saying this?
Because GGP blamed a specific administration.
Many of us have been warning that the systems built by presidents before Trump, would be abused by a president like Trump, and here we are. I think the critics of the system are the ones with public welfare in mind and ask you to take a deep breath.
Indeed. We are the ultimate problem.
Well they did but I would be willing to bet that their successors will not remove laws allowing this. They may relieve it little bit but why would they remove such potentially valuable tool?
Government always want to have as much control as it can possibly acquire.
Well, at least did no Government before Trump demolish the US reputation in such a short time of 1.5y, so Im happy to hear about your bridge :-)
"The previous administration is only doing what the last administration did!" seems to be the rallying cry of the Trump administrations.
If Obama and Biden really did suck that much, and if Trump's the savior that they claim, he should be doing less of it, not more.
Of course, that's blatantly ignoring the whole premise of Trump - a wannabe dictator implementing totalitarianism for the far-right in exchange for an opportunity to use the presidency for his personal gain in direct violation of the emoluments clause of the Constitution - but that would be the improvement, not just the targeting of people you don't like with the same tactics.
Unfortunately you have made it about politics, so half the people won't listen to you, and half will agree without understanding the problem of the situation.
Brother on what planet is the customs and border agency of your government doing a warrantless search of your devices not political?
Surely you understand that making it about "Trump" implies you can fix it by voting, which you can't, because the laws were there under Democrat administrations too.
As soon as you say "Trump man bad" then the underlying discussion that needs to be had is lost.
It is obviously political, but the same practices happened under Biden and Obama. It is very clearly a both-sides issue, and I'm not sure how voting for dems is supposed to help.
He didn't say to vote for dems.
He said "current regime". He obviously means the previous regime didn't do this (as if Snowden didn't happen under Obama).
Not OP, but I wouldn't so sure to read that intent into it. There are plenty of people on the left that are critical of the dems. We can both be critical of this practice under Obama as well as under Trump. Voting out incumbents, to me, would mean getting rid of all the officials that have been complacent in this practice, on both sides.
I'm definitely seeing a lot more politics on here lately. I still come here after all these years to get a break from politics.
Yeah, people are unfortunately not informed on just how much power border agents wield. Not only in the US, but in many (most I'd believe) other countries, too. I've worked on cases (intel side) where the law-enforcement side would just wait for the surveillance objects to cross the border, as that's where they could do most data collection with the least hassle.
If for whatever reason you think you're being investigated or surveilled (who knows for what these days, could be enough to just associate with the various protest groups / orgs), you can just assume that the border will be where they'll try to clone / download your data (phones, laptops, whatever)
I'm lucky to live in a country (Poland) where border agents can either let you in, arrest you if there is an arrest warrant, or detain but only with a lawful basis for detention (as in, you are posing a threat to others) and detention may be used only when other measures have proved pointless or ineffective.
This makes returning to the country nice and pleasant. The border agents never ask you creepy questions like: Where are you going? Where will you be staying? What do you intend to do? (it's what US border agents ask their citizens). They just say hi and let you in.
Poland border agents do ask why you're visiting. Don't know where you're getting that info.
The obvious difference between your experiences and the person you're replying to is that he's residing there and you're visiting. You're right that your rights are far more limited when you're a visitor to a country crossing a border, but he and this thread are talking about what rights residents to a country have regarding the border.
My point was that Polish citizens do not get asked. This is different for Americans. US citizens entering their own country have to answer these bizarre and sometimes creepy questions.
I’m British, I entered Britain yesterday morning and didn’t say anything to anyone from leaving the plane to asking for a coffee at Ealing Broadway - it’s all automated. The job of the border is to check you are the person your passport claims to be, which seems reasonable.
I did have to put my hotel on the landing form when I entered singapore last week but nothing more - again didn’t talk to anyone until checking in at the hotel. In China they did talk to me, asked me if I was there for business or tourism the week before, nothing more.
I know the US border is perhaps the least friendly border I’ve ever crossed — and that includes going in and out of Gaza, but I assumed that US citizens didn’t get that treatment.
Yeah, in that case I agree. I didn't realize you only meant Polish citizens.
I don't understand why they would even bother asking a US citizen who is returning home these questions: Where are you going? Where will you be staying? What do you intend to do?
Wouldn't everyone just answer, "home", "home", and "go home"? What would even be the point?
They ask because people are dumb and say stupid incriminating shit
At least not if from the EU.
Strongly depends where you're from. I know of people who were turned around.
Did they have a valid passport?
But if you are from outside the EU, it’s tad different.
UK is crazy for this. Border police can detain anyone they like for literally no reason and if they do you have no right to lawyer or no right to silence. Your devices can also be taken and you must hand over any passwords.
I know the UK is an authoritarian state and not really comparable to the US, but as a Brit it's kinda weird hearing Americans complain about flock cameras and arbitrary border searches – these are common place things in the UK and no one cares (well, apart from me and maybe one or two others).
> Americans complain about flock cameras and arbitrary border searches – these are common place things in the UK
We complain about those things because we can clearly see that "the UK is an authoritarian state" because they are common place in the UK.
