The Legal Purgatory at the US Border: Detained, Searched, and Interrogated 555
An anonymous reader writes "America may be the land of the free, but upon arrival millions of visitors cross a legal purgatory at the U.S. border. It is an international legal phenomenon that is left much to the discretion of host countries. In some cases, this space between offers travelers far fewer rights than some of the least democratic and free countries on Earth. Limited access to legal counsel, unwarranted searches, and questionable rights to free speech to name a few. One of the more controversial — and yet still legally a contested grey area — are the rights travelers have in regards to electronics and device searches."
Fight it if you want to. (Score:5, Insightful)
But first off, don't be stupid. Sanitize/Sterilize ALL of your data PRIOR to starting your trip.
They cannot find what you are not carrying.
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Indeed. I have a clean system installation image that goes onto a sanitized disk for my laptop for US border crosses. Have had it since 2006 or so. Fortunately, no need to travel there in the last few years, but I will never cross the US border (or certain others) with a regular installation.
These border-searches are also pretty stupid: Use ssh to copy your date when over the border, and wipe the disk before going back.
Re:Fight it if you want to. (Score:5, Funny)
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All the guys here have girlfriends with the last name of JPEG.
My girlfriend's last name is .GIF, you insensitive clod!
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My first was from the .txt family but she would go to pieces in confined spaces and it didn't last. I dated the .gif girl for a while but she was encumbered with too much baggage. So far my Pretty New Girl is working out OK.
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That's certainly what I would do. Helluva lot less likely to get me anally probed by a customs officers.
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Not ever. But the last few times I had a DHS invitation letter, that may have helped.
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better to leave all your devices at home, or never travel abroad.
Re:Fight it if you want to. (Score:4, Interesting)
A person moving around using a new or older computer with a fresh install of an OS and nothing to clone on factory fresh storage.
No images foe later facial recognition, gps or meta data in images, serial number of the camera/s, video clips, lists of chat friends, plain text of chats, internet use logs with cookie/cache files.
No complex passwords to request and then try with a users other networked/local files later.
If a person went to all the trouble of buying a new drive and altering their hardware and software
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Re:Fight it if you want to. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Oh dear, what a short memory you have.
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They cannot find what you are not carrying.
Actually, that isn't necessarily true. I have heard of cases where people were required to log into their e-mail accounts at the border.
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Citation needed.
Re:Fight it if you want to. (Score:4, Informative)
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/06/defending-privacy-israeli-border-information-travelers-carrying-digital-devices [eff.org] (for Israel).
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"US Customs agents now have free reign to search through all the photos of your personal life, emails to your friends and family, all the e-books you have purchased, and your entire music library."
https://www.aclunc.org/issues/technology/blog/the_privacy_of_your_laptop_at_international_borders.shtml [aclunc.org] makes interesting reading, or http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/05/crossing_border.html [schneier.com]
Re:Fight it if you want to. (Score:4, Insightful)
No, the OP was probably suggesting that you remove personal and sensitive data from your devices and keep it at home. Why travel with a computer that's loaded with your bank account info? Use a separate laptop for travel, or else keep the sensitive stuff on removable partitions (SSDs, USB keys, etc) which never leave the house.
Better yet: if all you need the laptop for is reading eBooks and occasionally checking your FB/Gmail/whatever account, leave the thing at home and make do with internet cafes, hotel computers, and the like.
Re:Fight it if you want to. (Score:4, Insightful)
So, fearing the government, I now give full access to hackers who owned those hotel computers and internet cafes? Yay.
Re:Fight it if you want to. (Score:4, Interesting)
The government is "the hackers"
Re:Fight it if you want to. (Score:5, Interesting)
This is absolutely the best tactic. In my research group, it is standard procedure to use a travel laptop when traveling to conferences out of the country, even to "friendly" venues. In my case, I use a MacBook Air with the screensaver and firmware passwords enabled. I don't even bother to encrypt, since nothing goes on the SSD that is the least bit sensitive.
