High-Tech Gadgets Can Pose Problems At Mexican Border 447
TechnologyResource writes "Going across the border will be a more 'interesting' experience since Customs and Border Protection will now be checking laptops, digital cameras, cell phones and any other electronics on your person or in your vehicle. It's not a new authority, according to Angelica De Cima, Office of Public Affairs Liaison 'They've always had the right to inspect your person, vehicle, baggage, anything on you. Nothing has changed from before,' De Cima said."
information smuggling? (Score:5, Insightful)
"He said anyone coming across could be a terrorist, drug dealer or someone trying to carry or take information out of the country by hiding it in a smaller device."
Why not just FTP it. Or hide a microSD card inside a cake? It should bake okay, the chip inside gets put under higher temps than the inside of cupcake when they place them on a PCB. The plastic on a uSD might melt a little, but I suspect the information will still be there.
Re:information smuggling? (Score:5, Insightful)
Bake it IN the cake? That seems a bit extreme. Why not just bake the cake, let it cool, insert the microSD, then frost. If they start defrosting cakes while searching people, they deserve to find it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why not just bake the cake . . .
Bake it in a cake!? WTF!? News for Nerds my arse, we're all just wannabe housewives . . . from the thirties!
Re:information smuggling? (Score:4, Insightful)
cake baking is an important social skill, second only to playing a musical instrument.
Get a good recipe, follow it to the letter, and if you still screw it up, you don't deserve cake.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I tried that, but then I realized it's a lie.
Just use this [thinkgeek.com]
Doesn't even need that... (Score:5, Insightful)
SD cards are so small that have to be one of the easiest items to hide in the known universe. There's a brazillion places you could tape one to a car or hide it about your person. Dogs can't sniff them out so unless they're going to start strip-searching *everybody* and dismantling every car then they're not going to find them.
It's just more pointless stupidity from the DHS.
Don't even get me started on micro-SSD or FTP.
Re:Doesn't even need that... (Score:5, Funny)
i forgot, which is greater: a brazillion or a guatamellion?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Dogs can't sniff them out so unless they're going to start strip-searching *everybody* ...
Strip searches aren't nearly good enough. They'll have to do body-cavity searches if they're to find SD cards and USB memory gadgets wherever they may be hidden.
Re:information smuggling? (Score:5, Funny)
No need to frost. Just bake the cake, insert the microSD, and _eat_ the cake. Then if they start searching people thoroughly enough to detect the card, they _really_ deserve to find it.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
searching people thoroughly enough to detect the card
Avi: Tony.
Bullet Tooth Tony: What?
Avi: Look in the dog.
Bullet Tooth Tony: What do you mean "look in the dog?"
Avi: I mean open him up.
Bullet Tooth Tony: It's not as if it's a tin of baked beans! What do you mean "open him up"?
--
BMO
Re:information smuggling? (Score:5, Insightful)
Holy frijoles. You just conspired to commit a crime. See how easy that was?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Hypotheticals aren't conspiracy.
Bad troll. No cookie (or cupcake)
--
BMO
Re:information smuggling? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hypotheticals aren't conspiracy.
Yet
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Where in the post did he say it was hypothetical?
Re:information smuggling? (Score:5, Informative)
Where in the post did he say it wasn't?
It's the prosecution's job to prove consipiracy, not the defendant's to prove it wasn't.
Furthermore, conspiracy is between two or more people *who agree to break a law* Title 18 United States Code (U.S.C.) Section 371. I only see one here. The law also states "and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy." Where is the planning with another person? Where is the follow through on any of it? Where is the cake? Where is the mens rea?
I also see a violation of free speech should he be prosecuted for discussing what might happen.
I am not a lawyer but this guy is. http://research.lawyers.com/blogs/archives/629-Federal-Criminal-Conspiracy-Law.html [lawyers.com]
And obviously I offended someone because I got modded "overrated," a chickenshit move.
Anyone defending baudbarf's claim of conspiracy is a troll trying to chill legitimate free speech.