> no one cares
More like people pretend to not care for fear of being locked up for seemly arbitrary reasons, which seems to happen quite a lot over there based on the news reports, because "the UK is an authoritarian state".
That is not true. The specific powers of arrest and detention by UK border force were set out in this freedom of information response here https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/uk_border_force_power...
Summary is they can’t detain people for no reason, they can detain people for specific offences relating to immigration and citizenship, customs and excise and also the normal stuff any regular police officer can arrest people for.
I’m no apologist for how much state authority they have, but it’s not as bad as you’re making out.
It is true.
The UK border agents (technically counter-terrorism) can stop you at the border, force you into a room, ask for your passwords to all your devices and you don't have the right to refuse.
You also don't have the right to a lawyer to be in a room with you and you are compelled to answer all their questions and they do not need to tell you why they stopped you.
Then, if you are lucky they return your devices 7 days later after they have been through everything.
This guy went through it last year and talks about what happens when they stop you: https://youtu.be/991kRp8KUmo?si=-5S1uLE7K9KG_gNj
> you don't have the right to refuse
What happens if I still do? Or pretend that I forgot my pin and accidentally lock my phone down?
They serve you a RIPA notice and you either provide the password or they prosecute you. Penalties are 2-5 years in jail depending on the nature of the investigation.
I avoid flying anywhere near the UK or its territories.
The guy in the video explains exactly that.
If you are a UK citizen, they will charge you under the terrorism act if you refuse to answer their questions or if you try to conceal anything or if you refuse to provide all the passwords to all your devices.
As for what happens when you can genuinely not remember your passwords, I honestly don't know. The guy in the video just gave them access to everything because he travels a lot and did not want to have to explain why he has a terrorism charge to his name every-time he has to apply for a new visa.
Maybe you can refuse and stay silent and fight the charge later in court with a good lawyer but who knows. IANAL so do your own research before doing anything.
As for what happens if you are a foreigner and refuse to unlock your devices/ answer their questions, they can deport you and potentially ban you from entering the country for a certain amount of time or indefinitely.
> As for what happens when you can genuinely not remember your passwords, I honestly don't know.
This is pretty scary. I don't know any of my passwords because they are random strings of letters, numbers and symbols, and they're only kept in a password manager that sits on my powered-off PC at home. How do these border agents expect me to recite my passwords from memory?
> Maybe you can refuse and stay silent and fight the charge later in court with a good lawyer but who knows. IANAL...
You ask who knows. Then you say IANAL. I'm excited for you. You're so close to identifying who might know! Keep doing your own research, you got this.
There is a problem when the laws are so convoluted that you need a professional interpreter, and those interpreters are prohibitively expensive.
Lawyers make YouTube videos. Lawyers, academics and legal advocacy groups often write copiously about these issues. You can find ways to interact with a lawyer which can be useful short of a prohibitively expensive retainer or representation.
The decision matrix around these things is often obvious. Most people simply comply. If you want to be one of the few people willing to stand up to these things, then good I commend you. But you're going to have to put in some basic effort.
Or you could be extremely lazy and watch some random guys overwrought personal narrative which the commenter basically admitted was completely uninformative in explaining how the system actually works and then extrapolate from this video to make broad claims while simultaneously conceding you know pretty much nothing, and therefore are wasting everyone's time. I'm not asking anyone to become a lawyer but is that really the best evidence they could come up with? It just seems like a basic information literacy failure that should not be encouraged.
Yes the law is convoluted and complicated. Free societies that need to balance the same tension humans have always struggled with - between freedom and safety - and try to do so in a fair way despite all the impulses and incentives for abuse are going to be complicated. Justice used to merely be the mob. Are you sure you don't want the law to be complicated? You resent the modern need for the expertise of specialized lawyers? Do you complain medicine has gotten too complicated when the doctor doesn't begin by hacking your limbs off?
> Or pretend that I forgot my pin and accidentally lock my phone down
Err our policing and judicial systems weren't born yesterday. You'll be treated as having refused to unlock/decrypt, as devices are so ubiquitous and people unlock tens or hundreds of times a day.
I've seen ordinary people forget things they've done every day for years. It's not something that never happens.
> these are common place things in the UK and no one cares
That seems like a YP not an MP. Just because you and your fellow countrymen gave up long ago is not the problem of those fighting to not lose those rights now. Except maybe you guys make it easier as an example of for the government to show as an example of other countries are already doing it. Thanks for that.
The fight might be a losing cause, but at least it is being fought as long as it can be fought instead of just laying down and accepting it like the UK seems to have done.
Welcome to the "democratic" regimes of US, UK, Russia and Turkey. Arbitrary border searches, interrogations and imprisonment, if you are on the wrong end of the political spectrum.
All the shady stuff the UK does, it does at the behest of the US.
I don't think so. I think the British public genuinely want to live in an authoritarian surveillance state.
Once they do, they might stop wanting to live in one. But for now they want it.
They don't. But cameras - like where I am now - came in gradually, and the public only get to see motorway crashes and the stuff the .gov want you to see. If the aussies have facial recognition, so do the brits.