Granted, there is always the remote possibility that someone might succeed in compromising the OS during a business trip, and hoping that I or one of my colleagues will bring that laptop back behind our firewall. When in doubt, that is dealt with by re-imaging the drive as the first order of business upon one's return.
We often joke (half seriously) that the day is going to come when we will buy disposable laptops that will be abandoned or destroyed when traveling to certain countries. Yes, we are paranoid, but are we paranoid enough?
It's common sense, just as it is also common sense to presume that every conversation is being recorded, whether by phone or in person, when meeting colleagues overseas. Despite pious protestations to the contrary by some parties, one can be certain that there is no government on the planet that wouldn't do so if given the opportunity.
Re:Fight it if you want to. (Score:5, Interesting)
"We often joke (half seriously) that the day is going to come when we will buy disposable laptops that will be abandoned or destroyed when traveling to certain countries."
Why is that a joke? That's what I do.
I don't carry devices of any kind when I travel - usually to the UK and Ireland for the purpose of buying antiquities to resell.
I buy a $200 laptop, and download my encrypted backup from my U.S. server. It takes 20-30 minutes to get my environment back. When I leave, I backup, encrypt and upload what needs to be backed up (if anything), wipe the drive with shred, reinstall the original image, and then (usually) give it as a gift to whoever expresses an interest.
I buy a disposable phone, and chuck it somewhere destructive when I leave.
I'm older, so when I go through customs I play the luddite ("Computers? Bah!"). It's amazing how quickly I'm on my way: just that convenience is worth the cost of the laptop. And on my next trip I have some remembered good will...
Re:The real issue: U.S. government corruption. (Score:5, Interesting)
TrueCrypt [truecrypt.org] can help. Put your encrypted hard drives somewhere else in your luggage.
Very bad advice indeed. These things can be found in the luggage searches, and then they have clear signs of deception and can give you the special treatment.
Re:The real issue: U.S. government corruption. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:The real issue: U.S. government corruption. (Score:5, Insightful)
I happen to be an expert on the use of cryptography. I know in detail how TrueCrypt works and its design is a sure recipe for getting you into extremely hot water if your devices are searched at the border. It may also get you thrown in prison for a while, because you refuse to hand over the keys to your hidden partition (never mind that they cannot prove you have one and that you may actually not have one in the first place...).
And there is the thing that you "hid" storage devices in your luggage, which already makes you suspicious. Having TrueCrypt on them will just finish you off.
The only good advice to TrueCrypt users is to actually have a hidden partition and to immediately hand over the keys for it when asked at a border inspection. Anything else is is pure folly. http://xkcd.com/538/ [xkcd.com] applies without restriction.
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that's why all my encrypted volume are named things like.
Justin Beider's greatest compilation album.mb3
Celine Dion My heart goes never where.mb3
security through obfuscation while overall weak is usually the easiest fence to use. you don't only use it. but as part of a multi layer security system it is always easy unless you are being specifically targeted.
Bury those 2 files in collection of legally owed music and you will have to see the odd file size(if your OS shows bytes and not megs) to know something
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The point you forgot to mention is that encrypted files are easily spotted by analyzing the entropy of the decrypted disk blocks. That's why hidden containers WILL often stand out like a sore thumb. And this is precisely the reason why Truecrypt is just a poor tool at steganography.
However, unlike Truecrypt, some encrypting file systems do an excellent job at hiding data in a much more effective way. Of course, using such an OS/Filesystem combo is in i
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The point you forgot to mention is that encrypted files are easily spotted by analyzing the entropy of the decrypted disk blocks. That's why hidden containers WILL often stand out like a sore thumb. And this is precisely the reason why Truecrypt is just a poor tool at steganography.
Ah, no. TrueCrypt overwrites the whole primary encrypted partition with cryptographically generated randomness, i.e. every sector in there already has high entropy and that remains true for never used (!) sectors after decryption. For a hidden container, it places a header-less secondary container within the primary one at an offset. That container is only identifiable if you have its passphrase. So no, entropy analysis does not help.