--
BMO
Re:information smuggling? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:information smuggling? (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, the smart criminals and terrorists will get away with it and then there will be more infringements on our liberty to "keep us safe" - from the stupid criminals and terrorists. Then the cycle repeats.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
A friend of mine is customs and border patrol agent at a major international airport. During the course of the day a female co-worker out of the blue points out a person that she feels is suspect of something. What she didn't know but she made sure she handled his entry. So he gets to her line and she begins to search his personal belongings and finds a large CD book. Flipping through she finds a bunch of boot leg DVD movies. He claimed the book was his and that he had nothing "bad in there. But still she c
Re:information smuggling? (Score:4, Insightful)
So why, exactly, is it acceptable to toss out the 4th amendment when all we're doing is removing one of many easy methods of transferring data across the border?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:information smuggling? (Score:5, Insightful)
So they scoop up a pic of child porn or an occasional drug bust and hype the hell out of it in the news, problem solved. A budget for next year, and no admission that the creation of the DHS was a colossal mistake. Of course, they'll have their work cut out for them when the United States becomes the next Nazi Germany and they're tasked with sealing the borders.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course, they'll have their work cut out for them when the United States becomes the next Nazi Germany and they're tasked with sealing the borders.
The NEXT Nazi germany? Pretty sure we're already unilaterally projecting our power up anyone's ass we feel like, in the name of ideology. Nobody is going to seal the US borders though. It's not necessary. I do predict some race wars in California, though, when the economy REALLY crashes. Unemployment is still going up, personal savings down, inflation up even if it's not really being admitted yet. Another great depression is imminent. I just hope we get some decent public works out of it.
Re:information smuggling? (Score:5, Insightful)
They can't stop drugs getting into prisons - why bother pretending you can stop it across thousands of miles of unguarded border? And as for information - well, perhaps some of the minimum wage pigs and grunts they hire to pose in their security theatre are stupid enough to believe "checking" a laptop is going to prevent information getting into Mexico and help them create a rival utopia, but it seems like a bit of a waste of time to me. Still, I'm sure it all makes sense to someone.
THE MAN! (Score:4, Funny)
It's just a way for the man to try and control you.
Re:information smuggling? (Score:5, Funny)
"He said anyone coming across could be a terrorist, drug dealer or someone trying to carry or take information out of the country by hiding it in a smaller device."
Why not just FTP it. Or hide a microSD card inside a cake? It should bake okay, the chip inside gets put under higher temps than the inside of cupcake when they place them on a PCB. The plastic on a uSD might melt a little, but I suspect the information will still be there.
There seems to be an absence of a certain ornithological piece. A headline regarding mass-awareness of a certain avian variety. [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Or hide a microSD card inside a cake?
What's this? How many illegal immigrants can fit in a 8GB microsd card, anyway? Oh, wait, that's not what they're searching for on the Mexican border? No wonder it's such a problem...
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:information smuggling? (Score:4, Informative)
Smuggling information has to be the easiest "crime" ever imagined. One-time pad it and email it across the border. CC a copy to the NSA for all it matters.
Re:information smuggling? (Score:4, Funny)
This is just like what a friend who lives in Paris used to do with subway fare inspectors (over there, they can ask for your ticket at any time). Whenever their gang sees a bunch of fare inspectors, one starts to run, and, of course, the inspectors go after him and ignore the rest of the gang. Whenever they catch him, they ask "your ticket, please", and he shows them as a matter of course.
Meanwhile, the rest of the gang that cheated is far away...
I predict... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I predict... (Score:5, Funny)
I predict that you need a verb!
I mean, this isn't grammar nazi'ing. I'm genuinely interested -- what exactly were you trying to say?
will be?
will question?
will throw?
will hump?
will tazer?
will shoot?
will have a tea party?
will rave with?
will WHAAAAAT?!?!?!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No revolution is successful because it always ends up in evolution. Somethings change, somethings always stay the same. We don't need a revolution, we need to uphold our constitution. A lot of this stuff should really be unconstitutional and needs to be challenged more. Didn't the supreme court rule that customs cannot do roadside drug searches inside our borders, and yet they do it anyways because it really doesn't apply within 150 miles of the border? 150 miles is a lot of land and contains a very sizable
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
We don't need a revolution, we need to uphold our constitution.
You mean scale the federal government back only to those things explicitly authorized in Article I, Section 8 minus those things prohibited by the Bill of Rights? If wouldn't be revolutionary, I don't know what would be!