One eye. That will rule them all.
I dream of a future where the disk image in my laptop both functions as an operating system, but can also be decrypted into secret files. We'll keep the extra entropy in a pile of AI slop next to the other piles of AI slop. That way, under scrutiny, it just looks like an OS full of AI slop.
My work computer seems to already have this feature!
For me, it isn't the lack of warrant (I am a UK Citizen but I expect we have similar problems here), it is the lack of transparency and accountability.
If was arrested on suspicion of something, I can get legal assistance and I can know what I am suspected of and why before any of my property (or in this case, potentially very private and sensitive information) could be taken. If the arrest is manifestly wrongful or not based on any evidence, then I expect it would be easy enough to resist investigation.
On the other hand, having someone at the border who can justify an arbitrary search on the basis that "they might suspect of something", without having to clearly justify that basis and that if they then take property (or information), potentially copy it completely opaquely and then have zero accountability if that is misused is extremely frustrating but I guess you need to lobby your lawmakers to make the system fairer and to ensure legal protections of privileged information is completely upheld - period.
Possible solution: An app that dumps / restores the phone to a remote site, all e2ee.
Wipe your phone and factory reset before you cross the border, then restore afterward.
I did something like this, though not as an app. It was pretty cumbersome to do. Next time I'll just bring a travel phone.
This is actually exactly why I avoid this advice: wiping your phone, and setting it back up later, is a pain in the ass. Especially when you're meant to be on vacation, or exhausted from returning from one. And if it's a pain in the ass, it likely won't get done. The below isn't perfect, but minimizing legal things that CBP can make a case of doesn't have to be all-or-nothing
At this point recommending the minimum that normal people will actually follow feels more effective: photos, main messaging app, and password database.
Photos are backed up; normal people use Google photos, my partner and I use a NAS, but everyone should have a "Free up space" / "Delete photos that are backed-up from device" option. This makes it easy and gets you space for more vacation photos
Main messaging app can be Telegram, Whatsapp, or (in my case) Element. Deleting it from your phone won't cost you your messaging history, but gets your most sensitive chats out of any potential spotlight
I can handle a password database, but "Chrome saves my passwords" means signing out of Chrome is all normal people have to do
I think with iOS you can do this pretty straightforwardly
Warrant is a mechanism to address transparency and accountability (somewhat)
Exactly, a warrant is a transparent and accountable step in convincing a third party that this is probable cause.
IANAL. This is my understanding.
For US citizens entering the US: If you're concerned about protecting your data from this threat, you should use GrapheneOS (or less good would be a latest iPhone in lockdown mode and BFU) and not talk to the police. The 5th amendment does not seem to have an exception at the border, so you can't legally be compelled to hand over your password by border agents (there's not strong case law here). They can lie, they can detain you, search you, they can seize your stuff. You shouldn't be the one arguing with them, you should be silent (besides identification) and ask for an attorney (you don't have a right to an attorney at a routine search). As a US citizen, you can refuse and still enter.
GrapheneOS has demonstrated to be robust against physical access even in AFU [1]. It's still a good idea to shut down / restart because BFU is much more secure. To maintain convenience while avoiding reliance on the rate limiting of the secure element, you can use a long random passphrase as your primary unlock (you enter it every time the device is in BFU) and a fingerprint with a second factor pin as the secondary unlock.
Even if you factory reset your phone and backed up data (to an E2EE cloud provider, over Tor and memorized the credentials), you should still not disclose your password because it could allow evidence to be planted or your device to be compromised. Nothing you say to the border agents can help you in court, it can only be used against you.
The duress pin is generally not how you should handle a situation like this. You do not need the duress pin to prevent access, its purpose is if you're being physically coerced as well as to give the attacker the dillema of whether to enter a coerced password (it even gives this benefit for people that don't use the duress password).
Sure, if police are behaving illegally and the information that would be disclosed is worth the possible punishment, then that's a personal decision.
[1] Based on leaked Cellebrite documentation, GrapheneOS was the best performing device against AFU attacks. It also has a customizable reboot timer to bring the device back to BFU after a set time of not unlocking. The options are between 10 minutes and 72 hours of unlocking and 18 hours is the default iirc. Apple and Google added this to their phones after GrapheneOS without the option to customize. Theirs are set at 72 hours.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
It's self explanatory.
It only self-explains what it says, not what the police actually do.
They just make it a probable cause. Problem solved for them.
I’m always confused when people say this. It’s vague as heck! That one little word in there, “unreasonable,” makes it completely up for interpretation.
I have some astoundingly bad news for you about the entire system of trial by jury which is that virtually the entire thing depends on twelve average people defining the word "reasonable" in the context of your offense.
Do you think this is a reasonable use of power?
Plenty will say yes. We know this.
One of the Constitution's big failings is this sort of thing; deeply vague wording. What counts as interstate commerce? What counts as reasonable? What's considered press activity? What's considered illegal speech?
If you were writing a new one today, you'd define some stuff more.
Thats partially that we insist on interpreting it in this contorted lens of “how the founding fathers meant it”, when words like “reasonable” seem like they’re clearly meant to reflect the current opinion of the populace. If people find it unreasonable, it is, and vice versa.
