> The current best practice for border crossings --- really anywhere in the world --- is simply not to carry anything you're unwilling to unlock for Customs.
Or, to simply stop traveling to countries that refuse to play nice with the rights of foreigners. The whole idea that this sort of thing is even anywhere near acceptable behavior revolts me.
Yeah, I pretty much decided to never travel to the US again the first time I heard you may be compelled to unlock your Facebook profile for the customs.
Not because I have something particular to hide, but as a gay person in a hostile world I have learned to care about my privacy.
Not a huge loss for me, not a huge loss for the US, but it accumulates.
Asia and Eastern Europe are off the list for me too. China is willing to kidnap people out of Thailand [1]; people being arrested over political tweets [2]; Russia can poison people [3], shoot them [4], or have them accused of fake crimes[5].
I really hope the U.S. never comes close to this and hope I see this trend reversed in my lifetime. But people should be aware that it can happen in a modern society and is already happening in large parts of the world.
>China is willing to kidnap people out of Thailand [1]; people being arrested over political tweets [2]; Russia can poison people [3], shoot them [4], or have them accused of fake crimes[5]. I really hope the U.S. never comes close to this
Well, the US can drone-kill people (including bystanders irrelevant to the primary non-tried target), abduct them from all over the world and transport them with no trial to Guantanamo, allows cops to shoot innocent people (e.g. for walking while black) at a record rate (compared to even developing world dictatorship standards) without much repercussions, and let's not get started with people forced to go to jail with BS accusations and plea deals or stuff like "three strikes" that can put people on life for ...stealing a pizza thrice.
Just because these people are not all local citizens or white, doesn't mean they are not wronged.
And all that's under Obama, so not much hope for those getting better under Trump...
Starting with "Well," suggests it somehow negates my point though.
I think "Also" would be more appropriate, which kind of acknowledges the problems in other countries I cited while also pointing out very real weaknesses in America's justice system.
This might seem pedantic, but the common reply I see to "this country does bad stuff" reduces to "well this country does bad stuff too!" It's not a productive argument because it tries to deflect attention and normalize the actions in question. Instead, we should be focusing on how to address all of these issues, because they definitely exist.
But... your previous post specifically says "China is willing to kidnap people out of Thailand" and goes on to say "I really hope the U.S. never comes close to this".
Can you explain how exactly the U.S. has yet to "come close to" your list? Your post created the very "us vs them" separation you now claim to disagree with. The child post was fairly clearly just answering that statement
And while we're talking deflection, you are the one who took a thread about the US border and its impact on travellers and made it about civil rights abuses by the rest of the world. Yes, they are all important; no, it is usually not possible to solve them all at once.
I think the implication is that he sees the things the US currently does as less bad than his own list. I'm not weighing in on the validity of his assessment, but I'm pretty sure that's what he meant.
> Can you explain how exactly the U.S. has yet to "come close to" your list?
Show me a similar incident to the Chinese booksellers thing in America. Or anyone being killed because they represented the political opposition. Miles away.
But that's not even my point. My point is: read the links listed; I'm not traveling to those countries; I hope the world becomes less crazy. That's all!
> And while we're talking deflection, you are the one who took a thread about the US border and its impact on travellers and made it about civil rights abuses by the rest of the world
Huh? I posted some links above. People should read them and make up their own mind, in addition to the OP. It's not a "one or the other" kind of thing, not sure why it would be.
>This might seem pedantic, but the common reply I see to "this country does bad stuff" reduces to "well this country does bad stuff too!"
I think it's valid to see things its perspective though, because people who say "we shouldn't turn it into 'yes, but X does this too'" are often using it as an excuse to continue to point fingers only towards one side, and not even the worst acting one...
> the common reply I see to "this country does bad stuff" reduces to "well this country does bad stuff too!"
It's not pedantic if you care about being rational. This act is a common logical fallacy called the "tu quoque fallacy": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque
Why is this a fallacy?
