How to Keep ICE Agents Out of Your Devices at Airports
theintercept.com
theintercept.com
I remember how Google's internal guidelines for travel circa 2011 required to remove any material under NDA from your laptop when traveling to China or Russia; you had to restore it over the VPN after a safe arrival. Funny that now the same precautions apply to the US :((
How do you restore it via VPN? Don't you first need a workable OS to connect to VPN first?
I would like to add as a reminder to encrypt all devices as well. Leave as little plaintext data as possible.
Veracrypt has the ability to create hidden volumes, regardless of OS.
The procedure that I got recommended in 2005 was to install a second fresh operative system (preferable windows) on the laptop on a separate partition/disk, make a copy of the old boot partition and disk encryption headers, encrypt the copy and store it online for later retrieval, and then overwrite the old boot with the new installation. Make sure to leave the old partitions alone.
The restore is then as simple as downloading the encrypted backup, decrypt and dd it back in place. Repeat the process before taking the trip back. It was advisable to test the processes before to familiarize yourself to it, and to use the fresh installation a bit so it wasn't completely blank.
I made this suggestion when I served on the security team at a major cybersecurity player.
When we had our company-wide annual internal conference it was always in person. This meant that basically everyone, with basically cumulative access to everything, and all our code, would be traveling across a multitude of borders at once. Some of which were less friendly than the US (at that time).
This was rejected as impractical for developers and redundant for everyone else. So I suggested locking the accounts of everyone who was traveling between the time they left and the time they arrived. This would have the side effect of signing them out of our most sensitive systems and removing certain highly confidential data from laptops. This was also rejected as “unnecessary”.
That company now counts a healthy proportion of the Fortune 500 amongst their customer base. I hope things are not so cavalier anymore.
I have never encountered a phone-related problem that could not be solved with:
1. A print out. 2. Asking someone. 3. Using your web browser on your computer. 4. Using some kind of voip if audio communication is needed.
Yes, it is not as convenient as the surveillance and privacy nightmares of today, but if your life is only about convenience, then send your money to the government, and let them just decide for you how much money you need, and you don't even have to think about that.
A minor inconvenience is a price well paid for freedom from surveillance and excellent mental health.
The ones who complain about inconvenience don't really care about privacy, democracy and freedom, so should not complain when these things are attacked.
New cars are being fitted with cell modems to ping cell towers.
I have tried really really hard to break the phone addiction too. Though so far without durable success, unfortunately. :-(
Maybe it's because I went nearly 50 years with no cell phone?
It seems reasonable to shut the phone off—check it through with your luggage.
(One of my favorite travel memories was trying to ask people in Tokyo for directions to my hotel—I speak only English.)
But you knew that already and decided to just post bait.
ha ha
Actually, there were multiple indigenous political entities both along the Eastern Seaboard (where we find those 13 colonies) as well as across what is now the US and Canada[0].
We just took their land and killed most of them, but they were still pretty organized -- with political groupings of various types.
[0] https://scholar.flatworldknowledge.com/books/32177/ourhistor...
Of course colonists committed genocide against indigenous people everywhere they went. No one's denying that. I'm addressing precisely what you yourself said
> there were multiple indigenous political entities both along the Eastern Seaboard
They were fragmented and smaller than the Aztec empire. That doesn't make it right to take their land. It does explain why their names didn't apply to the entire land. Because none of them was so big and centralized. If you look at the geographical features of the Eastern seaboard - mountains, lakes, streams, rivers, cities and towns, even 2 states (Massachusetts, Connecticut) - native names abound.
The lands that became the US and Canada really did have fewer people living on them than the lands that became Mexico. [1] Again because Mexico had centralized states and large-scale agriculture capable of supporting large populations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_history_of_the_Indi...
So what? Portugal was smaller than the Aztec Empire too. As was the Netherlands. And England. Should we pooh pooh them as unimportant as well?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cahokia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iroquois
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salish_peoples
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cree
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancestral_Puebloans
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algonquian_peoples
And many others.