Re:I predict... (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is that it's easier to find loopholes than it is to plug them. All it takes is one guy at DHS thinking in his cubical to come up with a semi-plausible legal rational for this kind of thing. To have the rational refuted takes someone willing to sacrafice years of their life and fight it all the way to the supreme court. It takes thousands of man hours, sometimes millions of dollars to refute even the simpliest of arguments. And what happens after? The DHS says 'oh well' and goes back to the way things were before. No one is held accountable, no one is punished, and there is nothing to prevent the same worthless peon from coming up with another rational a week later.
Linux laptop (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Linux laptop (Score:4, Insightful)
I wonder what they'll do when they search my 'unusable' Linux laptop.
See you in 30 days.
FTFA: CBP is authorized to keep an item or person in question for up to 30 days, although generally this is only if the subject is put into custody.
Re:Linux laptop (Score:5, Interesting)
Years ago I left Adelaide on a domestic flight with a laptop loaded with mandrake in my luggage. The departure was delayed 30 minutes on an excuse (said they needed to change a wheel, but I could see the plane and that didn't happen). So I got to Melbourne, unpacked the laptop and the battery was dead flat. It must have been started after I packed it, and not stopped properly.
...and then a quick call... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Blue corvette with three gringos heading south route X should pass through your village in 20 minutes. They have laptops, top-notch cellphones, some GPS stuff and wallets full of cash. I'd say some $15k in various assets. Remember, 10% is mine."
Re:...and then a quick call... (Score:5, Funny)
Those are some very close friends.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:You call that a corvette? (Score:5, Funny)
Topped [wikipedia.org]
Re:...and then a quick call... (Score:4, Funny)
Blue corvette with three gringos heading south
Those are some very close friends.
So, you're saying they're three amigos?
Security Theater at its finest (Score:5, Insightful)
Searching the 9/11 hijackers wouldn't have stopped them. It's not like they had their plans saved on their computers. Why do we accept this kind of crap whenever anyone says the magic words "9/11"? We don't even need to change the policy at the airport...people are going to beat down hijackers now, on their own.
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. Ben Franklin.
Re:Security Theater at its finest (Score:5, Funny)
Yep, I think security on air craft would be paid for and determined by the airlines.
That way the market can chose how secure to be.
Maybe a pass on security if you get on naked, eating a pork sausages and say 'There is no God'.
That would increase security immeasurably.
Re:Security Theater at its finest (Score:5, Funny)
Bacon-loving nudist atheists fly for free on my airline!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Only if they're 21-30 and female here...
Re:Security Theater at its finest (Score:5, Funny)
And not too bacon loving.
Re:Security Theater at its finest (Score:5, Funny)
Ahhh, Sunday morning traditions at my house.
Re:Security Theater at its finest (Score:5, Insightful)
people are going to beat down hijackers now, on their own
Shhh.. if you mention that the 9/11 problem was solved in a plane over a field in rural PA just over an hour after the first plane hit the towers by ordinary Americans (who can comprehend real security very well) then there's no need for massive expansion of government. Why aren't you patriotic?
What's next, are you going to tell us that with hardened cockpit doors there's absolutely no need to confiscate small pointy objects from passengers? You one of those terrists, son?
Re:Security Theater at its finest (Score:4, Informative)
RFID Tire Chips (Score:4, Informative)
Re:RFID Tire Chips (Score:5, Informative)
.You needn't worry about your GPS unit, ever since the Firestone tire debacle. The resulting law said that every tire needed to be able to be identified as being from Lot #X without being dismounted (prior to that lot numbers were printed on the inside of the tire). The manufacturers' solution was RFID chips with unique serial numbers embedded in every tire.
Uh, no. I work in the tire manufacture business. The lot ID has always been - and still is - available for inspection on the outside of the tire. We call this the "serial plate", it's mounted to the mold. Look for a series of letters / numbers bracketed by impressions of what looks like screw heads: that's the serial plate. It's near the bead area. Granted, it may be on the inboard side and may require you to crawl about with an inspection mirror (or put the vehicle up on a rack), but no need to dismount the tire. Tire lot ID's were never on the inside of a tire. What people see there are impressions of the cure press' bladder lot ID, a different thing entirely.
