EU issues US-bound staff with burner phones over spying fears
ft.com
ft.com
Yes, this is nothing new. But the increase is new.
Anyone a visa is not in a strong position to decline. US citizens are expecting more scrutiny too.
The use of a loaner, burner, or second device means you can now decline with confidence (and just be delayed by several hours in a interview room and have your devices confiscated) OR you can allow the search and protect your privacy (the most likely best use-case for visitors).
Confidence?
Here is are some quotes from a story posted here just 3 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43654661
> They said, ‘We know you have two mobile phones. We’ve been tracking your calls. We know you’ve been selling drugs’.” He says he told the border officer he did not drink, smoke or take drugs and owned just one phone. He was asked for his passcode.
> Jonathan says: “Then he told me I didn’t have the right visa – apparently saying I lived there showed that I had intent to stay and not leave.” He says his visa was still valid for more than 12 months and he had left and re-entered the US without any problems about 20 times holding the same class of visa.
> He says the official then told him: “Trump is back in town; we’re doing things the way we should have always been doing them.”
The first-order effects of the world changing in 2025 are what we mostly notice - but some of the second and third order effects are really positive.
They are asked to have the visa linked (and attached) to their diplomatic document, instead of their personal passport.
> European Union laissez-passer: Travel document issued to civil servants and members of the institutions of the European Union
> A European Union laissez-passer is a travel document issued to civil servants and members of the institutions of the European Union. It is proof of privileges and immunities the holders enjoy.
Now, on a more serious note, I bet those devices are more likely to be confiscated than, say, an uninteresting Motorola or Nokia smartphone (which would be my preference).
2. Is Your Password Secure? (IYPS) is a "password strength app that evaluates and rates your password's robustness, estimates crack time, and provides helpful warnings and suggestions for stronger passwords.": https://github.com/StellarSand/IYPS
3. Android KeePassDX can generate passwords and passphrases: https://github.com/Kunzisoft/KeePassDX
4. "Password Generator is a simple Android application which generates secure passwords.": https://gitlab.com/vecturagames/passwordgenerator
5. KeePassXC has a "Password Generator": https://keepassxc.org/docs/KeePassXC_UserGuide , https://github.com/keepassxreboot/keepassxc , https://keepassxc.org/download , https://github.com/termux/termux-packages/tree/master/x11-pa... (github.com/termux/termux-packages/tree/master/x11-packages/keepassxc)
6. "keepassxc-cli is the command line interface for the KeePassXC password manager.": https://github.com/keepassxreboot/keepassxc/blob/latest/docs... (github.com/keepassxreboot/keepassxc/blob/latest/docs/man/keepassxc-cli.1.adoc), https://keepassxc.org/docs/KeePassXC_UserGuide#_command_line... (keepassxc.org/docs/KeePassXC_UserGuide#_command_line_tool), https://keepassxc.org
7. "Motorola moto g play 2024 Smartphone, Android 14 Operating System, Termux, And cryptsetup: Linux Unified Key Setup (LUKS) Encryption/Decryption And The ext4 Filesystem Without Using root Access, Without Using proot-distro, And Without Using QEMU": https://old.reddit.com/r/MotoG/comments/1jkl0f8/motorola_mot... (old.reddit.com/r/MotoG/comments/1jkl0f8/motorola_moto_g_play_2024_smartphone_android_14/)
8. "Avoid US or Take Burner Devices, Canadian Executives Tell Staff": https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-15/avoid-us-... (www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-15/avoid-us-or-take-burner-devices-canadian-executives-tell-staff), https://archive.is/GvBLF
Why are they pretending like this is something new for them when they knew about this way before? Burner phones at this point in time feels like trying birth control when your kid is already 13 years old.
i would also just be happy for something being done now even if it could have been done earlier
So who's the one doing the Russian appreciation here, in practice I mean, not in virtue signaling?
You can see this from the Spanish reaction to US spies recruiting people in Spanish intelligence, to France's desire to join Five Eyes provided that a mutual no-spying agreement were signed, etc.
The reason you don't see stronger reactions is probably because countries were afraid of upsetting the US leadership, but being spied on is bad.
