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International Travel Guide for Basecamp employees

381 points by slyall 10y ago

8draco8 10y ago
I live in Europe. From my perspective going to US looks like going to some kind totalitarian country. First I have to got visa which is not automatically approved because I'm Polish not British. Then I have to go trough a lot of, mostly pointless, security checks, checking social accounts, interrogations, scans and manual personal revisions. On any stage of that I can be handcuffed and sent back to Europe for almost no reason. It's sad but from where I sits US starts to look like all of those countries they was fighting with "for the freedom".
- louhike 10y ago
  Yes, it feels strange but me and my girlfriend have decided it is not worth it to try to go to america on holidaysfor now because of all these difficulties.
- collyw 10y ago
  The UK seems to be trying its hardest to catch up.
  - krtkush 10y ago
    India is going further and beyond[1]. [1] http://www.firstpost.com/india/aadhaar-mandatory-citizens-dont-have-absolute-right-on-their-body-privacy-argument-bogus-govt-tells-sc-3420398.html http://www.firstpost.com/india/aadhaar-mandatory-citizens-do...
    - TheArcane 10y ago
      This right wing wave is agaibst globalization. What do you expect?
  - Yizahi 10y ago
    On the visa price front they already beat everyone else. 115$ for half year visa? Or 450$ for two years visa? Great.
    - te_chris 10y ago
      Walk in the park. I just got a Tier 1 (Exceptional Talent) visa. Total cost for mine and my partners (including flights home to NZ because, apparently, the world would end if people on working holiday visas were allowed to transition in-country)? £~5.5k
    - Markoff 10y ago
      that seem pretty reasonable compared to third world country like China where I had to pay like 110€ for yearly FAMILY visa, because why not charge husband of Chinese citizen visa (plus had to renew it each year like some newcomer student) and you can't even work with this visa anyway, according Chinese government you should be freeloading on your spouse now compare it with my wife in EU - 5 year residence permit for free, of course including work permit and also because she is taking care of our child she got free healthcare insurance
- danieldk 10y ago
  We had serious plans to go on holiday to the US this year. I have been in the US at least a dozen of times, and absolutely love the desert states, Oregon, and Washington. Entering the US was already a large hassle, but with Trump's travel bans, rumors of phone, laptop, and social media checks, we have decided to postpone our travel plans until the political/security climate improves. Semi-related: we were in the market for a new car. One of the factors we decided to go for a European car this time (we had a Ford Focus before) is that we'd like to support Trump America as little as possible. Before you say that this is overreacting, hear me out: the US belongs to US citizens. If you want this president, fine. But some of his policies, such as denying climate change and undermining journalism is going te have a large influence on the rest of us.
  - ItendToDisagree 10y ago
    The majority of US citizens did not vote for Trump. Just thought I'd point out that most people DO NOT want this president.
    - bkor 10y ago
      Around half did want him? That's a significant of people to me, no matter if they have the majority or not.
      - klausjensen 10y ago
        Technically, only ~57% of eligible voters actually voted. Of those, about half voted for Trump. So only about 27% of all eligible voters actually voted for Trump. That is pretty standard for a US presidential election. Those are the rules for democracy, so he is the legitimately elected president. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/10/13587462/trump-election-2016-voter-turnout https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/10/13587462/...
        danieldk 10y ago
        So only about 27% of all eligible voters actually voted for Trump. The remaining 43% voted for 'I'll take whoever wins'. So, ~72% of the eligible voters can be held accountable for him becoming president. Those are the rules for democracy, so he is the legitimately elected president. Definitely, it is legitimate, even if we don't like the outcome ;).
- apexalpha 10y ago
  GF traveled to the US for work, a conference in Houston. Everyone that looked Arab of Muslim was 'randomly' picked out of line. Some of the employees had to undress and squat in front of the TSA and one had to undergo cavity searches. These were regular European citizens. Let's just say conferences will be help in Europe or Canada in the future...
  - HappyTypist 10y ago
    Are you serious? Strip and cavity searches? This needs to be on the media.
    - irrlichthn 10y ago
      What would it change?