What the law requires is for vehicle manufacturers to provide a way of reading tire pressures automatically and notifiying the vehicle operator of low and/or imbalanced tire pressures. The pressure transponder (an RFID-like device) is part of the valve assembly, not the tire.
Various tire makers have experimented with placing RFID tags into tires but with little success. It's a very hostile environment (high temperatures and pressures) inside the material while the tire is being cured, tags don't survive it very well.
Re:Security Theater at its finest (Score:5, Insightful)
They attacked us because they hate our freedom.
So we get rid of it. Makes sense.
ICE has nearly unlimited search power... (Score:5, Insightful)
...which is rather scary. Used to work for US Customs many years ago (before it was ICE), and we were legally permitted to basically search *anything* entering the country (including personal mail, something that is a federal crime in most other instances) other than diplomatic mail and pouches. Nothing was off-limits: If it comes from overseas, ICE has the constitutional right (backed by many years of case law) to search it.
I'm not saying this is a good thing, but every international traveler should be aware of this. Whining about your constitutional rights being violated while standing in the "red" line at your port of entry will simply prolong the agony.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
ICE has the constitutional right
Since you seem to know, and I'm too lazy to hunt it down, where, precisely (article and section), in the US constitution is this "right" (I presume you really mean "power") given to the executive branch of the federal government?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, you're right, "power" as opposed to "right."
Fourth Amendment...courts have ruled border searches (other than body/cavity searches, which still require a warrant) do not constitute illegal search and seizure.
IANAL, but the case law is out there for those who want to resear
Re:ICE has nearly unlimited search power... (Score:4, Insightful)
ICE has the constitutional right
Actually, no it doesn't. I know I'm being semantic, but no government agency has any "rights", the have privileges. The constitution says (Article I Section I line I) "All legislative Powers herein granted..."
The difference is important though. Rights are inalienable. Privileges can be revoked.
open these disks first mofo (Score:4, Funny)
Have the right != shoul do so (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Have the right != shoul do so (Score:4, Informative)
The Feds were given authority to regulate interstate commerce. Look it up - it's constitutional. You may or may not agree with a lot of legal decisions that have been made regarding that authority, but it has a basis in the constitution.
Before you bellyache that Mexico and/or Country "X" is not a "state", perhaps you will want to look that up to. All sovereign nations are "states". So, if Country "X" ships any quantity of anything at all, including persons, to any member state of the United States, it is subject to interstate commerce regulations, enforced by the Fed.
Get used to it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Personal items are not part of "interstate commerce" no matter what definition of "state" is used.
Pulp Friction (Score:5, Funny)
Captain Koons: The way your dad looked at it, this iPod was your birthright. He'd be damned if any US Border agents gonna put their greasy hands on his boy's birthright, so he hid it, in the one place he knew he could hide something: his ass. Five long years, he wore this iPod up his ass. Then when he died of dysentery, he gave me the iPod. I hid this uncomfortable piece of metal up my ass for two years. Then, after seven years, I was sent home to my family. And now, little man, I give the iPod to you.
Re:Pulp Friction (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Pulp Friction (Score:4, Funny)
It was the Touch.
apparently (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently this is one of those times where the feds take advantage of that massive loo-pole in the fourth amendment effectively allowing them to disregard it in the case of "reasonable" searches and seizures...
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If you want to get really personal (Score:5, Funny)
Heck checking your laptop is nothing, they can probe up your ass if they really want to!
This one scares me on so many levels... (Score:4, Insightful)
First - this is fishing. You aren't actually accused of anything... we are going to search you till we find something. What was the famous quote - something like: "give me 6 lines from the hand of an innocent man and I'll find something to convict him".
Second - the fact that they found something. After trampling over the rights of 221 million passengers, they found a paedophile. Is that worth the cost? How many rights are you willing to give up to find that paedophile? Having rights and freedoms means that sometimes bad guys get away. To catch all bad guys requires us to live in a panopticon.
Third - the tone that if you object to this program, you obviously support the paedophile.