Suppose country A is accused of doing something bad. It's logically irrelevant to that question whether some other country B also has done something bad.
To see it more clearly, take the same fallacy on an individual level. Person A is accused of murdering someone. Is it a valid defense to say "Well, my neighbor Person B also murdered someone, therefore it's OK that I did"? No, of course not. It's totally irrelevant whether someone else -- even the accuser -- has also murdered someone.
Yet making this fallacious counter-accusation is often effective in terms of emotional (i.e. irrational) manipulation of the audience, particularly when they are predisposed against B in some way.
Don't worry, the Republicans are working to fix all the horrible Obama policies, like making sure people can get health care, or keeping firearms out of the hands of people whose mental illnesses are so bad they can't even manage their own day-to-day lives.
I really hope the U.S. never comes close to this and hope I see this trend reversed in my lifetime. But people should be aware that it can happen in a modern society and is already happening in large parts of the world.
The US has kidnapped people from Italy, and assassinated its own child citizens. The US (and most western countries) are already close to this, it's just that most citizens felt they were immune up till now.
This kind of overreach should always be opposed, no matter who it is done to, or where, because once it is acceptable to assassinate people with missiles, kidnap opponents, or record everyone's digital life whenever information crosses the border, all it takes is the wrong sort of people to take power and all the mechanisms are in place to control and oppress entire populations.
It's amazing that with the forces of globalization and Internet we think of the planet as whole and then a new government flips to us vs them mentality reversing peace work of years.
Less humans kill other humans now than ever in the past. I wonder if the media is to blame for the fear mongering?
I agree, globally many important indicators are positive in the long term but we shouldn't be complacent because perception and relative wealth over time can be more important to people than reality.
The recent rise in nationalism after the 2008 crash is eerily similar to post 29. Globalisation has caused discontents, even if they are unjustified and the solutions proposed by demagogues are absurd and damaging, they appeal to some. Re the media, no I don't think so, humans are tribal and not very rational.
I see you mentioned Eastern Europe but only include Russia. Eastern Europe includes many other countries open to LGBT communities. Don't always believe the news headlines as they tend to exaggerate. Hungary and Romania have done big efforts towards this, still churches have a lot to say but peoples mentality changed, accepting diversity.
You're mixing up blatant discrimination (the first category) with two very complicated social problems.
People aren't necessarily against refugees, per se, but more against the idea of accepting anyone who declares himself to be a refugee, without checking that he is, in fact, one. Things are made worse by a few "refugee" cases where the "refugees" preferred to move away and live as illegal immigrants in Germany than as legal refugees in Hungary or Romania (a status which includes state aid, as meager as it may be in these countries).
The third point is really complicated and it does include discrimination but also a lack of trust and respect for the others from both sides. A lot of it has to do with the difficulties of integrating a very tight-knit nomadic culture into a modern, sedentary society where property rights are clear and respected.
My philosophy is that Facebook provides a window into who I am and what I do, but also who my friends are and what they do. Gaining access to my Facebook account doesn't just tell them about me, it tells them about everyone I know. It lets them harvest the feeds of everyone who's ever friended me and then not stuck me in a 'sees none of my posts' group.
Even if I've never posted anything on FB that they'd find objectionable, it's possible someone I know from the US posted privately ('close friends only', for example) "Man I wish someone would put a bullet in Trump's head", feeling as though it was a safe place to vent. Suddenly they're getting investigated by the secret service, and possibly deported, because I gave up my Facebook login because "I have nothing to hide".
This is ridiculously insidious. For every one person whose Facebook info they get, they get to collect previously inaccessible data on potentially hundreds of people, none of whom agreed to share their data with the government, or even knew that it was happening. With one Facebook login the government can start building profiles on hundreds of people, and with each successive login that net expands.