    - Markoff 10y ago
      it's not that uncommon even in Europe to be honest, if you will find German policeman who had bad day and you drive car with foreign (PL, CZ mostly) license plate you can be searched same way under suspicion of carrying drugs and you can do nothing about it and it's happening occasionally
      - crummy 10y ago
        do we have the same definition of "cavity search"? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_cavity_search https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_cavity_search
        Markoff 10y ago
        yes but you won't find articles about this in international media, because it's just lowly Eastern Europeans
    - fastball 10y ago
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWdD206eSv0&hl=en-GB&gl=GB https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWdD206eSv0&hl=en-GB&gl=GB
- jdietrich 10y ago
  If you have to travel to the US, fly via Shannon Airport in Ireland. A special arrangement with the Irish government allows you to pass through US immigration and customs controls while you're still on Irish soil. When you arrive in the US, you're treated as a domestic passenger. You don't avoid the intrusive interrogations, but they're a lot more polite about it because they can't detain you. If you're refused entry, you can fly home at your own leisure rather than being detained and deported. http://www.shannonairport.ie/gns/passengers/prepare/us-preclearance.aspx http://www.shannonairport.ie/gns/passengers/prepare/us-precl...
  - mugsie 10y ago
    Dublin airport also has the same arrangement - it makes travelling much easier.
    - s_kilk 10y ago
      And if we're honest, Dublin is a better airport than Shannon
      - youngtaff 10y ago
        Each time I've been through it the US immigration hall in Dublin has been a right 'zoo'
  - beagle3 10y ago
    Don't know if it is still the case, but Canada had a similar arrangement last time I flew through Toronto (about 10 years ago)
    - Terretta 10y ago
      Yes
  - mstade 10y ago
    Arlanda airport in Stockholm is also working on a pre-clearance arrangement like this[1], although it won't start until 2019 at the earliest it seems. [1]: https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/national-media-release/united-states-sweden-sign-agreement-open-preclearance-facility https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/national-media-release/united-s...
- kyrre 10y ago
  Judging by the narrative the media is putting out one would think that Poland is a nightmare patriarchal state where rape victims are denied abortion and politicians agree that woman should be paid less because they are too 'small, weak and unintelligent' for equal pay. Be more critical. Traveling to the US is a breeze for Europeans.
  - Markoff 10y ago
    Traveling to the US is a breeze for white Europeans. FTFY
    - pferde 10y ago
      A breeze for white Europeans who do not mind all the privacy intrusions and indecencies they have to go through if they so much as blink their eyes or make a face at the wrong moment.
  - ItendToDisagree 10y ago
    Why would anyone want to go to a country like that right? Unless they wanted to work in Texas or something.
  - therpe1 10y ago
    That's the narrative the media is pushing only in your head. It's obvious you have no respect for the truth but please don't insult the rest of us by misrepresenting easily googleable news stories. Given that your baseless allegations about "the media' who here really needs to be more critical?
  - pg314 10y ago
    > Traveling to the US is a breeze for Europeans. No, it isn't. I am European, travelled twice to the US last year. Each time multi-hour wait for the USCBP check. From take-off in Brussels to landing in NYC took less time than getting from JFK to Manhattan. If I can avoid it, I will not be travelling to the US any time soon.
    - 10y ago
- wil421 10y ago
  Quit believeing everything on the internet. I'm sure those things happen but are so far off the norm. I've been to Europe twice this past year and I don't think it's any different. In Italy there was military everywhere in Rome and Florence. At every monument and Big site there were military with guns looking at everyone. Sometimes stopping people. I've never been patted down and searched as bad as I was in Frankfurt. Security and questioning was on par with US customs. Don't even get me started on Serbia.
  - ibejoeb 10y ago
    Europe, indeed. Try going to a museum in Paris. Not even New York has that level of military presence.
- falcodream 10y ago
  I agree with your observations, but I wanted to offer a positive viewpoint on them. One thing I learned about the US over the years is that a lot of law enforcement's heavy-handedness is an emergent property of supporting a country with extreme notions of personal liberty, not a reaction against it. The gamut of socially acceptable behavior is much wider in the US. That's necessarily reflected in how their police function, and shouldn't be to their detriment.
- mtempm 10y ago
  You are right. Thats one of the reasons Ron Paul said we need a revolution over here.
