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Comment by rosser | Hacker News Reader

Do you honestly think customs agents care whether you'll get fired or not? US immigrations will permanently sever families that have been together for years or even decades with utter disregard for the emotional trauma they're inflicting.

Your job matters exactly fuck-all to a CPB agent.

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That border agent is a real person, who is "only doing their job". So are you. It works both ways. If enough people say no, then after a hellish but hopefully short adjustment period, the policy will change.

> the policy will change.

The policy might change to include cells at the borders where people are detained until they hand over login details or voluntarily decide not to enter.

Should the slope become that slippery we'll have a much better reason to stand outside a legislator's office with pointy sticks than "I was mildly inconvenienced by the TSA."

If what is already happening across the country is not a good enough reason already, I doubt anything will be.

Yep. Quite simply, the 0.1% of the US population here on HN does not care about privacy nor protesting nor writing to their local or state government.

HN needs to stop living in a bubble. Only 1/3 of the US even bothered voting in the Trump v Clinton presidential election. I'll let you think about that for a moment. Now think about border searches. Has your phone been searched? Neither has mine. I'll go back to my company catered lunch now.

Where did you get the 1/3 from? It's been 55% of eligble voters. Counting non-eligibles wouldn't really make sense in your argument

Source: https://www.google.de/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2016/11/11/polit...

If you really care about the issue, why abstain just because someone else doesn't want to count your vote?

Actually you should count all Adults not just "eligible" for a few reasons

1. No one once reaching the age of majority should have their voting rights taken, for any reason including criminality

2. The figures also do not include people of age who are ineligible to vote or have not registered. The "Have not registered" is a key part because many stated in the last 2 election cycles have been passing a number of laws to disenfranchises segments of the populations making it harder and harder to register

3. The concept of our nation is "Consent of the people", that is all people, not just those voting. the majority of PEOPLE reject the 2 candidates put forth buy the corrupted and unethical political parties then the government can not claim to have the consent of THE PEOPLE...

Many many many Americans feel complete disenfranchised by the political systems that gives them 2 Choices that are equally terrible and corrupt. Forcing a defensive vote that is mainly against the person you do not want to win instead of voting for a qualified person you actually want to be in office.

As a life long Libertarian, I have no interest in voting for either a Republican or Democrat

None of these reasons you list make sense in this context.

If the 55% is from people registered to vote, it makes perfect sense.

Seriously? You need to register to have the privelige of voting in your country? That is beyond fucked up.

Obviously, if you don't plan on voting, you won't bother to register.

59% of eligible voters voted (http://www.electproject.org/2016g). Not great, but much more than 1/3.

In our busy and overwhelming lives it is easy to procrastinate about civic responsibilities while still caring about living in a just and fair world.

My phone has not been searched, either, but the issue here is to stand up for your rights. If you have never been wronged by a person or organization in position of authority in US government then consider yourself lucky. I and most people I know living in the US have.

Border guards were doing this stuff long before Trump was elected, and it was never a significant campaign issue one way or the other. Stop trying to make everything about Trump.

That job they're "just doing" is, as it's drilled into their minds, to act as a barrier against anything that even might be a threat in some form or fashion to their country. They have pretty broad authority toward that end.

You (the notional you) aren't even from here. If you say no, you've identified yourself as a potential threat, and can just sit in a room by yourself for as long as it takes to put you on the next flight back to wherever you came from, at your expense. And you probably won't be allowed to return.

If you're a citizen and say no, they might confiscate the device, and might make you wait around long enough to miss your connecting flight (and maybe even the next couple, if they're feeling particularly peevish), but that's about all they can do.

That job they're "just doing" is, as it's drilled into their minds, to act as a barrier against anything that even might be a threat in some form or fashion to their country.

They may get that drilled into their skulls, but I think it's more that they just don't want their boss to yell at them.