There is another problem though: Writing to the primary encrypted containe
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Well, you can be childish all you like. When you sit in border-jail, remember me.
Re:The real issue: U.S. government corruption. (Score:5, Insightful)
His point is that everybody knows truecrypt does hidden partitions so if you don't hand over the key for a hidden partition they are going to make your life hard - even if you don't have a hidden partition.
Re:The real issue: U.S. government corruption. (Score:5, Informative)
Indeed. Quite obvious. Thank you. This idea seems to be well beyond Zero__Kelvin however.
The problem is that not only can they not prove that you have a hidden partition, you cannot prove that you do _not_ have one. The design of hidden partitions in TrueCrypt prevents both very effectively. So if they just assume you have one, because "it is a standard feature of TrueCrypt as everybody knows", you are screwed, unless you can give them the key to that hidden partition. But if you did not give them the keys to both the normal and the hidden partition when they asked for your passwords, you are already screwed, because giving them the key for the hidden partition only when they specifically demand it has you already guilty of deception.
The concept of hidden partitions has some merit. It specifically keeps your adversary in the dark of whether there actually is something or not, but only if you are willing to withstand considerable pressure, including jail-time and torture. If you are not willing to do that, hidden partitions do more harm than good, because they create a false sense of security.
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For Linux, use plain dm-crypt. No headers whatsoever.
BUT: If they are after you, they may reverse the burden of proof, and suddenly you have to prove that this data is not encrypted. Tough luck. Also you seem to think that a mathematical proof trumps a legal suspicion. Not so, unfortunately. The judge in question may not even be able to understand the mathematical proof, but he will surely understand the legal suspicion. You cannot assume your adversaries are rational.
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They have to prove intent to get a conviction. There is a lot they can do without bothering to take something to court to make a person's life miserable.
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what would you even charge them with?
Terrorism [slashdot.org] and obstruction of justice [slashdot.org].
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Re:The real issue: U.S. government corruption. (Score:5, Informative)
Um, the GP knows about hidden partitions and plausible deniability. Here, I'll quote: "never mind that they cannot prove you have one and that you may actually not have one in the first place". The GP also knows that, yeah, usually some bored border agent will take one glance at your booting laptop and wave you through with a yawn.
The GP also knows that if, for whatever reason, you do get flagged for extra attention, and they then realise you've got encryption capable of plausible deniability, that they will not give one iota of a shit about your protestations that you don't use it.
It's not about how technology works, it's about how people work, and people tend to react badly when they think you're hiding something - regardless of whether you're actually doing so.
So, yeah, you may eventually leave the interrogation room after the maximum legally-allowed eight hours and fifty nine minutes later (depending on jurisdiction and assuming they haven't found some pretext to "indefinitely detain" you), having missed your flight, your luggage thoroughly ransacked, your every last piece of electronics down to and including the xbox controller confiscated, your name permanently engraved on their hassle lists, your house searched, your neighbours and employers queried and your every phone call tapped for the next two years, but hey, you sure showed them, right?
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You don't have to know anything about how encryption works at all to be aware that normal citizens have been compelled to turn over their passphrases just because encryption just makes it look like you have something to hide.
In fact, the more ignorant about encryption itself, the more you are likely to come across stories that resulted in the "plausible deniability" encryption, where you take one container with innocuous but private material, like bank accounts, and an alternate container with the good stuf
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You do not that there are non-US citizens that cross the US border, right? All this talk about "US citizens" misses the point. Sure, they claim to be doing all this stuff only to non-US citizens, but once the capabilities are in place, that goes out the window. Wanting to complain about being denied rights you thought you had as US citizen? Here is this nice national-security letter (or equivalent) that forbids you to talk about it. This has quite obviously been done to a number of people already.
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Then you become very interesting and might get to be involved in "living document" "colour of law" US legal reform. The hand over your password before you 'forget' it, not the expected self-incrimination rights case.