- openplatypus 10y ago
  Fingers crossed EU will implement visa reciprocity rule. Fingers crossed.
  - ryfm 10y ago
    so how is it going to make things better?
- omk 10y ago
  That's almost every developed country for an Indian passport.
oblio 10y ago
I know we would only have anecdotal evidence here, but I'd like to hear from other HackerNews readers. My guess is that based on where you're from and how you look, your experience with the CBP can vary wildly. Edit: s/TSA/CBP.
- cr1895 10y ago
  FYI: TSA and CBP are not the same. You first interact with CBP when you enter the US, and then you interact with TSA for security while flying within the US.
staticelf 10y ago
I recently visited the US and I thought the process was going to be hell after reading a lot of these threads on HN. Turns out it was pretty chill, got some questions before boarding and was selected for extra security check. Then upon landing I got like 3 questions from the officer, how long I would stay, where my friends were and what the purpose of my trip was. Sure they didn't seem very friendly but it wasn't a big of a hassle. I didn't bring my laptop though because I don't want it searched. It seems like you run on luck mostly. You only need to give up passwords and such if you are unlucky.
- Markoff 10y ago
  any reason for extra security check, are you white man?
  - staticelf 10y ago
    No I don't believe so. I estimate that 1/3 was selected. I am whiter than snow.
    - Markoff 10y ago
      that somehow contradict the other guy who posted that 99.9% are smooth without extra check and now you dump here 33% checked :) that seem fairly big even to me, can't imagine what European country would deserve such percentage, were you departing from Brussels or Istanbul?
      - staticelf 10y ago
        Brussels and my origin is Sweden. The chances of me being a terrorist is pretty much non-existant.
        Markoff 9y ago
        there you go, HQ of EU and terrorists in Europe
- 10y ago
sidchilling 10y ago
Woah... this definitely seems over the board! If all of this is required, it's a recent thing, I guess. I have been to the US multiple times with a B1-Business Visa and didn't do any of this stuff. I just showed up and the customs officer asked a bunch of questions about my purpose of visit and that's about it. I didn't need any invitation letter or hotel bookings, etc. Hotel bookings and a LOT of other documentation is required when applying for a tourist / business visa for Europe or UK, but traveling to the US has always been fairly straightforward (except that you need to make two visits the US embassy or consulate twice for the visa formalities). At all times, I had my company laptop with all the data + source code. Is this something that has recently begun?
- Fzzr 10y ago
  Yes. Recent (this administration) policies allow for demanding passwords etc. at the border. There was an incident where a NASA engineer lost control of sensitive data as a result https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/02/a-nasa-engineer-is-required-to-unlock-his-phone-at-the-border/516489/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/02/a-nas... It's not paranoia. Welcome to 2017. Edit: It's not like they're scanning every cell phone that enters the country... but they reserve the right to.
  - jlebrech 10y ago
    what does customs need with a spaceship?
    - Fzzr 10y ago
      Nothing, he was just selected (based on who knows what criteria, they don't need warrants) to be scanned. Whether or not they actually cared about the sensitive data on the device, he still lost control of it long enough for it to be copied or compromised.
  - tomp 10y ago
    Please stop spreading lies. This happened long before this administration. E.g. articles from 2016: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/28/us-customs-border-protection-social-media-accounts-facebook-twitter https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/28/us-custom... https://www.theverge.com/2016/12/22/14066082/us-customs-border-patrol-social-media-account-facebook-twitter https://www.theverge.com/2016/12/22/14066082/us-customs-bord...
tremon 10y ago
Besides the obvious "don't cross the border with work data", I found this recommendation much more interesting: [ask] for someone to remove you from the Basecamp team for 1Password so you no longer have access to Basecamp logins and passwords. Maybe we should temporarily suspend our employee's accounts too when they travel to the US.
- Markoff 10y ago
  maybe just stop traveling to US would be easier and cheaper solution, why one need to be physically present anywhere in 2017? i find it odd, i can understand it for my father that when some of his agricultural company partners has training, people from neighboring countries must travel there for hours to stay there for few hours and go back, but IT company in 2017? reminds me of Huawei which is still organizing teleconferences (!) for trainings, because why not let people call across half planet in horrible quality instead of providing cheap full HD video stream work live chat, it's not like there are hundreds of us, max 100 people present
  - pjmlp 10y ago
    Even most IT companies in 2017 still don't allow for home office, and the few that allow it, do a very timid "only in exceptional cases". Meanwhile working for enterprise consulting companies, all of which have offshore teams, means remote work is a daily activity. Funny enough some customers are exactly those companies that forbid home office to their own employees.