Just because they had brown skin and often didn't engage in wholesale slaughter doesn't make them unimportant -- or not political entities.
Are you sure you responded to the right comment?
>don't see the point in continuing this conversation.
Works for me.
What about Iran? Iran was conquered by muslims. So should we conquer it and kick muslims out because it wasn't ok to take that land? What about every muslim country? Muslims stole mecca from the Jews, as is extensively detailed in muslim history books. Should it be conquered and returned?
What about China? The kingdoms did most of the conquering of course, then "unification" took their land and then communists did ethnic cleansing until Han Chinese were in most places all that's left. Hell, a number of the people they cleansed aren't even gone yet. There are still Tibetans. There are plenty of original Hong Kong'ers still alive.
What about Russia? What about North Africa? What about ...
It’s almost exclusively Western Europeans doing this IME
https://www.reddit.com/r/unpopularopinion/comments/a96v93/am...
https://www.reddit.com/r/asklatinamerica/comments/fwp0aj/doe...
https://www.reddit.com/r/asklatinamerica/comments/15zlo42/is...
https://www.reddit.com/r/asklatinamerica/comments/fwp0aj/doe...
It is in Spanish, though, so I get where the confusion comes from (at least when that confusion is genuine and not just boring troll shit). In Spanish, "América" refers to what in English is "the Americas", because in English we use separate terms for North, South, and (sometimes) Central America.
It's not pushback. It's just dishonest ragebait bullshit.
It is something that needs correcting tbh. The USA does not own the Americas.
https://abc7ny.com/archive/9192371/
This one's my favorite: If you want the police to keep ignoring complaints then don't steal service revolvers!
https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/3rd-sfo-baggage-handler...
I don't think the tsa is at sfo. They use a private contractor for tsa functions. Is the quote made-up?
What might confuse things a bit is that this incident happened hours before ICE agents started reinforcing TSA at checkpoints and seems mostly unrelated, other than establishing the general principle that ICE will arrest people at airports based on tips from TSA's flight booking records.
> Ms. Lopez-Jimenez, 41, a native of Guatemala, and her daughter, Wendy Godinez-Lopez, were flagged by T.S.A. officials on Friday when they showed up on a passenger list for a Sunday flight from San Francisco to Miami. The agency then tipped off Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to the documents.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/12/us/politics/immigration-t...
> Under the previously undisclosed program, the Transportation Security Administration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement of travelers are sharing names and birth dates of travelers believed to have been ordered out of the country by an immigration judge. ICE can then send agents to the airport to detain and quickly deport those people.
They don't have to be at the airport to do this; airlines have to send them the manifest.
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-19/chapter-I/part-122/sub...
> Except as provided in paragraph (c) of this section, an appropriate official of each commercial aircraft (carrier) departing from the United States en route to any port or place outside the United States must transmit to the Advance Passenger Information System (APIS; referred to in this section as the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) system), the electronic data interchange system approved by CBP for such transmissions, an electronic passenger departure manifest covering all passengers checked in for the flight.
https://www.ktvu.com/news/ice-agents-arrest-crying-woman-sfo
The TSA tip didn't have to come from someone physically sitting in the airport.
Those don't exist. I guess you haven't traveled with Alaska for a while.
https://worldaviationfestival.com/blog/airlines/alaska-airli...
Any idea what happened? New CEO? Acquisition?
Anecdotally, I have been to the US a few times in the past year, and seen no change myself - where are you going and why? Thanks have a good trip. It was for short business trips, and I'm white with a number of documented entries/departures, so my experience might be very different from the next person though.
"No, I don't have to."
Detained in a room for twelve hours.
"Okay, okay, here's my phone."
I'd rather wipe my phone and then restore it when I arrive.
Detained in a room for twelve hours.
They are still active for accessing anything in the wallet, however.
It'd be fun to see how they'd handle a CLI. Might result in getting detained, though.
But in traveling is almost essential. GPS to navigate, search for hotels, places to eat, take fotos… yes, you could carry many devices… but seriously?! Ah btw… what about being in touch with family?
