Just disgusting. If you can swing it, and there’s so many other necessary NGOs and civil liberties organizations, but please donate to the EFF and ACLU.
Next up will be an addition to the customs declarations form that asks:
How much do you love Donald J. Trump?
Maybe with a graphic of a thermometer to color in so even Comrade Chaos could understand it.
In theory they have (according to the courts) a perfect right to do this when they think it’s necessary. In practice, it’s another weapon of intimidation. (And no, I don’t think the data gathered it useful.)
I know some people who travel extensively for business and only take disposable phones and laptops when going to certain countries. Guess they’ll have to add the US to the list.
The government says nothing has changed. Customs officials also say the perceived shift can be attributed to a jump in the number of electronic devices that people are carrying with them and shifting tactics as the agency adjusts to the amount and types of information that can be stored on today’s devices.
Right. Because on Jan 19, everyone still had flip phones - not much data on those. But on Jan 20, everyone went out and bought smart phones. So all of sudden, “the amount and types of information that can be stored” just skyrocketed to the point we needed the jackboots in the border patrol to start searching Canadian journalists’ phones to see if they’d been reading anti-trump very, very, so unfair fake news. Makes sense.
Border agents have long had the right to search travelers’ physical luggage without a warrant.
Chiselin’ Trump’s new executive order also allows them to grab pussies.
“I was just doing my job.” will not be an allowable defense.
It’s time to bring “this” to an end by any means necessary before it gets out of hand.
Just take the SIM card out of the phone and hide the card somewhere in the car. Hand the border a-hole a phone that’s about as useful as a paperweight.
Conflicted here, because real terrorists are reading your how-to advice. By recommending leaving a key component in the car you’re just repeating the normal advice which is taking a non-working-phone or no phone with you overseas, and buy a cheap one there. That is, if you think you are at risk of having your phone seized which I guess is a pretty tiny risk. It obviously goes up if you are planning a trip to Mecca of course, or chatting with those close to you in Yemen.