An Appeals Court panel has ruled that federal agents can legally search through travelers’ cell phones without reasonable suspicion, probable cause, or a warrant when they cross an international border.
Very telling that USians are being Berlined and the reactions here are pretty mild. At least in Berlin they had communism inside. In the US is just a hellscape of late stage capitalism.
As if there weren’t enough reasons already to avoid visiting this shithole country.
You also have to provide all your social media handles when applying for a visa. Even a tourist visa so they can check if you ever posted anything negative about the US or it’s leader.
What if we all start giving them the same handles?
Just give them a second facebook account filled with thousands of images of MLP porn.
Or a youtube channel with dozens of variations of the “Most annoying sound” scene from Dumb and Dumber with the screeching repeated for hours and hours.
MLP?
my little pony
I am [email protected]
Is it a requirement to be on social media, to enter the us?
- Travel with a cheap burner phone.
- Just before returning change your password to a long randomly generated string of letters and numbers.
- Write it down and mail it your home address.
- Lock your phone when you arrive at customs.
- Tell border agents what you did and that you can’t unlock it until you get your letter next week.
Thus they only have 2 options: A. Seize it and have the lab unlock a burner with nothing on it. B. Or they can just let it go. In either case they’re suckers wasting their own time instead of yours.
Option 3: They just detain you until you hand over the password. You are allowed to call someone to retrieve it from your mail.
I can’t unlock my phone. How am I supposed to call anyone?
I guess I’m old enough to remember calling people from other phones than your own
How? I ain’t got any numbers memorised. They’re on my phone. It’s locked.
Then you’re going to be detained for quite a long time.
quietly
Which laws are we supposed to obey nowadays? It’s all very confusing.
In the case of US citizens there is no need, there they know already the content of the phones
Restore to default settings before crossing international borders.
How hard is it to eject the SD card?
In a modern phone?
Sounds like a you problem.
Tbh I’m shocked it wasn’t already. Like I thought the border has been a “no rights zone” for as long as I’ve been alive.
it seems like this a re-affirmation of it – guaranteeing that it’ll stay in the books for the rest of our lives
It doesn’t have to stick around any longer than Congress allows it to. Congress needs to grow some balls, pass some laws and put the courts in there place. Those dickhead justices aren’t elected and the congress is.
congress is in a permanent stalemate so long as we keep re-affirming our political dupoloy – the supreme court will be our daddy from now on unless we can distract ourselves long enough from our phones to take note of how the mexicans got rid of their political duopoly in 2017.
and – ironically enough – they were able to do their thing because of the phones. lol
Yah I thought SCOTUS ok’d that within 100 miles of a boarder.
…
Seems not! Just lots of circut courts have affirmed the general idea. This is the first at an appellate court.
and that number goes up significantly if you consider an international airport a “border”
What about embassies?
US embassies in other countries, or foreign embassies on US soil?
Yes.
I saw someone also mention “waterways” in another thread as being subject to this. If that means navigable rivers like the Mississippi, etc., then between coasts, land borders, airports, and waterways, it’s probably most of the US.
That existing map is already probably 90+% of the population. But yeah, including those would get it to be most of the last mass too.
The article with that map claims 2/3 of the population. I think it could go to 90% if you included waterways and international airports.
Very telling that almost every state not part of that zone is a red state.
I believe it also includes international airports in the orange area?
I don’t know, the map doesn’t display that.
Lol Toledo but no Cleveland
My personal life is pretty damn boring, but regardless, every time I fly (even domestic) I wipe my phone beforehand and only keep emergency contacts.
Just create a fake profile with pictures of diseased cocks.
Border security very likely uses israeli tech to download your whole drive. Even if they don’t I assume they would at least hold you for questioning if you did make such a profile
Cellebrite. They don’t even need to look through the phone if you unlock it for them they’ll enable whatever settings they have to to download the whole thing. From there they build out associations based on your contacts, apps, social media, etc. Essentially they do what palantir does but a lot more direct, and skips the whole data brokers part.
No add trackers 🤣
Just budget for a cheap ass phone for when you cross the border and don’t take your actual device with you. Or if you do take it with you when you cross, make sure that it is off during the entire transit.
make sure that it is off during the entire transit
I’ve never had them insist that I can recall, but I do remember reading, I believe in the TSA docs, that any devices are supposed to be powered on and able to be demonstrated to be working or something to that effect … I guess to make sure it’s not just a phone-shaped bomb or whatever.
Even if they have you powered on, the fact that it’s in the before-first unlock state means that the file-based encryption still holds and it cannot be unlocked with biometrics.
This is true, but depending on the phone model and processor type, there are still exploits that can bypass bfu state
Mmm, good point
They just ask you tonpiwer it on. Did it for a laptop once.
Makes a little more sense when you consider Israel’s pager bombs.
and when you consider the surveillance state. security from “terrorists” is a great excuse, up there with protecting the children.
No it doesn’t. Those were fully functioning devices with a maliciously modified battery with zero extra footprint.
Only time I’ve ever had an “electronic” device checked like that was at an airport in Europe about 15 years ago (if memory serves me right, I think it was CDG in France). I had a DSLR with a couple extra lenses and they asked me to turn on the camera and take a picture with each lense attached. They also asked to view through the viewfinder with each.
They can boot it to the password prompt and shut it down again.
I held on to my old phone when I last upgraded just for this reason. If I ever need to travel internationally in the next few years, that’s the one that’s coming with me. And as much as I’d like to bring my steam deck for travel entertainment, that’s staying home too.
Registration walled. Anyone happen to have the full text?
Archive link: https://archive.is/mEIkV
I have a question… there’s data on my phone and other devices that are protected under an active NDA. I am legally obligated to prevent disclosure of that information.
So… what happens then?
An NDA is just a contract, an actual law always trumps it.
You refuse to let them search and they dont let you into the country.
> agree to do corporate espionage for company A
> get a job at company B, sign an NDA, put all their sensitive data on your phone
> have your buddy get a job with the CBP
> cross the border, “oops, I guess he gets to look at my phone, what can I do?”
> buddy doesn’t have an NDA so he tells company A what he saw then splits the money with you
> profit??
No, you’re not. Encrypt the device and turn it off.
And if they ask you to unlock it, you just say no and it all goes fine?
They hold you for a few hours and make a bunch of vacant and vague threats.
Then, yes, they release you.
A few court rulings from now and I won’t be surprised if they’ll start indefinitely detaining people or using “enhanced interrogation”
It depends if you’re a citizen or not.
That’s merely how is starts.