Fourth - I'm from outside the US, but I travel there frequently for business. The entry requirements have risen from a form to being fingerprinted and photographed and carrying biometric data at all times. Is there an upper level to this? What would happen if they require DNA swabs to enter? Is that a step too far? Right now in Chicago, they take a nude photo of you using a new scanner to be able to fly. That is so screwed up.
The great news (Score:4, Insightful)
They have extended the thickness of the border by 100 miles as well, so that now 80% of the population can be summarily stopped and searched at anytime.
Isn't it great?
New authority, old laws (Score:3, Insightful)
This is always how it is done. Pass laws that are extreme enough so that people say "no one will ever use them"...wait for a while... then use them when there is no chance to roll those laws back.
This is why Thomas Jefferson said "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."
They've always had the right.... (Score:3, Insightful)
No, they do not have the "right" to search. They have the power. Big difference.
Story title is wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not "High-Tech Gadgets Can Pose Problems At Mexican Border", it's "High-Tech Gadgets Can Pose Problems At United States Border".
Power (Score:5, Insightful)
They have the power. Not the right. There is a difference.
How CAN they search a laptop? (Score:4, Insightful)
And that's ONE person's stuff. There's just no way to enforce this.
No problem. . . (Score:3)
They just take the laptop and return it to you six months later after a thourough search through all your personal files.
I still just don't understand how this isn't in clear violation of the constitutional protections against unreasonable search and siezure. Someone tried to explain it last time this topic came up in one form or another, but I cannot possibly believe the founding fathers intended that, no, the government cannot search your private papers/informmation. Unless, you know, it really *wants to*
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's why they can keep your stuff for 30 days or longer.
They're not going to go file-by-file right in front of you. Oh, no. They're going to clone every storage device on you after physically inspecting the hardware. Then, if they bother to go through it and find something encrypted, they'll likely subpoena you for the key. Don't want to turn it over? Can't remember the old password? Contempt of court.
If they find something they think is criminal, watch US Marshals show up at your house weeks later t
'Going Across the Border' (Score:3, Interesting)
Great!! (Score:3, Funny)
Time for my goatcex screen saver, and the tubgirl desktop. If they barf before they finish searching, do i win?
And the Mafia is screaming YES!!! (Score:3, Interesting)
I can just imagine how happy the criminal communities will be for such news. Imagine - every single guard with proper authentication can single out people for a "screening" which include all digital identity, including your pictures, digital records which most certainly contain some references to username/passwords to banks and other web-services, business documents such as contracts, contacts, proposals, and so on and so on. Every criminals dream! All in the disguise that they are there to ensure you don't have any indecent pictures or something. How long to we get the first scandal, or has that already happened?
Will nobody think OF THE CHILDREN?! (Score:3, Interesting)
While I find sexual acts on children despicable and inexcusable, I am sick and tired of seeing my civil liberties eroded away by the same excuse over and over again.
It does not even help! One can put any questionable content on a memory stick and mail it across countries. If the content is encrypted one doesn't even have to worry about it being intercepted. If it is intercepted, just send another one.
In fact that is probably what I am going to do with private photographs/movies from now on (my parents and I live in different countries). The border agents then can nose around on my laptop all the want, without invading my private life. The point is that I should not have to do that.
Any terrorist actually caught during a border search is likely too stupid to carry out said terrorist act anyway.
Re:YRO??!! (Score:4, Insightful)
It is both new and interesting.
For years, you fill in the form on the airplane, and walk thru customs after a perfunctory stamp stamp, here's your paper, no questions asked, no passport, no ID even looked at upon arrival at the Mexican Airport. Once in a while the "Red light" went off depending on how seedy you looked.
But by and large, getting into Mexico entailed less scrutiny than returning to the states, where questions were asked, documents were demanded, and bags were scanned and opened.
Times change. But Mexico has always been lax.
Re:YRO??!! (Score:5, Informative)
There's been waaay too many documented cases of people buying guns (and I mean big guns, like assault rifles) legally in the US with their God-given 2nd ammendment right and smuggling them to the drug cartels here.
When you say "and I mean big guns like assault rifles", it pretty much shows that you know nothing about firearms and US laws.
The articles you link to all cite the "90% of guns traced to US" lie. 90% of the guns that are submitted for tacing are from the US. Only a small number of guns are submitted for tracing, because there's no point in submitting AKs from China and North Korea with no serial number to the ATF for tracing.