Speaking of TrueCrypt... (Score:2)
What's up with the lack of updates since 2012-02-07 for its v7.1a release? Is the project still alive?
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Hmm a Kickstarter to cover the legal fees could be quite popular.
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If we're indulging in fantasy, but wanting something milder, perhaps "unreasonable search", so that when they blink at you, you can add, "that's the password, and also what I love to sue people for. Denny Krane!" as you hand them your law firm's card. The one that says "Denny Krane" on it. :p
Re:The real issue: U.S. government corruption. (Score:4, Informative)
I've often thought about doing that, using plausible deniability, and making the password for the "safe" partition: GoFuckYourselfYouFascistPig . The first time they ask for the password I would answer "Go Fuck Yourself You Fascist Pig", and after that I would simply ask them if they had problems hearing me the first time. When I got to court and they tried to screw me for failing to reveal the password I could state all innocent like: ... but your honor. I told them! It's GoFuckYourselfYouFascistPig . ;-) Of course, that was back when we had due process :-( [not to mention it is obviously pure fantasy, and not something I would ever actually do ... but I sure wish someone would ]
You realize that under the Patriot act, you don't necessarily get to go to court. You piss them off all, particularly with something that can be considered antagonistic and hating of America in their eyes and you could have a very nice Carribean vacation at Gitmo.
Two things to keep in mind. Never joke about hijacking a plane at an airport and don't piss off the border guards. Doing either one can make what you used to consider your worst day ever not seem that bad after all.
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At least in Australia, the majority of the strict border security is for a tangible reason - biological quarantine. The Customs officers are not dumb security grunts, but generally polite and intelligent poeple who want to protect our country from a large number of ignorant and selfish travellers.
We have a regular TV show highlighting some of the more interesting events and the number of poeple who claim "it's not food, it's ingredient" when illegally importing pickled bug larve or something equally ridicu
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Why should the severity of border checks be proportional to land area?
And the .jp security checks at their international airports never gave me anything but very professional responses. It is one of the few places where they also don't raise a stink when I ask them to hand-check my photographic film.
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That's because in Japan police officers (etc.) are still seen as public servants. They are their to diffuse situations, not escalate them. Many U.S. police officers and border patrol *provoke* situations to the point where it takes a great deal of tolerance and patience to deflect the officers' provocations. Hell, even Ghandi would punch the pig fucker in his fat face.
You Only Have To Cross It Once (Score:2)
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Were I an American, I would only have one option to cross - out. Were I not an American, I would have the option to give it a miss entirely.
Your attempt at bumper sticker wisdom has encountered an error. Abort/Retry/Fail?
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Good for you?
Build a wall (Score:2)
Build a border with a big enough deterrent effect that anyone attempting to cross can be assumed to be up to serious no good - like drugs or arms smuggling - and you can shoot any border-crossers because they won't b
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For 9/11 style protection, the wall should be built on the Canadian border. Just a reminder that the terrorist pilots entered the US through Canada.
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Just a reminder that the terrorist pilots entered the US through Canada.
Nope. [go.com]
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Or make your country so shitty, with so few freedoms left and so much oppression, that no one wants to go there.
Never mind all those billion dollars from tourism. At least no unwanted SOFTWARE will be entering your country.
You Don't Have To Cross It. (Score:2, Interesting)
Just living within 100 miles of a US border gives them the right to conduct those searches of you and your property.
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/02/09/0054212/dhs-can-seize-your-electronics-within-100-miof-us-border-says-dhs
Re:You Don't Have To Cross It. (Score:4, Informative)
Nope. They can ask, but they have no legal authority without a warrant. People ARE challenging their inspection stops and refusing to cooperate.
Goes back centuries ... (Score:3)
Some people think the term "bootlegging" is from the 1920s prohibition era but it is much older than that. Those prohibition era folks with a liquor flask in their boot we copying sailors from earlier centuries where the sailors tried to sneak small expensive goods past customs officials. Having a federal agent tell you to take off your shoes is something as old as the country.