    - deathhand 10y ago
      I think the 'owners' don't believe at-home work can scale properly. Given a population a subset of humans will always try to beat the system. The 'butt in seats' mentality is believed to curtail that system cheating behavior.
      - sgift 10y ago
        The idea that a seat in the butt somehow would be a good deterrent against people 'cheating' the system always sounded amusing to me. One would think that companies have some way to measure someones work that's better than "Was he here for at least x hours? Yeah? Great, job done."
kidmenot 10y ago
This only reinforces my intention to postpone my first visit to the US until after this presidency and its associated madness have ended. EDIT: at least until after this presidency.
- isaac_is_goat 10y ago
  This has nothing to do with Trump, it was going on during the Obama era - and probably Bush and before (but I'm not sure) - but it was never a problem until now. Stop spreading FUD.
  - kidmenot 10y ago
    This has nothing to do with FUD, sorry. It's only one of the factors that discourages me from visiting, and if now it has become a problem, it means that this presidency somehow made it worse.
    - vultour 10y ago
      But it literally did not become a problem now. The airport checks are the same as they always were.
    - th4dv 10y ago
      > now it has become a problem It's always been a problem. It's just that now main stream media focus more on these issues to force the anti-trump agenda. (I'm not a huge fan of Trump btw.)
- imron 10y ago
  Don't expect it to get any better once Trump leaves office. This madness didn't begin with him and it won't end with him either.
  - acjohnson55 10y ago
    ^ Yep. Don't get me wrong, Trump is an utter catastrophe. But this was coming either way. The writing was on the wall after Apple vs the FBI showdown in the wake of the San Bernardino shooting. The intelligence apparatus will not tolerate lack of access.
SCdF 10y ago
Just don't travel there. I'm sure I'd be fine: I've been fine a dozen times before. That was before they decided that it was OK to demand passwords and so on. Maybe now it would be worse. Or maybe my skin colour lets me off the hook. Regardless, I'd rather just not waste jet fuel on flying to a place that treats anyone this way. Your phone/tablet/laptop is, for better or worse, a gateway to your entire life. It contains your photos, bank account credentials, messages between friends, messages between you and your wife, photos between you and your wife… Random border thugs absolutely should not have the right to rummage through it in another room. There are plenty of ways to do meetings remotely. There are plenty of places in the world you can travel to for work meetups that aren't the US. Just don't travel there.
- polotics 10y ago
  Only rational explanation: the current POTUS is a closet ecologist, decided to use scare tactics to reduce needless CO2 waste. (unlikely, but still...)
  - samat 10y ago
    This started long before Trump
  - pjc50 10y ago
    The only ration explanation is that the policy is what it claims to be: racial and nationalist discrimination. After all, that's what the huge pre-election rallies were cheering.
- cm2187 10y ago
  For me it's less the risk of being search than the massive queues in US airports that turn me off. Feels like queuing for food in Moscow in the Soviet area, just to take a plane.
  - LeifCarrotson 10y ago
    The Soviet era. But yes, I just traveled from Shanghai back to my home in the US. The queues in China were much, much shorter than those in the American airports. PVG posted a "25 minutes or less" target for all travellers to get through security and immigration. And they hit it, even at peak travel times with huge volumes of people. At American airports if you arrive less than an hour before boarding they might not allow you in until you rebook on a later flight. You could see it in the architecture of their systems: The American facilities have huge snaking queues designed for as much capacity as possible, which lead to obvious bottlenecks. And when you arrive at the front of the line, a gruff immigration officer in tactical gear doesn't look at the line except to say "No line jumping!" while they're taking 10 minutes on one individual. In China, there's just not enough distance in the line to allow a long delay to form, there's no single point bottlenecks to slow down the system, and helpful people direct you to the shortest lines.
omarqureshi 10y ago
I'm a British Muslim who flew to the US on Sunday. Honestly I had assumed it would be hell. In actual fact it was only a little more painful than before. I'm used to being randomly selected for an additional search every time in the UK premiere flight. My colleague (another British Muslim) was also selected which we found quite amusing. On the other side it wasn't bad, just answered truthfully, only snag was my colleague who accidentally had both a 10 year business visa and an ESTA at the same time who then had to go down to immigration to have it removed. After immigration I was asked to speak to a customs officer and that was it, I continued on my journey. Little more painful but not overly. Personally I think this guide is a little extreme and I'm sure in the worst case it probably does apply.