I don’t think “interstate commerce” is unclear at all. That’s one where started with an end goal in mind and rationalized everything in between. There is no sane English reading of that passage that resembles the current interpretation at all. We just repeatedly mentally Google Translated it to Spanish and back until it was vague enough to allow what we wanted.
Im asking you though.
No, you're asking someone else; I'm just pointing out why it's a bit of a pointless ask.
It is not self-explanatory how to define the weasel word "unreasonable"
I defy you to go to law school with that attitude, sir
Torres v. Madrid (5-3)
Carpenter v. United States (5-4)
Collins v. Virginia (8-1)
Barnes v. Felix (9-0)
These are all Supreme Court cases that were specifically about the 4th amendment and happened in the last 10 years.
The 4th amendment is over 200 years old and yet requires constant supervision by the Supreme Court to define the word reasonable or to police the lower courts understanding of precedent.
So you are wrong, with whatever presumption you are making that the word "unreasonable" is well defined.
Haha, as if the constitution matters anymore.
> “In [Fiscal Year] 2025, out of the over 419 million travelers CBP processed at ports of entry, CBP only searched the electronic devices of 55,318 international travelers,” the agency wrote, or 0.0013%.
And...
> In Fiscal Year 2020, CBP processed more than 238 million travelers at U.S. ports of entry. During that same period of time, CBP conducted 32,038 border searches of electronic devices, representing less than .014 percent of arriving international travelers.[1]
In other words, now it's as likely[0] to get your phone searched as in 2020. It's interesting how the media shapes people's perspective, isn't it?
[0]: 0.001% less likely, so just marginal error.
[1]: https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/cbp-enforcement-statistic... not sure it reports 2020's data here though.
> In other words, now it's as likely to get your phone searched as in 2020.
Do you think these are random searches?
Your math doesn't line up. 0.0013% is ten times less than 0.014%.
If there is a spurious zero, .013% is a 7% change from 0.014%, not 0.001%.
”[the CBP agent] said if I didn’t give them my phone, my interrogation was going to take much longer and they could retain my phone indefinitely”
I would take a punt at filing a complaint about that. Threatening someone with selective enforcement must fall short of professional standards at CBP, as stated on their .gov page:
https://www.cbp.gov/sites/default/files/2024-09/exhibit_08_-...
They’d probably say it wasn’t selective enforcement, because the phone scan is a faster way to complete their investigation compared to an interrogation. It’s the same disclaimer used for a manual search when you opt out of the body scanner.
I don't like this. I think about a year ago when there was a big push for chat control in the EU, almost like an instinct, I started working on ways to be more soverign with my data.
I'm just a regular guy who really has nothing to hide, but that doesn't mean I need to be complacent with just allowing a future I don't like be propped up in front of my eyes.
What I've come to realize is there is really no safer place for your data and communications than just your own home. At the very least, I would like a judge to review the evidence of my alledged wrong doing before the government can raid my castle and get what they need.
Why do I, as a regular citizen feel the need to invoke and create my own protections on personal data and communications?
There's something deep inside me that feels the need to be prepared for this odd future where the government feels they have the right to access everything. It's deeply troubling on many fronts.
I disagree with this framing. Privacy is never been about having something to hide. There's a big difference between having something to hide and it just not being someone else's business. It also implies a kind of light criminality imo.
I don't hide my bank details it's just none of your business.
This is me exercising personal control, preventing misuse and exploitation, and protecting the little dignity I have left this centry.
We are in alignment. I'm probably just not conveying it correctly.
I figured, but I think it's worth pointing out.
> I'm just a regular guy who really has nothing to hide
Yeah, you do.
Post your nudes.
Post your full financial details.
Post your whole medical history.
Post every crime you might have committed, even as a juvenile.
Post all your credit cards and bank account details.
Hmmmm, so you ARE hiding those, eh? Quit framing this as "nothing to hide", because we ALL have things we hide... Not because they're illegal or anything, but because it protects us.
Sorry, but its not 'I have nothing to hide so who cares'...it's 'I have nothing to hide, and you also have absolutely no right to access my data and I will make that as hard as I possibly can.'
This is different than arguing 'I have nothing to hide and also because of that you get free reign to everything'?
But really, I don't take nudes cause why?, my financials are remarkably average, I have no medical history that I care about people knowing (broke my hand once), I've haven't broken any law's, I don't use credit cards...?
That doesn't mean you are allowed to access my devices on whims, track my daily movements relentlessly.
So why does the government get to do all of those things? Especially when they've already demonstrated that they're not very good at using them to achieve the stated goal of improving security.
Exactly and if they can't keep FBI data locked down how are they going to keep what they harvest from the plebes. You really want your insurer, landlord, employer, bank knowing all this?
This feeling is exactly what led to people leaving Europe to found what later became the United States. The Bill of Rights is basically a laundry list of things the King did to his servants - staging troops in their homes, rifling through their papers, stealing ideas, taking property without compensation, trying people in secret trials without a jury, trying people over and over until they got a conviction (or an acquittal if the accused was a friend of the King), levying huge bail amounts to prevent the accused from working so they would agree to plead guilty, CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT (one of the King's favorites), and laws being made/removed at the whim whenever they benefitted the King.