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And its still in effect today. The TSA agents doing the bag searches prior to boarding aircraft are dumb as rocks. But that's where you'd expect the professionals to be to prevent terrorism, bomb smuggling, etc. Meanwhile, the customs people are the professional law enforcement types. Armed, vigilant, with contraband sniffing dogs, etc. But if I was a terrorist, that would be too late. The plane would be in the side of a building long before then.
Its all about maintaining an economic Iron Curtain. You'd be
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which can be accessed anywhere in the world with Internet access.
Did they really just examine your (cleaned) hard drive at the border? Or did they install that NSA keylogging software? I don't care where you hide it, once you are sitting in your Holiday Inn hotel room, you are going to download and read it eventually. Game over.
Your best bet would be to come through the border with no laptop or tablet and pick one up for cash at the local discount PC shop.
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Extensive checks and searching goes back centuries...
Checks at international borders, sure. But today's network of internal border checkpoints is new.
As recently as the 1990s, Americans could travel freely within the country. But today, I can't drive from Texas to California without passing through one of their make-believe border checkpoints. That bullshit doesn't go back centuries.
Completely off Base (Score:5, Insightful)
this space between offers travelers far fewer rights
No.
Rights aren't offered, they're innate (or God-given, if you prefer) and can only be infringed. Until everybody is (again) well-educated enough to say, "this space is one where governments infringe rights with reckless abandon," then little progress will be made.
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So where is yahwey defending these people?
Sorry, Rights are only given to the people by the government to the point that the people force the government to allow it.
What we see here is a populace not informed enough, and too complacent to keep the government in check to keep these rights available.
Re:Completely off Base (Score:5, Insightful)
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Which is precisely the reason those Rights are spoken of as innate and inalienable. The only position one can take to force a government to defend a right is to argue its innateness because clearly ever other method is consistently infringed by government who would like nothing better to infringe them in pursuit of the politics of the day.
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You're out of your mind. Rights exist only because and to the extent that people recognize them, particularly governments that are in a position to defend or deny them...
Your idea of rights is the complete opposite of the ideas upon which the United States was founded.
From the Declaration of Independence:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..."
People who agree with these
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Yes that's true. They were arguing a political agenda and using whatever they could think of to justify their act of rebellion against a tyrannical authority. And most of them believed in a God that I do not believe in. Like all religious people at every time and place, they projected their own desires into the mind of god. Likewise the king imagined God had given him the right to rule over them.
You should be aware that the self-evidentness of rights was a novel concept in the Enlightenment. Up to that
not unique to the USA (Score:2)
Yes, border patrol is intrusive. In all countries. I've had interesting experiences entering Canada (on a flight from the USA) and traveling in the UK. Welcome to the real world.
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True, I was grilled extensively by a UK customs official the last time I took the chunnel train from Paris to London. And the German customs official berated me because other countries' customs agents had stamped my passport in an unorderly fashion (of course).
Do your part (Score:5, Insightful)
and don't visit countries that abuse visitors, unless you absolutely have to. Back when I was 15, I dreamt of moving to America, the land of opportunity and individual freedoms. By age 24-25, I no longer had the rose-tinted glasses. Now at 30 I am no longer even interested in coming for a visit.
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Back when I was 15, I dreamt of moving to America, the land of opportunity and individual freedoms.
the good news is that if you live in a certain lucky country, we will be coming to you!
on a serious note: i hope things get better... and that our politicians stop posting crotch shots.
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You do realize there are about 1,500,000,000 border crossings into the US per year, and about 7000 of these search events, right?
I'll let you figure out the likelihood of getting harassed.
My trip to a major US lab in the 1980's (Score:5, Interesting)
I was going to meet a gf working in an art concervation lab in massachussets for the july 4th weekend in the mid-80's.
I took a bus from Toronto to Albany as I was a grad student and did not have a car as I could not afford such a beast.