Call me cynical, but I believe that those concerns are totally unfounded because the "evil government" doesn't need your FB login for that, IMHO they most likely can access that information directly without your consent. I would be really surprised if they really had to do this mass harvesting of profiles based on a series of one-time access to individual profiles of a small fraction of population; They had much more effective ways to do mass harvesting many years ago (as illustrated by various leaks) and probably do them now, having to involve thousands of immigration agents would be simply counterproductive.
I do believe that immigration services look at your account exclusively for their goals of evaluating immigration. They ask you to unlock your account because for them it's objectively simpler to ask that information from you than to get it from the other government agencies that have that information but won't disclose it because formally they shouldn't have it. There's no "the government", it is an amalgamation of many organizations that have conflicting goals and don't coordinate, so it's reasonable to expect that "the government" has some information and at the same time "the government" (i.e. other parts of it) don't have it and need to request it from you or do without.
Where does it look like I am I saying that multiple agencies would coordinate sharing FB data? I feel that the parent post was needlessly worrying about a risk of e.g. border teams using unlocked phones as a routine way to harvest data and hand it over to e.g. NSA or whatever "evil government" snooping agency they'd be worried about, because (a) NSA doesn't need this assistance because they are likely to have better mass collection methods on their own, and (b) they wouldn't coordinate this with a large number of DHS grunts, neither by asking them to gather data nor by providing them with a list of all data that they have. DHS is likely to have a lot of data themselves, but anyway unlocking a phone provides extra information in a simple&practical manner.
I don't want to be one of those people who go on about the fact that they're not on Facebook, but what if they asked me for my Facebook logins and I told them I don't have any social media accounts? (I mean, bar Github if you count that as a social network).
If you are telling the truth you will be fine. But if you do have a facebook account and you lie about it you could be in trouble (it is an offence to lie to federal agents).
What would you do if you have an account but haven't used it for many years, lost your access to the email that you registered it with and don't remember the password. Are you genuinely a liar then?
If you are telling the truth that you haven't used it in many years then you will be fine -- ultimately. Of course, if you've tweeted/posted from it recently that won't work, and you could end up in detention for lying about it. But on the whole it would be better to take the time to delete that account.
I applied to an interesting research job for a US university a few years back, but only got to the first interview stage. I was going to try again with much more relevant experience in a couple months, but that's now completely out of the question for the next eight years at least. This is what happens when people stop taking democracy seriously.
I was detained and aggressively searched at the Canadian border (Montana/Alberta, for about 2 hours) in 1997; not because they thought I was a terrorist, but because they wanted to confirm that I wasn't coming to Canada to work. Friends of mine were turned back at the Canadian border later that same year. Canada has always claimed these rights.
I live in Washington and go to Whistler quite often to mountain bike. I've probably crossed the border 25 times in the last few years, and the only thing that the Canadian border patrol seems to care about is that I'm not bringing weapons into Canada. I wonder if they have knowledge that I have a CCW in WA. But in general they are always quite polite about things, which I can't say about crossing the border on the return trip.
Tagential but is it not absolutely bizzare that at the US/Can border relocating to work is seen as a deadly sin, while broader US policy has brought so many immigrants into the country since JFK? Without saying either side is right or wrong, US Gov policy wholistically appears schizophrenic
If you're on a work visa then you're being upfront about planning to work and have the appropriate visa for it.
If you enter on a tourist visa (or visa waiver, whose conditions are usually the same as tourist visa) they want to be sure you aren't committing visa fraud and planning to work. That's what causes the grilling.
Yes, but why is that a big deal in the first place, vs. being offered a job and paying a small administrative fee to adjust a visa? The siege mentality is part of the problem.
As a German tourist the most annoying thing getting into Canada is to wait in line while all these other nationalities get questioned extensively before being waved through in 20secs. Wear your bright colored gore tex jackets guys!
The Alain Philippon vs CBSA action was never tested in court. Failure to divulge information hasn't been defined as 'hindering' before, so the case would probably have to go to the Supreme Court of Canada for it to be decided.