Fully automatic guns (pull the trigger and they rattle off bullets) require a federal license with large yearly fees and an anal probe from the BATFE. They are rarely sold here and are exceptionally expensive. Even the gangs here don't buy them legally here. They smuggle them from overseas - it's way cheaper. I'm behind a censor here, but google "BATFE" and "class III license" to see what it takes to buy a machine gun.
What the ill-informed such as yourself call "big guns - like assault rifles" are military-looking guns that have been altered so that they fire one bullet at a time. To make them or import them here, they must not be alterable to fully automatic fire.
The articles you quote suggest a flood of guns from the US using faulty statistics, then go on to list a bunch of confiscated weapons that you cannot easily buy here. You can't get grenades and rocket launchers here. If they are able to smuggle those in from the third world, why would they pay US prices for rifles that aren't even full-auto?
http://www.factcheck.org/2009/04/counting-mexicos-guns/ [factcheck.org]
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/elections/2009/04/02/myth-percent-guns-mexico-fraction-number-claimed/ [foxnews.com]
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/apr/16/barack-obama/Obama-claims-90-percent-guns-used-Mexico/ [politifact.com]
Re:YRO??!! (Score:4, Interesting)
In all seriousness though, "not alterable" doesn't mean what you think it means. Go to a few gun shows and you will see that they sell kits to "fix" your old pre-1994-assult-weapons-ban gun.
The ban also expired in 2004
Fully automatic weapons that fire continuously have been virtually banned (again, see the federal criteria for owning one - "class III license") since the gun control act of 1934.
None of this has anything to do with the Clinton gun ban, which banned guns that look like military rifles, along with some accoutrements such as bipods, bayonets, scary looking stocks, etc.
Yes, you can alter them to add the bayonets and bipods back. But the guns sold here must have a reciever that cannot fit a fully-automatic bolt group.
You told me to go to a gun show. I'm a collector and I've been to dozens. How many have you visited? Have you ever asked a dealer what you need to do to purchase a fully-automatic rifle or machine gun?
I'd really encourage anyone with strong opinions on the subject to do so, and get some first hand knowledge. Every now and then someone will agree to come with me, and when they talk to the dealers and ask what the laws are, they are generally quite surprised.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
The real difference is going to be when you cross the border driving. There's been waaay too many documented cases of people buying guns (and I mean big guns, like assault rifles) legally in the US with their God-given 2nd ammendment right and smuggling them to the drug cartels here.
Searching "laptops, digital cameras, cell phones and any other electronics on your person or in your vehicle" will stop the gun runners how?.....
Apparently compression has made an awful lot of progress lately.
On the back trip they'll obviously be looking for mexican_family.tar.gz
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
That depends on which way you are crossing and if you are a citizen of the nation your are crossing into. If you are an American citizen then the laws about search and seizure do apply so there are some limits. That said I don't think that these would in all likelihood violate those limits.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
In any case, your rights when attempting to cross a sovereign country's borders are pretty much whatever they say it is.
As a citizen of the country in question, I am (ostensibly) part of the "they" who gets to say what those rights are. There is no reasonable justification for these searches other than "because I can". There is no way a reasonable person can argue that these searches make anyone safer, or prevent any crimes or criminal material coming into the country. Since our constitution prohibits un
Re:YRO??!! (Score:4, Informative)
The same can be said for many countries. Ever flown through Ireland, not even as a final destination? It's worse than any American customs stop I've been through.
It's not just the US. It's ANY country that sees "terrorism" as a threat. I've not been to Japan, but I've heard it's a treat there too.
Re:YRO??!! (Score:5, Interesting)
Um, yeah - About three months ago, actually. We got off our plane, followed the signs around this amazingly convoluted set of hallways to the passport-check area, only to find...
No one there.
Waited about five minutes, figuring someone had gone to the bathroom, and didn't see a single uniformed person (got passed by plenty of people walking right on through without even pausing, though).
So, we walked through and onto our connecting flight.
Granted, we went from one "secure" area to another, so I really didn't see the need to go through customs at all, but literally, we merely walked past an unattended desk. Simple as that.