The border guards held up the bus because I had a few textbooks on materials -- which I was reading on my long bus trip -- I was also taking a side trip to the GE R&D center in Schenectady to meed somebody who could help with my research in plastic fracture mechanics. I am Canadian born and have never been a member of a communist party -- needless to say was run thru the wringer. I made the mistake of admitting I was stopping over to meet a researcher at GE research facility wrt to my PhD research. OMG can you say ripped apart my luggage, all my materials and held up the bus which all other passengers thought I was a criminal. Thus bus was delayed by 1 hour because I admidted I was off to visit a researcher at GE HQ R&D in Schenectady NY. Well doughhh
20 years later learned to tell border guards I am going to visit car parts manufacturerers for sales calls.
Big difference. Back in 2000 the following happened:
My VP of the time was crossing 20-30 minutes after us and was bragging he was a VP of a Hydrogen fuel cell company. I told the border security we were selling auto parts to GM which was true -- my VP bragged he was selling Hydrogen Fuel Cells to GM and the detained him, ripped the car apart because all they heard was hydrogen and associasted with a hydrogen bomb -- morons -- needless to say they ripped his car apart.
Moral to the story is keep your info to a minimum and assume the people you are dealing with are morons as they are.
The Phone is the Last Thing I'd Worry About (Score:4, Interesting)
Far, far more frightening though is the possibility that you may find yourself shipped off to a foreign country (Syria say) to be tortured and imprisoned. [wikipedia.org] What happened to Maher Arar (and others) is more than enough to make me avoid crossing the US border for any reason.
You may believe you're innocent, and that there's no reason why you would have problems, but so did he.
Wouldn't go there (Score:2)
My two experiences that hit too close to home (Score:3, Interesting)
My wife came back recently from a vacation to her home country. Green-card permanent resident alien. Detained at customs in the airport for three hours. She sat by herself in a room with no knowledge of why she was being detained. After three hours, an officer came into her room and said, "You're clear to go." She asked multiple times to multiple personnel why she was being detained, and everyone said, "We're not at liberty to say."
Six years ago, my sister-in-law was immigrating to the United States for the very first time. She came over on a fiance visa. Prior to her arrival, they had decided to wed in her host country before coming over to the United States. My brother called USCIS on three separate occasions to see if this would be acceptable.* Three times, the helpline said yes. When my sister-in-law arrived at her port-of-entry, the customs official casually asked where they were going to get married. My brother said that they had already wed overseas and had plans to visit the immigration office the following day to file the change-of-status paperwork. The officer immediately detained my sister-in-law, made a few calls, then provided her and my brother one last opportunity to exchange luggage, say goodbye, and then placed her on the same plane on the return flight back to her home country. There was no opportunity to argue, make phone calls to lawyers, senators...nothing. Another ten months, 32 pages of government paperwork, and $800 dollars in immigration fees later, and she finally stepped foot on American soil.
You show me a customs officer, and I'll show you a sadist. Nothing gets these people more excited than the opportunity to concurrently fight terrorism and inflict misery in the process.
* For those ignorant to the immigration process, the line between a spouse and a fiance is not as defined as you may think. In fact, most spouses immigrate to the United States on a fiance visa, because it's faster to file and process. (Google "Immigrating a spouse using a fiance visa" and find out for yourself.) But legal-story-short, the way my brother did it was not the way the customs agent accepted it, despite three different representatives at the USCIS saying otherwise.
no different elsewhere (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, it's bad that this is happening at US borders. But it's happening everywhere else too, so why this obsession with the US?
Re:no different elsewhere (Score:5, Informative)
Re:no different elsewhere (Score:5, Informative)
Neither. It's because the US insists on these procedures for flights that will enter US airspace.
