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Comment by donald123 | Hacker News Reader

One can refuse whatever way they want, but he/she can be detained and the device forfeited. And for non-citizens, they can be denied entry to US.

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It is so easy for the 'bad guys' to carry a burner phone with fake google, Facebook, twitter, etc, accounts and log into them when requested. That way they don't have to refuse anything and there is nothing suspicious. This policy harms law abiding citizens and travelers but is completely ineffective when it comes to stopping criminals.

The majority of "criminals" CBP deals with each day are people coming in on the wrong visa. Saying tourist but having no plans to leave, or planning to work, for example. This system will be very effective there: Turn on phone, see text "baby can't wait for you, we're finally gonna be living together", question why their boyfriend is writing them that and why they didn't mention it, deny entry.

I don't think anyone really believes it'll catch a ton of "good to have you here, the bomb is ready"- or "whew so nervous carrying these 50 pounds of contraband!"-bad guys.

Also I'd slightly question the ease of creating burner accounts. Facebook will show your sign up date, and something too recent will be suspicious. Other things like "why don't you have pictures of your FB friends on your phone" and on and on could be clues to a fake account. Not saying it's really hard, but it's not something you'll whip together a week before your trip.

We have ~40 million foreign arrivals each year:

http://travel.trade.gov/view/m-2016-I-001/table1.asp

And apparently ~500,000 Visa overstays.

How many of the 40 million should we put off traveling here to catch a fraction of the 500,000? What ratio of turned away violators to hassled travelers is "very effective"?

Just like most other "national security" procedures.

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