Re:YRO??!! (Score:4, Interesting)
I've not been to Japan, but I've heard it's a treat there too.
Yes, it is. I get in line, show my passport, get my photo and fingerprints taken (this is new, and was implemented in response to the US system), get my bags, hand my card to customs, tell them I don't have any drugs, and walk into the terminal.
Only once has anyone gone through my bags, and it was after a winter of backpacking around Asia, which showed up on my passport as going in and out of China a few times in a few weeks.
My laptop or other devices have never been checked, and I've never heard of them checking them.
On the contrary, when I go back to my home country of the US, I am made to feel like a threat. Paramilitary immigration and customs officers bark orders at me, and one time tried to separate my Japanese wife from me and question her about why she only had $5 for a 3-week visit (joint bank account in the US with her American husband, morons--ever heard of an ATM?). My stuff is riffled through every time, and they have on several occasions destroyed my belongings with their crude handling (scratched an otherwise perfect guitar that I was selling, and put a bottle of shampoo that they had opened back in the bag WITHOUT SCREWING THE TOP ON). --All without my having any recourse to the law.
I've been in and out of China--a totalitarian regime--and it is far, far more pleasant than the US.
I almost never go back to see friends and family anymore--and, believe it or not, a part of the reason for that is the shitty treatment I get from my countrymen at the border.
Re:Calling bullshit on this one! (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry, but I have to call bullshit on this one - EU Airports abuse people anytime they want without any remorse or pretense of politeness.
Wait YOU call bullshit on this and then proceed claiming that you know the procedures of all EUs countries airports? There is no way in hell you know this. The EU is not one country and there is no "standard procedure" thorughout EU as there is in the US, so don't generalise like that because it makes you sound like an ignorant idiot. And FYI I have never been told to fill out a piece of paper promising that I'm not smuggling snails into the country anywhere else than when I had to TRANSIT through the US. The whole experience was so ridiculous I swear I felt a micro stroke somewhere in my frontal lobe. I'm with the AC parent, transiting through the US fucking sucks horse dick, and you can whip out your biggest patriotic flag without changing that simple fact.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah, you guys kept hassling us about how lax our border security is so we stepped it up a little. You're welcome.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
lies.. i had to stand at the canadian border for an hour while they searched all my stuff and every compartment in my car all while getting the third degree from two border guards.. then i had to go into the immigration building and spend another half hour convincing the woman in there that i was actually going to leave canada in under a week and not stay there permanently.
I guess you fell into the wrong half of the time GP mentioned. On my side, I can tell you that I didn't have any problems crossing the border in that direction twice I had to do it (and I'm neither US nor Canada national, so it's supposed to be harder for me). In fact, I didn't even have to get out of my car.
In contrast, crossing from Canada to US requires fingerprinting at the very least, and typically a grilling by the border guard as well.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Should've told them you were there to avoid being shipped to Iraq. They would've put you up in a four star hotel and given you a debit card with $5000 on it.
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Re:When will device makers respond? (Score:4, Insightful)
Fine, the law says they can conduct a forensic search, but there's no reason I have to make it easy for them.
If you take this approach, it may be some time before you get your device back, if at all. If they find that they *can't* get into it, they will assume there is a reason they *should* get into it, and they will not give it back until they crack it. If they can't, you mey not see it again. So exect to lose youe strongly encrypted device. Hope it didn't cost too much...
Re:When will device makers respond? (Score:4, Informative)
But if it were more commonplace, they would lose interest. Border patrol operate like cops setting up speed traps. They don't care how many smart people slip through, they care about finding the technique that nets them the largest number of arrests. If it becomes pointless, they'll change it at a policy level.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why does this American Federal employee talk like Speedy Gonzales?
Oh, I get it, besides being ignorant on how people in Mexico speak, you were too lazy to look up who the CBP is. Here's a hint, the first two words in the full name are: United States: http://www.cbp.gov/ [cbp.gov]
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
and probably up to 100 miles inland from the actual border, too.
https://www.checkpointusa.org/ [checkpointusa.org]
Re:Fuck All Mexicans (Score:5, Insightful)
I figure by 2100 in many areas of Texas, New Mexico and California, English will be taught as a second language.
Because our primary language will be Chinese.