I was in Doha earlier this year, and I walked past the departure gate for a flight going to the US - looong line of people, shoes off, waiting for the full-scan etc. On my flight to the UK there was the walk-through metal detector and x-ray scan of my carry-on bag, but my shoes stayed on and nobody asked to pat me down.
tiny (Score:3)
They sell 32gb USB drives that are about the size of a US quarter. They look like those tiny bluetooth receivers that you plug into your laptop.
It can easily be hidden to pass any primary and secondary search. If they're going to do anything more thorough, you probably have bigger problems than the data you're carrying.
If you're really determined, the trick of creating a vanilla sector to hide the real sector is well known. So even if they find it, all they get is love letters to your girlfriend which can make it look like you're hiding the fact that you're cheating on your wife, who is in on the gag.
I've crossed a lot of borders in my life, and the people who man those crossings are of a certain type. Not hard to deal with if you give them something small to find. They are human and have human limitations.
If you're an international criminal or trying to do something bad, guess what? You're human too and likely to fuck up. Too bad, so sad. If you are not those things, you have a very good chance of maintaining your privacy with a little bit of forethought.
We still have a window of opportunity to roll this police state insanity back. It's really important that we don't give in to it, even if you believe you have "nothing to hide". Shit, hide it anyway. Even if it only keeps you feeling free, it's worthwhile. If you don't feel that little bit of personal inviolability, it's going to be hard to fight the larger battles to stop this insanity. Remember, the people you encounter at those borders also have families, lives, they know well how insane it all is. Don't be a jerk, but don't give in. The worst thing you can do is say, "I don't care because I've got nothing to hide". If that's what's in your head, you are already defeated and of no use to a free people.
Having said that, if your case gets escalated up the chain to the point where you start to meet the "True Believers", you're fucked. At this point, an average person encrypting data or refusing to use email or even encrypting your regular communications (it's not hard at all), is not yet enough to get you escalated. God help us if it gets to that point.
Well, if they ask me for my disk password.... (Score:3)
I have an encrypted loop back file that auto-mounts upon log in, requesting first the account password via getty, then the disk password in .bashrc
Interesting thing to note kids:
Never use mass transit without pulling out your "Sunday go to meetin'" laptop. You know the one I mean.
The one that, first thing you do, is to DOD wipe the drive (Thanks DBAN!), then load the OS (Linux, of course.)
If you mount a drive over a directory that already has files in it, you can't see the files in the original directory. .pdf showing the credit card transaction, banal stuff like my tax returns, the in box for the email address I hand out when I -know- they are going to spam me, browser history when I don't care when someone sees what I'm browsing, megabytes of files created by /dev/urandom and dd. That sort of thing. If I'm asked about the "gibberish" /dev/urandom files, I tell 'em the truth. They are there to confuse people that somehow get access to my system. They are completely worthless, and in fact, can be deleted. Here, let me delete them for you just to prove the point. Oh, you don't want me to? OK. But really, it's just
So, in my encrypted directory, I have many many files of Porn that I bought the files. Carefully recorded in an invoice.txt file in the directory
along with the bank account
gibberish. Nothing to see. Honest Injun!
On the base directory, I used to have my "real" files. Now I do something far sexier than that dodge. I used to just not give the loop back encrypted drive
a password, it would fail to mount, and I'd have my real files.
The key takeaway here is "Give 'em something to titillate them while at the same time hiding your real private files. Sensitive files belong in a encrypted cloud drop box outside of ANZAC treaty partners. Remember to delete history on that kiddos. Not ALL history, just that which shows you accessed a drop box."
I have to wonder though. Why am I more afraid of my own government than I am of "terrorists"?
I don't want to hurt anyone, and I don't have a "statement" to make that requires more than a few harsh words to select people behaving badly.
The below has been my tag line almost since I opened a Slashdot account. Sad to say, it's more true now than it ever was before.
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Now on to Canada customs, i am waiting for the day they measure how much gas is in your tank so they can make you pay
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I once had Canada Customs stop me on reentry and ask about the kids (which all have Canadian passports) as if i was kidnapping them (in reverse)? I thougth that was REALLY weird.