All of that is coming back, probably. So enjoy that!
> I'm just a regular guy who really has nothing to hide
I think you are wrong. We all have things to hide.
A joke between friends taken out of context. Your angry messages to a spouse or parent after a fight happened between you and them could be used out of context also. And what about your YouTube history and playlist or your web history...
> just your own home
Your home can be searched and all your devices at home can be seized as well. Granted it's probably a higher threshold than having everything on your phone but it's no a panacea either.
>Your home can be searched and all your devices at home can be seized as well.
You need a warrant to search my home. That's my whole point. Warrantless access is the issue.
Get a warrant, and I will happily show you anything you want. Nothing will be found because at the end of the tunnel, I actually have nothing to hide, I'm just a regular guy is my point.
You would do well to learn from Cardinal Richelieu's quote:
"Give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, and I will find something in them which will hang him."
> You need a warrant to search my home.
I agree that is why I said that it was higher threshold to get access to your data but warrants can be obtained for many different reasons and not always good ones either.
All I am saying is that if they want your data, they'll get it. It's just easier at the border.
>All I am saying is that if they want your data, they'll get it. It's just easier at the border.
That's fine, and I will do everything I can to make it as difficult as possible, not because I have something to hide at the end of the day, but because screw that what a terrible future to pass on to the next generation.
Too bad phones aren't easy to do a full back up of, wipe, then restore after you are past the border agents. Or can keep all user data on a microSD card that you remove and secure before the search.
Explain how? I've yet to find something reliable like this. At best you can have a decent number of apps automatically reinstalled to the original state, but not all, and most settings don't transfer, etc. And that requires root access, which most people don't have afaik.
I used to do this kind of thing with TiBackup when Android phones were easy to play with and experimentation was more common.
I'd back up the phone to an SD card and/or send the backup offsite over the network.
After that, I could nuke whatever I wanted -- or factory reset it, switch to a different OS (we often called them "ROMs" back then), play with that for a bit, switch back and forth, or whatever.
When the time was right, I'd use TiBackup to restore the backup. It didn't even have to be the same phone. Apps and data were restored to where they had been. Home screens looked the same. Settings and preferences went back to how they were. The same web stuff remained in browser cache, alongside the same cookies.
There were occasional outliers that didn't come back perfectly, of course, but broadly speaking: It worked very well. Those outliers were few and easy to deal with.
This required root access. But for a time (years), that was easy.
(I will never accept any defense of any proclamations that we must be restricted from doing whatever the fuck we want with the hardware that we own. If I can do things with a desktop PC, then I should also be able to do those same things with a pocket computer.)
> If I can do things with a desktop PC, then I should also be able to do those same things with a pocket computer.
I understand the sentiment behind this argument, but please stop making the argument for freedom to do computing on own devices by making a comparison between desktop PC and pocket computers (mobile devices).
I believe that the bad-faith actors are just gonna force same state of things on desktop PCs as well moving forward, instead of enabling freedom of compute on mobile devices.
Elsewhere in this very thread I talk about how we need a modern solution for full true image backup for phones; I'm also an example of somebody who could use it, as I have phones where if I was to back up and wipe them I would lose the ability to use some extremely expensive old thermal cameras that work by attaching to them, - if I wiped and reinstalled, even having the apps, they require reaching out to servers for initial authentication that no longer exists. A full image backup would solve this.
Rooting is now far more difficult unfortunately, and isn't even available mostly; but I don't see a real method to do a full proper image backup of phones today.
Yes, I also used Ti[tanium?] Backup, and now use NeoBackup. Those still don't quite hit the spot for me of a full and reliable backup. It's close in many ways, but I've found system settings to be largely nontransferable, and many times apps would just seem to break or crash after restoring. So I have no idea how people do anything close to it without root, although I suppose it's possible at this point if you use a Google account and apps they probably have something.
You can buy an android which can easily be rooted if you want They might start restricting what you can do in your PC. Let's keep both free to modify in any way we want without comparison.
You can declaratively manage your phone with something like github.com/devindudeman/nix-android so you'd point at a decoy config file and rebuild before crossing the border and then point at the up-to-no-good config file once across.
Of course you do have to be able to reference those files somehow, so they have to be online, but if there are no references to them on the device then the border folks would have to somehow know about them and be able to access them in order to link you and your device to the declared configs. There are a lot of ways to hide such a thing.
Presumably the most sensitive thing here is your social graph and messages. I haven't verified if nix-android handles them in a way that would make sense here, but it's at least plausible that it might.
The challenge is that if you make it easy to restore, then security matters so much or a random person out there is going to restore your entire phone on another device. Privacy needs strong security, and strong security often involves great inconvenience which most people don't want to deal with.
Or just take a different phone with you if you're that worried about it.
Or keep your phone in your pocket and give them one of these:
https://imgur.com/gallery/history-of-telephone-pre-2000-6YCg...
