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Comment by 2ion | Hacker News Reader

I've always been guarding against such things whenever I passed through a non-free or otherwise questionable country's air ports: Laptop contents were pruned of everything, leaving just the base OS, and data was stored redundantly on dedicated servers connected to the internet. I then would connect via SSH or VPN, unlock the encrypted partitions and download whatever I needed.

The only countries where I got treated in an appropriate, respectful manner at airports were Japan (both entry and exit as a foreign citizen) and Germany. UK (Heathrow) and VAE just had idiots and bullies for security and were my worst experiences. Which I'm assuming is entirely intentional. Going for the headphones even is really a bit stark I'd say.

Needlessly to say, I don't fly to or via these countries whenever I can avoid it at a good price.

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I've lived for more than a year in both Berlin and London, flying a lot to and from their respective airports. The difference is indeed huge. I've never had any major issues personally, but I know several people who've had major problems (detained for hours and invasive body search, etc) at London airports. When I left my job in London a few months ago it was such a relief to know that would probably be the last time for a long time I had to spend time at one of London's airport, LHR/LGW/LTN/STN. The only pleasant one is LCY, which is really nice but unfortunately quite local (lots of Swiss flights).

Whenever I land at TXL or SXF in Berlin there's a sense of liberty. They are both very primitive airports, but I literally feel the absence of Stasi there, at least for now. People in Berlin have quite an intimate and visceral relationship with surveillance due to their recent past, so you can feel the counter forces of that in the atmosphere.

The UK was fine several years ago. Now (since Cameron?) they make US citizens fill out a card and give you a weirdly personal interrogation.

Yeah, Berlin is much more relaxed. Usually they just wave you through, and last time I entered the border guard gave me some friendly advice about renewing my passport and other documents.

> Now (since Cameron?) they make US citizens fill out a card and give you a weirdly personal interrogation.

Landing cards have been a thing since the 1970s; as far as I'm aware, it's only ever been EEA citizens exempted.

As far as I'm aware, questioning has got stricter progressively over the past several decades.

The Asian countries were all very nice to me (China, SK, Taiwan), and so was US because I am a US citizen, but I saw the very same customs agent giving everyone who WASN'T a US citizen a very hard time (he let me skip to the front of the line and proceeded to BS to me like drinking buddies about how the technology they're using is so outdated because he saw that I worked in tech).

Canada was the absolute WORST I've ever dealt with though. Every single time, they treat me like I'm a criminal.

I'm a Canadian and I dread dealing with the Canadian customs more so than the US agents. Thankfully I haven't had too many questions on my last few trips.

One friend of mine was returning from a conference in San Francisco. The border guard had difficulty believing that she didn't buy anything - as if SF is the shopping capital of the world or something.

Heathrow is awful. I do not have much information on how airport security work (I understood from an ex high level security IT at Heathrow that the camera's already know who I am if I have been before in recent years so I have no clue why I get harassed like I am there), but Heathrow, where I have to go often for outgoing flights to Scotland, Shanghai, Hongkong and the US. I get treated far better in those places than at Heathrow. Orlando and Shanghai are absolutely cuddly borderguards compared to the bullies I get at LHR.

Orlando has a massive TSA theft problem. Watch your personal belongings like a hawk.

That is a serious allegation - can you cite any evidence?

Let me Google that for you: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/top-20-airports-tsa-theft/stor...

Until recently I didn't know TSA stole stuff. This is just awful. Way to make an already bad reputation even worse

The most awkward experience I've had with an airport as a US Citizen is LHR. It seemed disorganized, lots policies being enforced by people who had no context on how to enforce them.

The most invasive experience I've had with an airport was TLV. Though it was helped by the fact that I knew they were going to be thorough, they had plenty of staff, and the staff all seemed very well trained. However, I've heard that it can be a lot worse if you provide the wrong answers or aren't a white American traveling on business.

Other airports like FRA or AMS have been relatively pleasant.

Or, as I found out in TLV, have a beard

LHR is just awful, strongly enforcing the stereotype of Britain being succumbed into Orwellian dystopy. Lucky me, JFK has always been very friendly with me. I do have a very trustable face, people tell me.

Never noticed anything weird about UK? Staff can be a bit abrupt if volumes are high but that's about it. Definitely nothing on the scale of tsa harassment people complain about

They sure like their explosives/drug swab sticks though (no idea which of it is they always say diff stuff)

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