Secondly, even at the border you can choose to remain silent. The most likely worst outcome is you get refused entry if you are not Canadian.
I've never had a nice experience returning to Canada (either by plane or car) after a trip to the US or Mexico. I get the full "random search" in a secluded room every single time.
Anecdotal, but: I suspect that the CBP have very specific criteria that can flag specific situations. I know someone who would systematically get arrested/interrogated by plain clothes officers if she was returning back to Canada alone. When not alone, no problem. Once, she was on the point of being arrested, when she pointed to her partner, and they stepped back. Although they never wanted to admit why.
After a bit of A/B testing, it seems to have been "older woman traveling alone with a fancy watch" that was flagging her. Without the watch, the problems went away.
CBP is Customs and Border Protection which is the American department for that. Canada has the CBSA - Canadian Border Services Agency. So you wouldn't get harassed by the CBP if you were entering Canada, it would be the CBSA.
Same here! When I was on a green card, I got grilled probably 30% of the time going to Canada. We're talking accusations of smuggling a car into the country and harsh questions about exactly what family I was visiting.
Going back to the US (even as a non-citizen!) I usually just got a "Welcome home!".
As an Indian that used to live in Canada for some time, I got the same "Welcome home" with a smile from Canadian immigration. I still miss that as I don't even get that when I actually come home to India.
I suspect that part of the reason here is a tit-for-tat.
The USA has a long history of being nasty to Canadians on the suspicion of them going there to work. Similar things happening to US visitors to Brazil and several other places.
Having a Dutch passport this never was a problem for me when returning to Canada, even though I was actually working there.
Entering Brazil as a US citizen was an interesting experience. Long pseudo-interrogation, fingerprinting, the whole nine yards. It wasn't until later I learned they basically just decided to do to all US citizens what the US was doing to Brazilians (and certainly others).
Brazil has a weird policy (the "reciprocity" law) that makes them apply to visitors from some countries whatever that country applies to visitors from Brazil. In theory that only applies to what kind of visas are necessary, but often they do so in terms of immigration/customs policy too.
So yeah, a while ago the US started requiring electronic fingerprints from Brazilian visitors (and everyone else I think?) so that's why Brazil started requiring that from US visitors.
I am Brazilian, and I think it's an outdated measure that serves little to no benefit, especially for Brazil itself.
It's fun (in a semi-vengeful way) to submit, say, Americans to the same level of scrutiny they apply to Brazilians. But it also means you're creating artificial barriers against making the country a more popular tourism destination. People in some countries are just not used to having to go throw all these hops to get to visit a country, just because they don't have to; when they learn that they have to go to a consulate in person, in select cities, stand in line for hours, go through an interview, and pay about $150 or so for the right to visit the country, they're quick to change their mind and just pick some other destination that is either easier or that allows you to do all of that online.
The country is basically making it difficult for people to bring you money.
This policy hurts Brazil more than it hurts anyone else.
It does make sense to do this, more countries need to stand up and say if you treat our citizens this way we are going treat yours the same. I mean the travelers interact with border control and the citizens are the only ones who legitimately can bring these complains to their border agencies. Ultimately it comes to be that citizens need to defend non-citizens rights and "reciprocity" policy might be effective because most people only act on their selfish interests.
This policy has been in place for decades with no change. That makes me doubt it effectiveness. I've heard of plenty of USA -> BR travelers being turned away at the border because they didn't realize they needed visas (a common occurrence for people traveling for conferences). Ultimately they understand the reasons and even empathize with the country, but it doesn't change the fact that for them it's easier to just not come.
To me it's more about an ineffective, vain attempt to show power than anything else.
If you're on a work visa you're obviously allowed to work.
If you enter on a tourist visa (or visa waiver, whose conditions are usually the same as tourist visa) they want to be sure you aren't committing visa fraud and planning to work. That's what causes the grilling.