No police officer arrests a DUI and says "but I'm just doing my job." It's only when the other person (the traveler in this case) has an entirely legitimate reason to resist them that "I'm just doing my job" comes out, with an implied threat that the authority they're appealing to (that they themselves don't have) will come down on everyone involved, and they don't want that.

Also, they don't have any personal liability for anything that goes wrong in this process, except perhaps that the company they work for will lose the contract (unlikely here). Again, "boss will yell at me."

These people are better thought of as clerks than cops. And yes, they can inconvenience you, but that's not the same thing as compliance.

Yup. The correct solution is to stop traveling to the US. Stop sending your employees to the US as well. If the rest of the world starts insisting that US companies always come to them because of how US border agents act, that shit will bubble up to the lobbyists real fast.

It's just that easy.

If hurts people with money, something will change.

Come and see us in Europe, it's nice here !

No thanks!

No, it's not. That's similar to saying just stay away from bullies, or leave if you don't like your job/school/whatever. It is easy if you view the issue in isolation, but for a lot of people it is more complicated, such as how will you see your loved ones / do your job / travel freely? In this case, the ones most dependent on being able to travel have little choice if they can't take on almost unlimited (potentially, but still) risk to their livelyhood.

And to the UK: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/may/14/campaign-gr...

It's amazing how disparate the experience is in Europe. The first time I flew to CDG a year ago I honestly thought I somehow skipped customs accidentally. Heathrow, on the other hand, feels like a dystopian experience straight out of Minority Report. 20 questions and having your photo taken at every turn for simply connecting through the UK.

I think the authoritarianism is a Anglo Saxon phenomenon. At least in more recent history.

Bingo.

Why would anyone want to go through that on their vacation? Unless you enjoy that sort of thing, go somewhere pleasant instead. (And if you enjoy that sort of thing, there are far easier ways...)

I say this as a US citizen who will be sad if it comes to pass, but this bullshit won't stop unless the rest of the world refuses to put up with it. Your average US citizen doesn't travel internationally (only about 10% of the population has a passport), so they don't notice unless it hits their wallets.

Please force us to stop.

Put up with what? I go through Houston Customs almost every month and they rarely search anyone. It's like a river of people walking right out the airport doors after a cursory glance at the customs declaration. I have never once seen a person with an open laptop in the search areas. That doesn't mean it doesn't happen but good grief, what's the actual percentage? I am willing to bet a minuscule percentage gets their devices searched.

The US will not provide foreigners with a visa unless they submit to be fingerprinted like a criminal:

https://travel.state.gov/content/visas/en/general/border-bio...

I'm not a criminal, and I will not be fingerprinted.

I don't believe the data on that is available; at least, I haven't been able to find it[1]. I'd love to be wrong, if someone else has information.

I'm glad your frequent travels are eased through customs to the point where you don't see what happens. But allow me to suggest that a frequent traveler through one port once a month is an insufficient data set from which to draw conclusions?

If nothing else, you have available the fact that a software vendor sees sufficient demand to invest in this feature, to go along with your google skills to find counterexamples to your experience. I don't know if that's sufficient to get you past your blithe dismissal of others' concerns and lived experience and on to a skeptical but open view or not.

[1] Which would be typical; one of the easiest tactics to steer public discussion is to pick and choose what data to collect and release. The US has a long history of this tactic, especially with issues that touch on law enforcement. The lack of decent data on killings committed by police is well-known; categorical refusal to allow studies on various drugs is too. But this is a frequent problem; hammering on killer cops with video is provoking grudging, slow change on the first and incremental legalization of pot is changing the second. But there are lots of issues over which this happens.

> Why would anyone want to go through that on their vacation?

honestly? the us is a beautiful country, with amazing people. i love visiting and love going to weird towns to meet different people. (also, my sister is married to an american citizen, and i want to meet her every once in a while).

but at the same time, it's really fucking awful to be treated as a criminal every time you try to go to the country.