Both US political parties were doing this decades ago to the German Chancellor. There is no escalation beyond her. If you're willing to tap her, you're willing to tap anyone.
Here's why wiretapping allies is important: if the US agencies can wiretap you, then so can Russia, China, Israel, North Korea, etc. So if you notice your allies being sloppy with their InfoSec, you can also let them know about it before the enemies find out and exploit them.
So it's your job to implement security that nobody else can tap. That's why citizens pay taxes to the defense sector, that's why you have intelligence and counter intelligence agencies, etc. they just need to do their fucking job instead of going after citizens who buy weed online or who call politicians dicks on Xitter.
The big difference now is that the US (my own damn country) is not nearly as trustworthy as it was (for some value of trustworthy), nor is it nearly as competently led as it was (for some value of competence), nor is it behaving in rational and predictable ways (as compared to before). So, maybe we all just understand that it's in everyone else's best interest to keep a close eye on conditions in the US, because it's not going to get better any time soon. And we all should probably also understand that the US is just going to see enemies wherever it looks and that's not going to improve any time soon, either.
Temporary internal economic disputes (these happen all the time, especially between EU members) have little to do with military alliances against external threats.
So, that is what changed.
I daresay his judgment is informed by his consideration of Russia as closer to an ally than a foe.
Trump doesn't care about cost. And investing in your own military is not the same as paying America. The Baltic countries and Poland have spent a higher then recommended percentage of their gdp on the military and have done more to keep a positive relationship with America but Trump doesn't seem to care
And it would not required Trump lying about Ukraine war either.
Which is true since defense money doesn't rain from the sky. Taxpayers on both sides of the atlantic are footing the bill.
>He always says Europeans are not paying their fair share.
Which is true when you look at per member spending percentages. Mostly Poland and a couple of other members have been meeting their agreed spending targets, but the rest have been slacking.
>He has been talking about it for ten years:
From your article:
"While Trump has gone so far as saying that, as president, he would consider pulling the U.S. out of NATO if it is not restructured, we’ve found no instance of him saying he wants to do so at this point. And the Clinton campaign hasn’t been able to point to an example of Trump saying that either.
In fact, it was during the interview with the Post, which initially brought attention to Trump’s feelings about NATO, that Trump said that he doesn’t want the U.S. to leave the alliance."
> While Trump has gone so far as saying that, as president, he would consider pulling the U.S. out of NATO if it is not restructured, we’ve found no instance of him saying he wants to do so at this point
US won't because US needs NATO more than other countries. US is the only country to ever invoke article whatshernumber.
Now the EU-US diplomacy is not as good anymore, and media is reporting about the US spying too... sadly EU is incapable of creating a facebook-like social network, or else we'd be reusing the "tiktok is a chinese spying app" playbook on facebook(/google/...) over here too.
They also haven't created a fun loving machine that rips peoples limbs off and reattaches them facing a different direction and in a different order.
Creating these things really isn't something to be proud of.
Trump only makes US corruption more visible. He did not make your country corrupt all of the sudden, he just put a shine on it.
Source? Are you talking about this?
>On April 13, 2013, Alstom senior executive Frédéric Pierucci was arrested at the John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. He was accused of willful blindness of his company's suspected corruption and was imprisoned in a high security facility for 14 months and denied release on bail until the week of Alstom's acquisition by the US conglomerate General Electric.[54][55] In late 2014, Alstom was fined $772 million by the DOJ, and admitted guilt under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in relation to bribes paid to obtain contracts in various countries.[56][57]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alstom#Judicial_investigations
The paragraph after also mentions their executives were prosecuted in the UK for other corruption charges, which certainly puts a dent in your implication that the US was somehow locking up Alstom's executives on trumped up charges to get leverage.
I'm not saying the charges were fake, I said they imprisoned him specifically to have the other executives agreed to a signature on the contract (in my opinion , he deserves more than 14th month, but usually, executive don't get imprisonned for corruption, and suddenly get freed exactly at the moment of the signing).
The signing, the french government agreement, the GE valuation, all that reeks of political corruption, but well :/
So true, but I also think they are vastly increasing the destruction. It really feels like the country was taken over by corporate raiders stripping it for parts.