"Or, to simply stop traveling to countries that refuse to play nice with the rights of foreigners. "
Which countries would those be? As far as I know, every country (or quasi-country, such as the EU) asserts the right to carry out a full inspection of anything crossing its border.
As far as I know, Swiss border police/customs officers (which often operate at random places in the country, not necessarily at the border) are not allowed to check the content of any electronic device without a search warrant.
They can ask you to unlock the phone and show the IMEI number when suspicious of theft, but that's about it.
With phones without sealed batteries, the IMEI(s) are usually printed on a sticker in the battery compartment. Samsung and Apple engrave the IMEI on the outer casing of sealed devices.
Always know where the manufacturer printed the IMEI, so you don't have to unlock the phone in front of police.
Of course, if you give them the IMEI it facilitates them listening to your phone calls and tracking your location. The 'checking for stolen phones' thing seems totally implausible to me.
It's quite effective, tbh. Stealing phones is still a way to net loads of money if you know a buyer who doesn't give a damn about the source. Hard-reset the phone so it appears clean and off you go.
The only vendor that actively prevents the usage of stolen phones is Apple, because the owner can remote-lock it even if the phone gets wiped via iCloud.
The ideal way would be if network operators cooperated by maintaining a list of "supposedly stolen" IMEI codes and alerted police if a matching phone tries to log in into the network.
IMEI is sent when you register to operator's network, so you get that kind of information anyway. Asking for IMEI at the border links person to a physical device so you have a complete set for tracking.
The point is that the problem "Listen to Ms Jane Robert's phone calls" goes from "Of all phones on the network, identify Ms Jane Robert's" to "Ms Jane Roberts has a phone with IMEI xxxx, log all traffic for all SIM identities; prepare implant for LG G5 sold with Vodafone config."
I think this is more an issue of practice than theory. Every country might claim the authority to search phones, but if they never actually use it, there is no concern entering those countries in a practical sense.
And considering that something like 0.01% of travelers into the US are ever affected by this, you could say in a practical sense there is no concern here either. That's basically a rounding error worth away from 0%.
In fact it sounds more like they generally target specific individuals based on their politics or whatever red flag gets thrown on them from the system. That's certainly dangerous in a way, but in essence harmless to the vast majority of us.
It doesn't appear that most countries are using this kind of search as a tool of political harassment or intimidation, while there's enough evidence that the US is for people to be concerned.
The same could be said about the proportion of innocent people who would be jailed without the presumption of innocence. Yet I still support the presumption of innocence, even though I personally have never needed it. It makes me feel safer and allows me to trust and cooperate with the authorities.
Yea, nice. The Government/Law enforcement harassing dissidents at the border is definitely equivalent to the Nazis rounding up and executing political and religious minorities. /s
Not to make light of this issue, it's a serious matter, but don't be ridiculous.
I'm not sure it's ridiculous to suggest that failing to stop law the misuse of law enforcement tools to harass dissidents early invites worse oppression later. These things have a way of ratcheting up until they get significant push back.
Maybe. Seems like the FBI and federal agencies were harassing dissidents a lot worse in the 60s and 70s through COINTELPRO than they are now. I don't know if it's really worse now so much as different with new avenues of harassment into our digital lives. You think dissidents weren't harassed at the border before everyone carried a cell phone?
The post I was replying to was basically a vague reference to creeping fascism/nazism, and then implying that the same is happening in the US and that we're on the brink of descending into nazism. It's stupid sophomoric comparison to make.
Yea we should fight back against this type of legal harassment. Sure it's similar to how nazis once operated. But what does that comparison really provide in this situation other than throwing FUD onto it. Do you really think the US is about to rise into the Fourth Reich? I mean seriously... even if you feel like Trump is the antichrist, this policy undoubtedly came into effect during the Bush/Obama years when laptops and cell phones became ubiquitous.
I think a lot of it is that there's so much more digital paper trail and so much more stuff is done electronically nowadays you can't as easily stop being a thorn in their side (i.e activist for some cause) without them continuing to treat you like one.