- smoyer 10y ago
  Welcome to the U.S.
- mattmanser 10y ago
  This is more to deal with the business risk rather than a personal risk. The US targeting companies with large amounts of data, obtaining passwords to access all of Basecamp's data, either for industrial espionage or counter-terrorism.
- kalleboo 10y ago
  There are 10s of millions of visitors to the US every year, and we hear about what, a couple incidents per year? That said, that's still too high a risk for business data.
- Markoff 10y ago
  your are not selected randomly, they use profiling and they search Muslims because majority of terrorists are Muslims, i can't comprehend why even smart people always come with this random check nonsense, do they really claim it's random and try to hide it instead of telling truth?
  - omarqureshi 10y ago
    Yes. I understand this
shpx 10y ago
This is a political statement highlighting the current legal uncertainty of refusing to unlock your devices at the US border[0]. By default iphones and macs are encrypted when you completely power them down, so the right way (assuming you have a good password) is to shut down your computers at the airport and only turn them back on when you've passed the border. Nothing interesting here tech-wise, effectively just a checklist of files to manually delete or encrypt. I'm not a lawyer, but to me this seems like just plugging holes until someone puts up the money and time to rule the whole thing unconstitutional. [0] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/02/what-could-happen-if-you-refuse-to-unlock-your-phone-at-the-us-border/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/02/what-could-happe...
- DanBC 10y ago
  When they ask you to power on your device, and unlock it, and you refuse they don't say "that's ok, in you go", they deny you entry.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - plandis 10y ago
    If you're not a US citizen. CBP cannot legally deny entry to the US for US citizens.
- kalleboo 10y ago
  If you're a US citizen they have to let you in, but if you're a visitor they'll probably just turn you back at the border. The article says a South Korean man won a lawsuit against an unreasonable search, but you're not going to be able to do that from your home country.
- rurban 10y ago
  They closed this loophole a couple of years ago, by explicitly demanding that your devices need to be powered on and have enough battery power when entring the country. So powering off your device, putting out the battery or encrypting it is all forbidden.
rocqua 10y ago
Would it be accepted to give a wipe code rather than a password to customs?
- DanBC 10y ago
  They would deny you entry if you did that.
  - HappyTypist 10y ago
    YMMV. I refused a month ago and sat in secondary for 3 hours, but they eventually let me in. On ESTA.
  - dawnerd 10y ago
    You you could be charged with lying and/or destroying evidence and who knows what else. Definitely don't do that. Worse thing to do is lie or attempt to deceive an agent.
- paulajohnson 10y ago
  They might consider it a lie if you represented it as a password, and arrest you for it.
- jlebrech 10y ago
  you could require your machine to demand a username as well as password and give them details to a 'clean' user to whoever asks.
binarray2000 10y ago
Are there other US companies which have same/similar policy?
celticninja 10y ago
So what happens when they ask for my Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat logins and I do not have accounts with these companies? If a simple "I don't have social media accounts" is acceptable then I'm not sure why they even ask for passwords. Proving a negative is very hard.
- HappyTypist 10y ago
  They keep it in record and in the future if they ever found out you lied, you can be jailed for 10 years.
  - r3m3mb3rm3 10y ago
    Then you can say that you have some accounts but you don't remember the password anymore: "I'm just logged in from my computer at home. If I delete the cookies I don't know if I would be able to get the password again"
    - lukealization 10y ago
      This is genuinely applicable to me. I don't remember any of my passwords since I'm logged in at most places via cookies, and my passwords are completely randomized strings two dozen or more characters long, stored in a password manager. Do border security understand how password managers work, or would I have to tell them how to access my own data? Showerthought: If I delete my password manager from my phone, maybe the password manager should perform geolocation and detect if the application is trying to be installed at an airport (possibly indicating installation against my will). That's a very nuanced situation.
