New bill would crack down on border phone searches without warrants | Hacker News Reader

New bill would crack down on border phone searches without warrants

theverge.com

37 pointsmodeless15 comments

I sincerely hope this passes, however small a chance it has. I want to be able to explore the world but I have strong reservations about international travel at this point.

Ship electronics home, use encryption, etc etc. Many ways to get around this. I'm not saying that the US isn't becoming increasingly draconian, just that it shouldn't stop you from international travel.

As a citizen, you can also refuse. You won't be denied entry to the country, it may just be unpleasant for awhile.

Why would the rules of one country stop you ? There are 194 other countries in this world.

http://www.worldometers.info/geography/how-many-countries-ar...

It's not the outbound trip I'm concerned about.

Are you a US citizen? If so, just don't bring any devices when you travel. Pick up a burner in your destination country and toss it before you return. As a US citizen returning, they can't legally bar you from the country and there'll be nothing for them to search.

So each time I travel to Canada/Mexico, I have to leave my computer and tablet at home and spend an additional $50+ for a disposable phone that must remain free of all my personal data... You're proposing that as an acceptable solution to US law enforcement stealing my keychain and all my private data simply because they're standing a few feet outside US soil, which they claim entitles them to most certainly violate the intent of the US Constitution, which every customs officer has sworn an oath to defend? So NOT.

I agree, it's not that I can't, I'd just rather not have to go through all the James Bond shit required to not be treated like a criminal coming into my own country...

Some people might prefer to bring their devices with them, instead of picking up "burners" or shipping their devices back home at their expense.

This is inhumane, we are gonna fix it! (but for Citizens only - screw the rest)

I was under the impression the administration was moving in the opposite direction. https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-administration-considers-...

I have to say that whilst I suspect that most airport security theatre actually does have the effect of acting as a terrorist deterrent, if only by encouraging terrorists to pick softer targets, publicly announcing the idea of more routine random phone searches is much more likely to be actively counterproductive (i.e. encourage potential terrorist to improve their opsec)

Of course... but first we need to actually catch A single terrorist who been proven to be one based on his phone search.

Uhm no I forgot.. that information would be top secret classified :)

Business opportunity for phone makers to make phone keep all non-OS data on a removable nano SD card.

This way person could just flip "real" nano SD card with "dummy" on a device before crossing the border.

This problem is really hard to solve with technology, which is why either the legislative or the courts have to do their job (and need to be prodded to do it).

Specifically, it's not enough to hide your social media accounts/photos/calendar/contacts from your phone. That's so obvious, they'll simply treat it the same as denying to give them your password. So what you'd need is a set of completely innocent accounts. Yet faking a complete online presence, and doing in a way that a smart algorithm doesn't notice, is almost impossible.

Two more problems with some proposals that I've heard so far are that (a) they would require a significant fraction of travellers to use so as not to the few that do suspicious and (b) the drastic power imbalance at the border–people are willing to endure a lot to avoid being send back on the same plane and ruining their holidays.

I also have problems understanding the doctrine that renders foreigners basically unprotected at the border. If "all men are created equal" and the Bill of Rights only enumerates natural law that exists before government, should those not apply to non-citizen?

So then instead of just searching your phone they want to go through all nano SD cards you are trying to take across the border too?

Searching for nano cards for every traveller is impractical. It's so tiny and yet high-capacity that it's very easy to hide.

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