In the 1960s you could decide that you'd done enough and move to a new city across the country and get a fairly fresh start. Now any trivial interaction with "the system" would get you red flagged at every subsequent interaction.
The cops "randomly" stop an acquaintance of mine fairly regularly and give him much more crap ever since one of his kids got a misdemeanor speeding ticket (threshold is 20-over which is typical traffic speed in some places) in that vehicle with those plates.
>think the US is about to rise into the Fourth Reich?
Not literally but people have diverse sets of political beliefs. It's not a stretch to imagine individual groups that are for/against something being persecuted. Imagine how civil rights activists or the pro-socialist hippies would be treated today.
Are you able to provide sources for the position you put forth about similar US harassment of political dissidents decades ago?
Obama prosecuted more journalists and whistle blowers than any president in history.
And we're not talking about turning into Nazi Germany. We're talking about why government crimes against their own people, especially for political speech, should never be allowed to happen because they can result in worse outcomes than you would expect.
> And we're not talking about turning into Nazi Germany. We're talking about why government crimes against their own people, especially for political speech, should never be allowed to happen because they can result in worse outcomes than you would expect.
And Germany didn't turn up Nazi overnight. It's always a slippery slope to prosecute people for political purposes. What happens in Canada with it misuse of human rights tribunal and what happens in many other western countries where the social climate currently is that everyone considers to be okay to suppress free speech because someones feelings are hurt. It is not a human right to be able to silence uncomfortable opinions, yet it is exactly what we see in these phenomenon of social justice warriors only there is no justice there to be made. This entitlement and the need to control of others is actually what scares me the most. You see it everywhere, people in uniforms and people in academia specially social sciences.
That's not the point. The point is that when you say "the ends justify the means", you are putting the rule of law below what is personally convenient for you. And if you can do that, then anyone can do that. And when anyone can do that, then you have a clear path towards authoritarianism.
Hah. As a matter of fact, the Nazi movement did get started by harassing political dissidents, not by executing minorities. Although this took the form more akin to the AntiFa riots (the Nazi Brownshirts) than border inspections, but the targeted abuse to political dissidents was the same
They don't even let you into Iran without making you perjure yourself into pretending to be religious. "Atheist" or "none" is not an option on the form and is grounds for deportation or execution (if you're Iranian and renounce Islam).
If you're atheist, agnostic, or nonreligious, and are forced to declare a religion, just say "Unitarian Universalist". Official church doctrine is essentially, "believe whatever you want; spirituality is a deeply personal experience, yet it can be shared with others".
That may be easy for people who live in other countries, but keep in mind that it's not "simply" for the millions of non-citizens who legally live here.
I was in a position to move the the USA about 10 years ago and decided against it because I foresaw quite a bit of the developments since then. So indeed, that's not simple once you have made that choice. But for some it may be a reason to move back to where they originally hailed from and in my circle of friends this is already happening (and many more people are talking about it and considering it).
This is going to hurt America quite a bit by the time it has run its course.
This is rather naive. All countries in the world assert similar rights to search you and your devices at their borders. This is not by any means unique to the US.
This is also very rare at the US border, as it says in the article. Most countries in the world are far more aggressive about searching you, and even actively demanding bribes to let you in.
I usually agree with you but I question the validity of that approach. Insofar as freedom is compromised in the US, it's likely to have a substantial ripple effect, just as economic upsets do. Were the US ever to devolve into an autocracy, it's not like there is any other country positioned to sweoop in and save the day.
The rise of terrorists and other dangerous activists with the "world has no borders" mindset have given rise to the border security policies we are now being exposed to. We should expect more tightening of borders throughout the world as governments' catch up.
The free flow of immigrants has its risks and unless these activists stop poisoning the well then things will continue to be unpleasant.
Or, to simply stop traveling to countries that refuse to play nice with the rights of foreigners. The whole idea that this sort of thing is even anywhere near acceptable behavior revolts me.