      - hdhzy 10y ago
        I suspect they understand how password managers work and either ask you for access or take your hardware and fiddle with it off-screen (Evil Maid attack? [0]). Otherwise if they don't like you they just send you back home and that's it. [0]: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/10/evil_maid_attac.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/10/evil_maid_att...
lucaspiller 10y ago
Re the purpose of visit, have the rules of what is defined as work changed recently? I traveled a couple of years ago to LA to work on-site with my employer for a couple of weeks - I told the customs official this, and they let me through without issue. I'm from the UK so just got ESTA.
- osullivj 10y ago
  When they ask if it's work or vacations I always say "meetings". Worked for me so far...
benevol 10y ago
> "Don't Travel With Work Data" Why would I value my personal data any less than my work data? So what this rally means is: "Don't Travel With Any Data". And knowing that they only need to plug an infected USB device into your PC/phone/tablet to infect the latter irrevocably, the situation can now be summed up as: "Don't Travel With Any Data Or Any Hardware". Now what does that say about the sate of a country?
- mstade 10y ago
  Recall that these are instructions to employees – the company's first obligation is to protect the company, not the employees. Wiping work data is simply a means of limiting liability. Should sensitive data leak out due to a laptop getting seized at the border that's a lot more serious to the company than if your nudes were stolen.
  - cmrdporcupine 10y ago
    Contrast this with my employer's advice: cooperate fully with the authorities, our lawyers can and will defend the company, we are more concerned about your safety. Telling people to work travel and then telling them to not bring work data seems like you should have told them not to travel at all?
    - rapind 10y ago
      Retracted. Misread the article. Apologies.
      - cmrdporcupine 10y ago
        I think you're being deliberately obtuse and argumentative. I never mentioned personal time travel. The context is an article telling people not to bring work data with them when traveling for work/professional functions. If you're traveling for work, and your company can't guarantee your safe and reasonably comfortable travel to that destination in a work capacity -- they should recommend you not go.
bnt 10y ago
I'm from Eastern Europe and I (literally) just flew back from a 2 week work trip from the US (California): - Getting a visa was a painless process. I just applied and I got a business visa. - Entering the States required me to show my passport. Nothing else. Nobody asked me why I was going there, nobody asked me to show my phone or laptop (I had both). There was no separation, pat downs etc.
- 1337biz 10y ago
  Maybe because Eastern Europeans are rarely shooting or bombing innocent people? Just a wild, wild guess...
  - foldr 10y ago
    In the US you mean? Eastern Europe isn't entirely free of terrorist activity, assuming that you include Chechnya.
    - m_eiman 10y ago
      There's a place called Ukraine…
    - 1337biz 10y ago
      Last time I checked these were local military conflicts and not about murdering innocent civilians around the world.
      - mcrae 10y ago
        You might remember that the perpetrators of the Boston Marathon Bombing were Chechen. I say this not because I think we should screen Chechens more thoroughly now, but because your original appeal to profiling at the border is provably ineffective and, frankly, ignorant.
- bloomca 10y ago
  There are tons of commentaries like that, and there is nothing wrong with it. Also, US is like second biggest visiting destination in the world, and of course they don't want to scare everyone. So, all of these dreadful stories are true, but they are just a drop in the ocean. The problem here is a possibility. The mere necessity to think about it, to possibly sweat in the line, to think about what have I erased or not, makes it bad. First of all, you are not treated with a dignity. Second of all, without precautions, you easily can be embarrassed (many people don't care and keep really private info, like messages or photos on their phone). And the last – there is a small, but a possibility that you'll fuck up a little, and you will be detained. It is a small chance, but it presents, and it is not a pleasant thought.
marknote 10y ago
Welcome to come to China to make business meetings :)
- Markoff 10y ago
  no need to worry someone will go through your Facebook, Gmail and other accounts even if they wanted, they will force you to sign up for WeChat and buy Alibaba share on top of it
emeidi 10y ago
I've traveled from Zürich to Los Angeles on Good Friday (April 14, 2017) for leisure - my first visit since February 2016 and thus my first trip to Trump's 'murrica. I was joined with my dad who recently retired and never has left the continent - his first long haul flight and first time to the US. I feared and prepared for the worst and I even was debating about leaving my iPhone, iPad and MacBook Air at home to avoid any searches. It turned out to become the smoothest immigration ever: We stood at the curb waiting for the car rental bus within 45 minutes after we stepped out of the plane. Short lines, smoothly working self-service kiosks, a friendly immigration officer, not one single intimidating or aggressive question. Way to go!