I’ve driven across multiple continents and many dozens of countries without a phone or gps.
Talking to locals to ask directions is half the fun, especially when I don’t speak the language. I’ve been invited to parties, weddings and more because of it.
I can absolutely understand that you and many people love that. But maybe you can understand other people prefer to never feel lost, be able to translate signs, find places to eat easily, discover “must see”[1] things, take fotos, be in contact with family, all in a device which weighs 200g in my pocket. Even having it can I eventually forget it, and talk with locals… but when I want to go back to the hotel, is nice to know exactly how[2]
I am old enough that I did travel without cell:
[1] it happened to my many times (at least 3 out of the top of my head) that locals have bo idea where a museum is, or the house of X, or other things that tourists may find interesting, but locals don’t give a shit
[2] if you have been in places like Turkey or South America, you may know that taking a taxi is an interesting exercise. Sometimes they charge you wrong, sometimes they take you for a 20km ride. Having (a) gps, (b) a mean to call the police and (c) a mean to check online what should the travel cost, (d) a translator in your pocket, seems very convenient for me.
Or in other words: do you understand that now having the phone you can still do everything as you used to, asking for directions without understanding, talking with people, all, but now when you want you have a super tool? The best is: is smaller that a foto camera from those days, can take 100000 more fotos, and has 20 more functions!
People used to live without electricity, fride, email… so? Why should I not use what is avaible today?
To have the experiences I want, I need more time. To have more time, I need to go to work less. So spending less money means I get to spend time with my daughter, go snowboarding have adventures around the globe.
It turns out not having a phone is another great way to save money, and go to work less.
I'm in my 50s and I don't know where this stance comes from. Sure, you physically can in the same sense that anywhere can be walked to if you're willing to walk long enough. But so many businesses and services have gone "mobile-first" or "mobile-only" to the point that if you're traveling for leisure you're doing extra work on your vacation, and if you're traveling for business you're wasting time that could be used doing your job. Just as a first order, the denizens of every airline subreddit will tell you that the most useful tool during a trip is the airline's mobile app and that's either tied with or just above or below the Flighty app if anything goes wrong.
Combine that with QR codes for everything from menus to parking, public transit tickets and fare cards that can be easily loaded into a phone instead of using a ticket machine made when we were kids, or paper maps increasingly hard to find if they're available at all, and you're looking at a real challenge. How are you going to talk to and plan with your travel partner or colleagues with payphones removed?
It's also not incumbent upon us to make the government's life easier by making our lives harder. "Just leave your phone at home" is ludicrous behavior to expect when it's the government being the intrusive jerks.
Sure, you can do without them, but it will be much more difficult.
Sure it’s inconvenient sometimes, but on the whole I’d say my life is better than those I see glued to their phones.
This belief is reinforced whenever people ask for my number (dentist, doctor, whatever) The gusto which they invariably reply “OMG I WISH I could get rid of my phone!”
I said I’d prefer to not have a phone than be like people who are glued to their phones. I said nothing about all the people in the middle.
We’ve both been exploring the world since long before smartphones were invented. So we still do everything we want the same as always.
I don't btw. I admire you sticking to your principles.
Exactly the same way I did when I drove across dozens of countries before the iPhone was invented.
And how are you getting around without Uber now that taxis are basically dead.
And why be a Luddite when it comes to phones and not computers? Cars?
> the government is overreaching
> "well back in my day we used to walk uphill both ways!"
[0] since I'm spelling this out, one of those credentials should be a passphrase such that the server doesn't have access to your data
[1] modulo data/apps you actually want on a phone in a foreign country, of course
Even so I would still be worried about the nonstandard behavior of activating a new device in a foreign country causing my Apple/Google account to get straight up locked by their arbitrary and capricious "security" systems.
I can throw my iPhone in the ocean, go to the nearest cell phone store/Apple Store and log into my Apple account and you won’t be able to tell the difference between my old phone and new phone - all apps, data, icon positions, passwords, photos, settings, bookmarks, history, messages etc will be restored
Are you saying that you can throw your phone in the ocean, have access to no other devices (including a SIM card), obtain a new phone, input your email+password, and reliably have that new phone onboarded? Because it certainly doesn't work that way in Android+GApps land from everything I've experienced - rather there is always a step where at the very least you have to authenticate using another logged-in session or email challenge.