Happens a lot more than you would think. The CBSA gets flashes from all police services across the country on people who they think they're running with either their, or someone elses kids. Especially with the increase where the courts have sided against the father, even when he was the better parent. As for importing booze/smokes and all that? It's actually a serious problem, though most of that smuggling goes on with the mohawk societies, and them running directly across the lakes.
US Preclearance != US Border (Score:3)
Re:hey for security do this (Score:5, Interesting)
I've travelled all over the world and the following is the complete list of border security issues I've endured over the last 10 years:
1. Brisbane, Australia, 2003: They made me throw out a brick of cheese I'd purchased in New Zealand. They told me that, had it been in the original unopened factory packaging, they'd have let it through.
2. Penang, Malaysia, 2006: They had me open up my laptop and start it. The guard then picked it up, held it up high to look at the bottom, then lost his grip and dropped it. It bounced off the conveyor, and landed on, then cartwheeled down the flight of steps immediately behind the conveyor all the way down to the next floor. The guard looked absolutely horrified and practically fell down the steps himself going after it and bringing it back up to me, apologising profusely all the while, then waited while I made sure it still worked. I'm posting with that laptop now, BTW, which I still keep around for reading stuff online when I'm too lazy to get the good one out of my bag.
3. Beijing, China, 2010: Got read the riot act for having "smuggled" a cigarette lighter with me on a flight from Frankfurt. I told them, truthfully, that they saw it at the security checkpoint in Frankfurt and did not offer to take it away from me. The border guard in question accused me of lying. I responded, "Please go give them a call and ask them if they take away cigarette lighters from outbound passengers on international flights, because I am pretty sure they will tell you that they don't. I'll be happy to wait while you check." He came back about 5 minutes later and said, "You can go." He kept the lighter, though.
4. Newark International, USA, 2011: Had a half-metre ethernet cable confiscated as a potential weapon. Me: "Weapon? Huh?" Bitchy old TSA lady: "You could strangle somebody with that thing." Me: "That would have never occurred to me in a million years, until you suggested it just now. Well done." She started to say something after that, but her 2 colleagues both started chuckling, and she gave me a look that could have curdled vinegar. After about 10 seconds, one of the others said, "Maddy's having one of her good days--On your way, son", and off I went.
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Funny part is they all stood around listening to me laughing and trying to explai
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Unless this was a couple of decades ago, he was wrong too. The USA allows its citizens to hold dual citizenship and recognizes this status.
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My wife is a dual citizen. Not a big deal. Just show the US passport when entering the US. She travels to her home country all the time. Never had a problem with the US.
Just remember that border police are not paid that well and therefore may not be very bright, so don't make things overly complicated for them.
The only time I've ever heard of dual US-XXX being an issue is when applying for a high level security clearance. Then they start wonder exactly where your alliances really lie. As they should.
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Re:How quickly we forget (Score:5, Insightful)
How quickly we forget 9/11.
How many hundreds of thousands of additional lives did subsequent US policy claim under the banner of never forgetting 9/11? Was it worth it?
If our government had been more vigilant in who crosses our border, it would have never happened.
This is simply hand waiving. You have no way of predicting what would have occured.
I could just as easily assert had CIA been more vigilant in not hiring asshats like OSBL in the first place 9/11 would have never happened.
One fact is not disputed by anyone. In the next 3 months as many people will have killed one another right here in the US as were killed on 9/11 and every 3 months like clockwork since.
How quickly we forget... oh wait I forget that nobody gives a fuck about that.
Border searches are one of the few powers I am happy to grant my overgrown, bloated, ineffective federal government. If you come to the U.S. with bad intentions, I hope they catch you.
Most likely cuz you don't travel or care about foreign visitors who must go thru extraordinary lengths to get visas and once here too often treated like shit at the border by assholes with badges as I have observed on at least three separate occasions. I feel ashamed of the way we treat our guests to say nothing of the billions in revenue lost each year by people deciding its not worth the trouble.