Why not? I thought this was easy enough at least on apple.
> that you remove and *secure* before the search.
In a dark body cavity?
For Apple at least, don't most users have ADP disabled, so the Gov has access to the data anyway?
And quite a bit of backed-up data on Android is not E2EE encrypted
I wonder if there's a way for "targets" of CBP to easily maintain phones that can be toggled between their "real work" profile and some boring anodyne "CBP-safe" profile?
Locking/disabling the phone, I think, only creates suspicion as we've seen in a previous case not long ago. But if phones can have a cloud back-ups, shouldn't it be possible to have TWO different "back-ups" that can be chosen at will?
With the current political climate, that might be tantamount to destruction of evidence or contempt, and be the worst of all options. The problem isn’t any particular technical thing, it’s that the US government has become authoritarian and fascist, there is no legal “gotcha” that will ultimately work here.
(Allegedly) hiding evidence that a person accused of vandalism has read the wrong books will get you 30 years in federal prison these days.
https://freedom.press/issues/texas-man-sentenced-to-30-years...
If nothing matters, people who have reason to use technical countermeasures aren't really taking extra risk by doing it.
It's only illegal if you get caught.
Does "search your phone" include any externally-hosted content that can be accessed by said phone?
Yes of course. Basically they have ruled the entire warrant requirement for searches and prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures is suspended within 100 miles of any border or international airport (which is most of the US).
The law makes it clear that the rules are only suspended in the customs zone of the airport and within 100 miles of the airport. They seem to follow that. The checkpoints you see in Washington state or down near the border with Mexico do not show up around denver or dfw. The reality is bad enough we don't need to exaggerate it. And they can't just grab every phone as they walk around LA either, they have to signal their dog to alert on you to give them probable cause...
The rules are not suspended within 100 miles of the airport, it’s only land and sea borders. (Look it up.) The person you were responding to is wrong and we need to push back against this becoming accepted “folk wisdom” or it will lead to more rights violations.
This.
It's 100 miles of land & sea borders. Plus the airport zone. The airport does not create a new 100 mile zone.
For example, ATL is not within 100 miles of a sea or land border, so the CBP zone is just the airport, not the 100 mile circle around the airport. But, ORD and LGA are both within 100 mile zones.
Of course, it's all kind of a moot point, as the current administration seems happy enough to deploy immigration forces nationwide and Congress is spineless and incapable of pushing back.
This gets repeated in every discussion here and it’s absolutely not true. (It’s only land and sea borders which is bad enough as is.) Please stop repeating it or it will become accepted “folk wisdom” and then they’ll actually push it as a policy.
A comparison would be physical keys found during a police search - under what circumstances can the police legally use those keys to search other, locked locations?
How true is that? Can police search a house without warranty in NYC say and have that entered as evidence (plus anything that lead from that) in court?
No, but cbp could have a k9 at any bottleneck they want and those dogs read their partners body language, so if they are a racist idiot it might alert on excessive melanin providing probable cause. Assuming they didn't just train it to alert on command. And if it alerts yeah they can demand to search your phone. I don't hear about it getting used, but that could be because they are careful not to use it on anyone who might start a case that could get it ruled unconstitutional. They openly use it where they think there is actually smuggling.
no, because that would clearly be an unreasonable search
The question is about your data stored in the cloud (not sure if it matters that it’s outside the 100mi) not on the phone.
Is the search limited to the phone itself and the data physically residing inside or can they open any door for which that phone is the key?
https://www.cbp.gov/sites/default/files/2026-01/cbp_directiv...
3.2 Electronic Device: Any device that may contain information in an electronic or digital form, such as computers, tablets, disks, drives, tapes, flash drives, SIM cards, global positioning systems, unmanned aircraft systems, vehicle infotainment systems, smart watches, mobile phones and other communication devices, cameras, music and other media players.
3.3 Basic Search: Any border search of an electronic device that does not qualify as an advanced search as described in section 3.4, in which an officer conducts a review or analysis of information residing in electronic or digital form on the device. A basic search may include documenting information observed on the device during the search that relates to immigration, customs, or other law enforcement actions in CBP systems.
3.4 Advanced Search: An advanced search is any search in which an officer connects equipment, wired or wireless, to copy and/or analyze the contents of an electronic device. Use of external equipment (including a CBP standalone computer) merely to make the contents of the device available for inspection (including, for example, to bypass a password, overcome encryption, translate content, view files contained in an external drive or other electronic device lacking a screen, or charge a device) does not constitute an advanced search. Documenting notes and observations, as noted in section 3.3, does not constitute an advanced search.
5.1.4 An officer may perform an advanced search of an electronic device only in instances in which there is reasonable suspicion of activity in violation of the laws enforced or administered by CBP or, in the absence of individualized reasonable suspicion when there is a national security concern. All advanced searches require supervisory approval at the Grade 14 level or higher (or a manager with comparable responsibilities). In cases where the inspecting officer and approving supervisor rely on the presence of a national security concern, without reasonable suspicion, to conduct an advanced search, approval from the Director, Field Operations; Chief Patrol Agent; Director, Air Operations; Director, Marine Operations; Special Agent in Charge; or their delegate, is required prior to conducting the search. In compelling circumstances where operational considerations prevent prior approval, notification shall be made as soon as possible. Notification must include an explanation of the national security concern, the compelling circumstances that precluded prior approval, the relevant facts and information supporting the search, and the results of the search.