I'm in Australia. I like a lot of things about the US and lots of the people in/from the US as well. I went there about 15 years ago and had an awesome holiday.

I would never go there now that a dangerous buffoon like Trump is in office, also for a long time now it's been known that outsiders will be treated like a criminal at the border for no reason. And I mean literally no reason because I could easily not have all my masses of terrorist information on the laptop and just download it from the terrorist servers when I get there. So there is literally zero reason to be searching my digital property, and I'm not about to take the gamble that I could be prevented entry or delayed enough to possibly cause thousands of dollars personal cost for no good reason. The security theatre is ridiculous.

Outsiders are obviously not welcome so I'm not coming.

There are plenty of sane countries around the world to go to, why would I go to the US?

I hope the American people can find the motivation to vote and pressure their representatives to actually do something about their own freedoms. Not only border patrol but your militarised and outrageously unaccountable police force.

Sorry but that's just, like, my opinion, man.

As a foreigner married to a citizen, I'm not too satisfied with this suggestion.

If you, as an innocent person, don't refuse to have your belongings inspected, you participate in making belonging-inspection-refusal into a great heuristic for determining guilt.

This is a form of "citizen duty".

It completely depends if you are white or not. If you are white, and speak politely, the agent will care deeply about your concerns, including potential firing as an example. If you are not white, and especially if you appear black, Latino or Arab, then your comment will definitely hold true.

You are absolutely the worst kind of person.

> You are absolutely the worst kind of person.

What? I'm not sure I believe the grandparent's post, and it would be nice if it were sourced or clarified as opinion rather than stated as fact (as briandear (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14406689) and Banthum (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14407293) urged), but your reaction seems grossly hostile and unconstructive.

We've banned this account. No one is allowed to post like this here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

All: upvoting such blatant violations of the site guidelines also causes accounts to lose voting privileges on HN.

[citation needed]

Recently delayed by the TSA to the point of missing my turn to board. Was subjected to additional searching. Upon finding nothing, I discovered the extra searching was what they do when you fail the hand swab test. I had not had the test administered. So they administered the test. I passed. They then searched my things again and I was questioned regarding the quantity of business cards I was carrying.

Oh also I'm white.

TSA is not the same agency as CBP. They don't receive the same training, encounter travelers in the same situations, enforce the same laws, or execute the same authority.

I've had similar experiences with CBP too. It's still a pretty silly unqualified comment. They tend to be on power trips any chance they get, brown or black or white.

I didn't mean to comment on the use of racial profiling; I've just noticed that there's a lot of confusion about the difference between TSA and CBP.

Pretty sure parent was just saying that it's way more likely to happen to you if you're not white, not that 100% of white people will pass through unaccosted.

Well given that parent used phrases like "entirely depends" and "definitely", I didn't get that at all. And given my own experience of being consistently delayed in most locations and being white, I think there are clearly more factors. And if true, those factors affect more people and amplify the effect of racially motivated factors.

Wow, quite an accusation!

Is there any actual data source on this, or is it just a narrative you prefer?

Two seconds of Googling: https://www.aclu.org/blog/speakeasy/dangerous-precedent-why-...

I've witnessed US border agents mocking someone for hours in the waiting area before summarily sending him back to where he came in from.

I assume you're referring to illegal immigration, in which case there is at least a legal (if possibly not moral) basis for screwing people over.

The story with stealing citizens' personal information is entirely different; there is almost certainly no legitimate legal basis to fuck over US citizens for excercizing the basic rights explicitly protected by the 4th and 5th amendments, just because they happen to be at a border area.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_search_exception

The Supreme Court has actually weighed in on this and granted it a legitimate legal basis.

But what about non-Americans? As a Canadian, I can have a very valid reason to go to the States, and even refusing a search once could cause me issues any time I try to go to the US.

Does customs anywhere else the world care more? Explain your refusal to allow a search to a Chinese, Korean or UK customs official.

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