If you go into the Apple Store or your carrier, they hand you new phone, you log in to your iCloud account and it asks you which back up you want to use if you have multiple backups. You might these days have to enter your passcode from your old device.
You or they call your carrier or depending on your carrier you can register your e-sim directly from your phone.
I then tried to resist smart phones and stick with my nokia. But then you start to get into things like, the kiosk where they would print your boarding pass doesn't do that anymore. You need a QR code on your phone. You can't call places anymore, you need to do it on their website, etc.
Now the government is starting to treat a lack of social media or technology as a reason for suspicion. In the not-too-distant future I imagine it will not be possible to go to an airport without a smart phone and a digital history known to Palentir.
International travel is infinitely more difficult without a cell phone.
When I was younger and international roaming was expensive I travelled internationally without a phone. It’s possible, but it’s so much easier to do it with a phone. Later when I finally stopped being a cheap student and bought a data plan my trips were so much more efficient because I wasn’t losing so much time trying to figure everything out without a phone.
For international business trips, devices are mandatory. This isn’t even an option.
You do not want to spend an hour in the customer service line to find out that all open seats on the next flight out were scooped up 59 minutes ago.
They're full of outsourced agents whose contracts are very specific and don't include things like assisting customers during IRROPS, as I understand it. Or they have their hands tied by the airlines
I'd like government intervention now that the free market has failed - there is almost no choice you can make that offers real customer service
In my experience in Europe, there are very very few staff who can help, except at major hubs. Even then, if you've not got high status, you won't get much help.
> but you can't have 40 agents standing around at each counter waiting for the next disaster to arrive and help with rebooking
That is the exact excuse they used to reduce the empowered agents to 0
You're probably right, still...
I often wonder how I survived going for a random drive or even simply leaving the house from 1980 through to the advent of smart phones. Was I simply more brave and self-sufficient back then?
But then I note that there was some infrastructure and also some attitude differences back then that don't exist now.
When my car would break down in the 1980s or 1990s, typically there would be a pay phone nearby. One time in the early 90s, I just knocked on a random door and the resident let me use their land line to call a tow truck (I'm not sure anyone would let a random stranger into their home now, but maybe they still do). Breaking down in the boonies was no fun, but likely someone would come by eventually and help (or murder you, but probably help).
I was reminded recently of this when I went to park in the city in a garage that I frequently patronize only to find they had removed the payment terminal, which was replaced by a sign that said "use our app!". I have a low-data phone plan, so if I had to install their app, I would probably blow past my limit for the month. Also, there was no signal in the garage. So I just left and found another place to park (and was almost late for my appointment).
Also I don't like having to pay just to print my boarding pass at the check-in kiosk. Maybe I am not less brave but just more cheap.
Probably! A good reason to exercise those skills again
> (I'm not sure anyone would let a random stranger into their home now, but maybe they still do).
Curious what makes you think that. Perhaps as an exercise, do something that requires asking a favour of someone. You might be pleasantly surprised. Despite all the ills in society, faith can be restored be some amazing interactions with people offline
> So I just left and found another place to park
That's exactly the right response. Being late sucked but hopefully just a once off .
> Maybe I am not less brave but just more cheap.
This is honestly unsaid in a lot of these discussions! The non phone methods can be a bit more expensive. It's a good point but sometimes the difference isn't huge
But how in 2026 when I travel am I going to get directions? Get an Uber? I am in a Spanish speaking country right now and I speak some Spanish. But it really is convenient just to take my cell phone out and translate.
What is your next piece of wisdom? That I also don’t need a computer with 16GB RAM because my first computer had 128KB?
Oh and I also don’t need the web because back in my day Gopher and Usenet were good enough
Enable self-destruction mode caused by a special unlock PIN on each of them.