5.1.5 All searches of electronic devices will be documented in appropriate CBP systems. Officers will document any supervisory approvals required under this Directive and, in the case of an advanced search, the factors establishing reasonable suspicion of a violation of a law enforced or administered by CBP or a national security concern, as well as relevant observations, impressions, and actions taken, as appropriate.
5.1.6 Searches of electronic devices should be conducted in the presence of the individual whose information is being examined unless there are national security, law enforcement, officer safety, or other operational considerations that make it inappropriate to permit the individual to remain present. Permitting an individual to remain present during a search does not necessarily mean that the individual shall observe the search itself. If permitting an individual to observe the search could reveal law enforcement techniques or potentially compromise other operational considerations, the individual will not be permitted to observe the search itself"
It sounds like the person whose device is being searched could legally disable the data connection before the search.
https://www.eff.org/issues/border-searches
The constitution is officially toilet paper.
It's gilded toilet paper so that they can still say it's gold when it comes to protecting the NRA or the right for corporations to buy politicians.
American society should have done something about the excessive power these agents have had for a long time at the border and in the travel authority. The things they would ask, and their attitudes and behavior were almost like drug induced paranoia with confabulations.
Neighboring the country in Canada, the US seemed like shorthand for USSR when it came to the border and travel. This sort of policy will make the US unpopular and inhospitable for conferences or any other important gatherings that it's taken for granted.
The Government can search anyone or any thing that is attempting to enter the Country for any reason.
If you’re just now getting upset about this then you need to check your political bias becise that’s the only thing that’s changed.
> “In [Fiscal Year] 2025, out of the over 419 million travelers CBP processed at ports of entry, CBP only searched the electronic devices of 55,318 international travelers,” the agency wrote, or 0.0013%.
By my math, that's a little over 0.013% (ten times the cited figure).
reading the article
> The agent took the phone away and only returned after approximately 45 minutes, during which Kennedy believes that data on the phone was copied. He was then released with no charges.
Does the owner, Mr. Kennedy has actual knowledge/proof if the phone was copied, or this is a guess? Might be missing from the article.
Related: https://adc.org/case/blumenthal-v-mullin/
Why stop at a phone? What about laptops
> "land of the free"
Amazing development from idea, vision and lyrics to the current status quo.
The more free they have to tell you you are, the less free you actually are. In the DPRK they drill it into you constantly. In China, a few times a day. In the USA, only once a day.
Carry a burner old phone and ship your actual. Be prepared to smash the phone or otherwise brutalize it if they demand to search it, then let them have at it.
If you have an iPhone Air you can smuggle it inside your prison pocket while you carry a burner.
Smash the phone? That's terrible advice. For just about everybody, destroying the phone is probably going to get them in a lot more trouble than the contents ever would.
If you don't cooperate they can hold you for a while and make all kinds of threats but, if you are a citizen, ultimately they cannot deny you entry.
If I were truly paranoid, I'd probably travel with flip phone and an iPad with typical (non-sensitive) apps on it and a remote desktop client that I could use to connect to my computer back home. Make sure the remote desktop client isn't installed on the iPad during border crossings.
I don't travel with any of my shit anymore, I take my old phone/laptop with nothing but music, separate debit/credit cards, tickets/itenerary, and whatever other little things. No contacts, no icloud, no saved passwords, etc. Been doing it for over a decade.
TSA once gave me SSSS for 5 years after they tried making me answer a survey that asked me to prioritize things like "health", "safety", "privacy" as a ranked list and I refused to do that. Fuck em and anyone dumb enough to work for them. I was already used to showing up 4 hours early because they always make me take every single synth/sequencer/etc out so they can swipe it down to check for terrorism particles
I also get groped every single time because my dick shows up on the scanner. So goddamned worthless
Copying from another comment I made on this:
#1. The download and restore backup method would work for people in general- except it doesn't capture what people would need. Exmaple: I have some thermal cameras that rely on old 32 bit apps that do not run on anything android 12 onwards- If i wipe those old phones, and restore- the apps often wanted to reach out to a server for initial activation- they would fail upon reinstall and i'd be out of the apps that are required to control my cameras and related equipment,which is worth several thousand, and has no equivalent spec wise and form factor today in 2026. And it'd be all dead weight and rendered useless.
( competitors today do not compete now- for example try finding a 640*480 30 hz or better form factor thermal camera that attaches to phones - they dont exist anymore)
\The solution is full imaging- but there isnt a real way to fully image phones and restore backups today. There used to be it seems- but not really with the latest stuff at the time of this post
.
On another note:Veracrypt- The weakness of truecrypt and veracrypt, Their strongest counter, the hidden OS option only worked if you converted your computer to MBR, which means you can't have a hard drive too large. Making a UEFI hidden OS has not been done yet, but all computers are this now.
