Hacker News Reader

Comment by throwaway5u2o29 | Hacker News Reader

This happened to me upon entering the US by air. I wasn't given a reason, it was declared a random check.

I was asked if my device contained any contraband, like illegal porn or beheading videos.

I had the option of handing over my passcode, or have my device confiscated and sent to a lab for cracking.

As a non-citizen, I complied. The device was searched for about an hour out of my sight. Meanwhile, I was quizzed by another border agent.

In hindsight, I realized that this gave access to my keychain and all my cloud documents. It feels very violating.

If anyone has suggestions how to prepare for this in advance, let me know.

All of this is completely legal under current law.

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/without-warrants-u-s-...

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5983533-90-2.html

View on HN

> If anyone has suggestions how to prepare for this in advance, let me know.

Backup your phone to cloud storage prior to travel, wipe it, hand border agents a nearly empty phone, restore once across the border.

Doing that right means having a second cloud account (Google/Apple), or you'll still be handing them a logged-in phone.

(If your phone looks suspiciously empty or has a weird account, you might as well have said "no", that phone will be taking an extra detour.)

What happens if one has no Google or social media accounts (although I have an Android phone, I have neither—I've never set up an account on the phone)?

It seems to me these days if one doesn't have any such accounts one's likely to be singled out as being suspect or suspicious.

Beware if newer, an empty phone may qualify for an import tax.

Not everything can be backed up to the cloud these days. Banking apps, for instance, (understandably) like to use secure storage, so at the very least you will need to do a 2FA handshake all over again, which can be very painful when you are abroad.

This. It's super painful and time-confusing restoring all apps ... even with proper backups.

This is why I have my old iPhone as a dedicated travel phone. No way am I going to let officials rifle through my real phone looking for sensitive information or private photos. Especially out of sight!

With my travel phone, I always assume everything I put on there is public info. If I lose my phone, no big deal, just an annoyance.

Use a burner. I think a lot of US citizens traveling to China use burners.

Don’t go to the US and go to a more welcoming country instead.

Rather silly advice. Sometimes one has no choice about their destination. Secondly, many countries now apply these grotesque little petty tyranny laws. Canada does, for example, and many people consider it "welcoming". Better practical advice, ad maybe also activism than depending on a possibly shrinking list of supposedly "nice" governments.

You always have a choice. You can choose not to go. If someone asks you to go you can say no. If they don’t take no for an answer then you can lie to them. Just say you can’t get an ESTA, there are many innocuous reasons such as visiting Cuba.

It’s true that Five Eyes countries are in general not very welcoming but the US is certainly the most unpleasant to enter.

The Five Eyes border agents may not be welcoming. Once you’re through that hurdle, they’re plenty welcoming.

>You always have a choice. You can choose not to go.

Of course, you can physically restrain yourself from going to X or Y unpleasant major country, but go ahead and tell someone rushing urgently to such a country for the funeral or medical emergency of a family member, or a serious financial emergency, that they can just "choose not to go" as if it were a case of choosing what toilet paper to buy.

As a non-citizen, I don't think you have enough rights to really fight back, and you could risk upsetting a petty border agent who may decide to 'punish' you and maybe deny entry.

Thankfully I've learned to back up and wipe devices before travel and then only restore after landing.

That's idiotic. They are wasting time harassing people, and searching physical devices for material that can be easily transmitted between any two internet-connected points on the planet. The "bad guys" they are trying to bust will do exactly that.

It's like still doing body searches for drugs when remote matter replicators have become ubiquitous.

Unless they are installing spyware

Beheading videos are illegal?

Why?

I believe they have journalistic value.

I don't think they're illegal, but journalism aside, they may at times be suggestive of a terroristic inclination. It will raise further red flags. They can however lie to you that the possession is illegal and detain you for it, even though it's legal as per the First Amendment, and no jury will find you guilty if you quote the First Amendment in your defense, except in the event of a Supreme Court precedent against such possession.

Some countries like NZ and Australia do ban content that is violence and censor it despite journalistic value. They recently tried to force X to ban footage of a stabbing globally for all users, and Musk said no luckily.

It's shocking how much censorship we have these days in the world. "For our safety", except it's not, it's for the reduction of freedom since freedom is noise and noise in 0.001% of cases can generate unsafety.

Mail yourself an encrypted SSD with your data.

Are you American?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com