Phone and laptop searches at US border 'quadruple'

Mass intimidation is the goal. Fascism 101: the point of the boot is not to actually achieve order, but to ensure that those below know it is on their neck and that those above know they wear the boot.

Remember there are people out there who think that increased border searches, walls, etc, are a good thing. This is for them.

So business as usual for the security theatre troupe?

or more sinister ssl and other privacy key/certs for other shaddy actions..ie instead of their powers assigned under US Congress law expansion into NSa things

I'm just guessing, but based on experiences with my family and the people they know in Texas, the people who most support this kind of behavior are also the people who see little reason to travel outside the US.

Thus, they never personally experience the pain or inconvenience of their policies. Furthermore, since outsiders (_immigrants_) are considered to be bad or dangerous, any policy that dissuades them from even coming the the US is supported.

Some may think my observations are ridiculous, but come spend some time in rural or southern US. Sit with the locals while they watch Fox news and echo what they hear.

> If they were smart

They aren't dumb they aren't trying to catch criminals.

Thanks for pointing out to this guide which looks exhaustive.

I was a bit disappointed when I saw EFF's 1-page "pocket guide" which IMO does not provide real advice while at the border: https://www.eff.org/document/eff-border-search-pocket-guide

I already do this. Wipe my iPhone just before landing. Hand over the phone at customs. When they see the welcome/configuration screen they know that there isn't anything on the phone so they don't have to investigate. When I arrive at the hotel I connect to WiFi and restore an iCloud backup.

Until a few years ago I was using Blackberry OS 10, which allowed for getting a backup image of the phone through USB (backing up literally everything). It also had "securely wipe device" functionality (or something along those lines) to make sure restoring files after a whipe was impossible/harder.

I'm still blown away by the fact that (unrooted) Android does not offer such basic functionality. Even many years later. And by the fact that Android is spyware by design, but thats another discussion.

According to another comment here Iphone also has similar backup features to BBOS10.

Conclusion: don't buy an Android phone and do as describe in parent post?

Or you could have a second partition with different set of apps/documents and have a second pin that unlocks that.

Cloud is unnecessary with the kind of hardware backed crypto being used now. Apple's setup with iOS in particular given the strong app-based containerization and granularity of keys would be well suited to allowing users to define conditionals for decryption that go beyond passwords, like GPS, time, network connections, or any other data input. Coercion inputs could also fit into this (both biometric and alternate codes). I'd love it if they allowed the creation of "views" where only certain apps (and associated data) could be accessed, cryptographically enforced. But the data would still be there on the phone, so it'd work fine with no cellular and be instant and in turn convenient.

It would usefully have applications far beyond mere border privacy (usefully because it wouldn't just be a "border check evasion" thing at all). It would just plain be good for security period first of all, if sensitive applications just autovanished while traveling it'd further reduce the risk of a device being stolen or someone being held up and coerced. But also important, and related to growing concerns about overuse of devices, it would allow device owners to reduce mental load, clutter and temptation by recreating the lines between various parts of our lives that have been blurred. I'd love to be able to have "views" for work, working out, travel, and home (even times of day at home) where some stuff vanishes and thus isn't tempting. Work apps could vanish off hours, news apps and games except for limited times of day, etc.

All this for entering a democratic free and open country with a rule of law?

Google pretty much already does this with ChromeOS laptop devices. It would be nice to see the same concepts applied to mobile phone devices too

"Pumping to the cloud" is not compatible with my idea of not wanting state or other nefarious actors to ever have any access to my data, ever, whether I'm crossing a border into a hostile state or otherwise.

I'd rather see some kind of application which takes my data and replaces it with pictures of kittens and other harmless things, using steganography. If the fascists want to see what I'm doing with my own property, they're going to have to look at some pussy.

While I think it’s a valid idea personally, I think the political fallout of marketing a feature designed specifically to circumvent border security would politically go down like a cup of cold sick today, and would likely invite some very unwanted attention from legislators.

Again not saying I agree, but can see many reasons why a product management team might shoot the idea down.

Besides, for those who care about this, I’m assuming existing options for wiping and restoring a cellphone probably achieve the same thing in practice.

EU citizens have to give their biometric data to the government to get a passport.

Does that mean EU treats it's citizens like criminals?

This is my favourite little horror story about entering the US:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-25/mem-fox-detained-at-l...

Mem Fox is a world renow children's author* who has travelled to the US 116 times previously, without incident.

Australian author Mem Fox has received a written apology from the United States after what she said was a traumatic detention by immigration officials at Los Angeles Airport.

Fox, who was questioned by Customs and Border Protection officers for two hours earlier this month as she was on her way to Milwaukee to address a conference, said she collapsed and sobbed at her hotel after she was released. She said the border agents appeared to have been given "turbocharged power" by an executive order signed by President Donald Trump to "humiliate and insult" a room full of people they detained to check visas.

"I have never in my life been spoken to with such insolence, treated with such disdain, with so many insults and with so much gratuitous impoliteness," Fox said.

"I felt like I had been physically assaulted which is why, when I got to my hotel room, I completely collapsed and sobbed like a baby, and I'm 70 years old."

Fox, whose books include classics such as Possum Magic and Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes, said she was questioned about her visa status, even though she had travelled to the United States 116 times previously without incident.

"My heart was pounding so hard as I was waiting to be interviewed, because I was observing what was happening to everybody else in the room," she said.

"They accused me of coming in on the wrong visa and they were totally wrong about that.

"The person who interviewed me was heavy with weaponry, was totally dressed in black with the word 'police' in hand-sized letters across his chest."

The author said she was unlikely to visit the United States again despite the friendliness of ordinary Americans.

"At the moment I'm in so much shock about it, I can't imagine going back to the states," she said.

"I'd hate not to go back to the states because it's been so good to me and Americans in general are not [like] the border police at LA airport."

"I thought: 'How can human beings treat other vulnerable human beings in this fashion, in public, in full view of everybody?'

If you have any data that might be of interest from the point of view of industrial espionage (i.e. you work for a company that competes with big US corporations that are donating to political parties), that's a very good idea.

Industrial espionage is the only goal of this program. After Snowden revealed that the CIA was eavesdropping on allied political leaders like Angela Merkel, stuff like this is the new normal. Assume the worst and don't carry anything through airport security that you are not comfortable with sharing with foreign governments and your competitors.

This is not about child pornography or terrorism. Honestly, who is stupid enough to engage in that kind of stuff and walk through airport security with incriminating evidence. This is not a thing and hasn't been for decades. Anybody that stupid would be effectively harmless owing to the fact that they would be complete morons.

When I worked for a german research institute we had this policy for all US travels. They did not see a necessity to do this for any other country.

Put the files you need on an encrypted online share, then download them when you need them?

Then of course zero-write the hard drive and reload the software when you're done.

> to stay in touch with your friends/relatives.

That's a mistake. One of your friends/relatives can say something inconvenient.

I would actually be more afraid doing something like this, since having no data on me could raise unwarranted suspicion from border security.

From what I gather, they're primarily interested in chats and photos. So they can browse those through pretty quickly on a phone, and then they can just image your laptop and store it forever.

Won't they just copy it and archive it for later?

They have special software that crawls through your phone looking for specific things they are interested in. They probably will - at least - check all your contacts and build a network on who you are connected to, scan all your e-mails and text messages for certain keywords and take a full backup image for further scanning.