And the Hidden Volume option- isn't 'as' useful, and of course, your OS might make a copy and put it somewhere, you have to be careful. As a example: Any time I open a file, using the software tool Everything to search and confirm this- you can easily see Windows makes copies and temp files and whatnot in randomly named locations- that's the sort of software and OS behavior that will screw people over.( The year of the Linux desktop isn't here yet..)
Solution:We need fully image-backup capable Phones. I mean fully. Not just backing up some apps- as this refuses to backup apps you have that are no longer on app stores, or that Play Protect doesn't like, etc. We need to be able to fully image a device, a forensic image backup, for phones that people can use, then encrypt and upload so they are good if they lose a phone.
Next- Plausible deniability is a way forward- but you need multiple profiles, that are cryptographically indistinguishable, along with the phone being hardened so GreyKey /Cellebrite won't be able to exploit a way in. This needs to be built this way from the ground up ideally, eventually.
There has been research about making devices that treat all block space the same way so you can't tell if someone has 1, or 50 profiles or partitions, etc- and even stuff that overlaps. Often it needs to be fixed size partitions, but it is apparently NOT impossible to create. I am aware of Shufflecake attempting to make a solution for Linux, and yes, a Hidden OS option that is forensic- invisible.
But nothing has come out yet - and especially, nothing in this vein for phones.
It would be nice to see the day where, if you travel to a hostile country, you can tell them you have just one profile, and if they ask, you could theoretically mention a 2nd, and then show it- but you might have 3 more - and they'd all be immune to forensic inspection if the system is built right.(Yes, there's often issues you have to be careful of ,like setting this up so you dont destroy data when in other profiles, but that's not as important)
This is how you solve this problem in the long run-make computing devices impossible to analyze, but standardized.
We tech guys keep thinking of tech solutions, but as someone who reluctantly has to cross a border of an even more hostile country every now and then, you have to remember that border agents are not stupid and will mark you as suspicious if your open profile does not look real enough or there are traces of encryption on the device (when they connect the phone to forensic tools, they can easily see if something looks off). Being paranoid about security is a huge red flag.
The only thing you can do is travel with a clean device on which you maintain a completely innocuous social presence, such as chats with parents and non-foreign friends, and some social media with normie activity. Even that would not be enough if you're an activist or otherwise personally targeted, as your real accounts are already known in that case and your only option is not to travel at all, but it reduces your chances of getting in trouble (or arrested, depending on the target country). Though it still won't help in the long run as security services collect and organize more and more data about everyone.
The full image backup solution solves that, as you never have to travel with your stuff and can upload and download it-
But also, things like the hidden OS, or shufflecake - they're building these so they're would be no traces. Which is why I said this sort of thing needs to be standardized - if every phone or device naturally gets extremely high levels of security, and it's built in by default to all of them- it's not unusual anymore, is suspicious. And stems the overall ongoing data collection on everyone that you highlighted.
> 640*480 30hz or better form factor thermal camera that attaches to phones - they dont exist anymore
Huh. ITAR?
No, the market simply is producing quantities of low end thermals now, resolution isn't quite where it was at. This includes ones produced by European, Chinese and Israeli companies, over the past decade. ITAR does not prohibit owning or importing tech like this, just exporting ( which would require export licenses, etc)- but the US part of the market is not competitive, the best tech now in this field available to consumers- is foreign , as of now- so ITAR has lost importance in terms of preventing high end tech from getting out - we don't have the high end tech at this time, nor are developing on the cutting edge.
> It would be nice to see the day where, if you travel to a hostile country,
...or, returning to one.
I responded to comments on this thread or on other threads but just in case you think this is a US thing only, it is not.
The UK border agents (technically counter-terrorism) can stop you at the border, force you into a room, ask for your passwords to all your devices and you don't have the right to refuse.
You also don't have the right to have a lawyer be in a room with you and you are compelled to answer all their questions and finally they do not need to tell you why they stopped you.
Then, if you are lucky they return your devices 7 days later after they have been through everything or they can keep them forever if they find something suspicious.
This guy (who is a British citizen) went through it last year and talks about the whole procedure: https://youtu.be/991kRp8KUmo?si=-5S1uLE7K9KG_gNj
China can search it remotely
I remember going down a rabbit hole of Youtube border security videos (like the TV show "Cops" but for customs and the border) and was shocked at how much power they have. It doesn't seem to be uniquely American either as the show takes place in Canada and Australia as well.
They'll go through everything: phones, journals, mail. They'll straight up call people in someone's phone and question them if they think it's relevant.
I know the focus is on him getting searched and all, but I think what’s important is the auto-tagging or flagging of people based on something like a post made online or similar. This is far worse as it implicates mass surveillance, mass AI use to automate what should be done after due diligence, and how that obviously can and will he used politically as opposed to criminally.
Which government?
lol no they can't, I forgot the password
You have the right to say that, but if you do, then in the best case they will seize the phone for a few months to send it to a lab for analysis. In the worst case, they will detain the person and have a judge order the person to stay detained until the person hands over the password, although this may require pre-evidence of guilt.