- hrrsn 10y ago
  I went through LAX for the first time in December 2016. The immigration line was long and took about an hour to get through but other than that it was pretty painless.
- pcurve 10y ago
  " a friendly immigration officer" I've never seen this one in the U.S. or anywhere else. I think they are trained to be neutral or even aloof.
  - staticelf 10y ago
    Upon arriving in Finland the passport control officer even welcomed me in my native tounge (Swedish). If come through passport control in the nordic countries I can guarantee they will be friendly.
  - Markoff 10y ago
    i had pretty good experiences in Philippines or Malaysia, i would say at least third of immigration officers i met at various borders were friendly. from Europe recently we had very nice Polish woman officer who was very welcoming to our family with small child in EU passports queue despite my wife not being from EU worst experiences were probably Austrian Nazi guys investigating repeatedly my wife's passport, while at other border with Hungary they let freely roam across Europe thousands of illegal immigrants
jbb67 10y ago
Most of the posts on here are ridiculous. People saying they are not going on holiday to the USA because it's too much of a pain. Seriously. We applied online for the visa thing. It took under 5 minutes. Then at the airport we queued up at immigration for around 10 minutes. We showed our passport and answered one question about purpose of visit, and they waved us though. This is the experience of 99.9% of those who visit.
- Markoff 10y ago
  so you say only 1 passenger out of 1000 has extra search, I highly doubt that
- pg314 10y ago
  > This is the experience of 99.9% of those who visit. Seems unlikely. The two times I visited the US last year the immigration queue at JFK was a multi-hour wait.
- infimum 10y ago
  from what i gather all the ridiculous security theater is because there's a non-zero chance of anyone being terrorist. i find it absolutely reasonable to avoid traveling to a place when there's an even bigger chance of being treated like garbage.
- GFischer 10y ago
  What country are you from? That is not the experience for people from my country (Uruguay, Latin America), nor for any of the high population countries, and it is highlighted in this article. I applied for (and was granted) an U.S. visitor (B-1) visa last month, it was very expensive, I had to fill out a form that took significantly more than 5 minutes (several hours because I had to contact family members for details), and I had to schedule an in-person interview where they (very politely) cross checked most of what I wrote in the visa form, and were very detailed in the questions. That's why the article says "If your country does not participate in the Visa Waiver Program or you are not eligible for an ESTA, you'll need to apply for a B-1 business visitor visa… the long way." "We'll work with you through this process. Start early, as soon as we have dates for a meetup or conference. Visa appointments and processing can take weeks to months." That directly contradicts your claim (and matches my experience). I still haven't flown to the U.S., but those in my family who have, experienced multi-hour delays (my mother lost her flight in Boston only last month due to 2 hours in the immigration queue), most of my family members have been set aside for in-depth questioning at least once, etc. I do know some Europeans have a very different experience (those under ESTA), but I'm not certain your saying "the experience of 99.9% of those who visit" is correct. You might notice that none of the highly populated countries (China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Russia and Mexico) are in this list: http://www.esta.us/visa_waiver_countries.html http://www.esta.us/visa_waiver_countries.html
jlg23 10y ago
> Put Andrea and our attorney on speed dial. If that is advice you have to give to your employees, either stop working for the US army in war zones or hold meetings in a free country.
ksjjf 10y ago
>At Customs: >Here to do work? Nope! Here on business, meeting with Basecamp I never understood this. What's the difference? In both instances, money is being earned.
- betaby 10y ago
  Important things are a) which entity is going to pay b) where is added value created. In terms of business meeting both are mostly other seas. I had that info about meetings in my travel guide at least for 10 yeas.
- plandis 10y ago
  I've been told something similar when going to Canada (I work for Amazon and we have offices in Seattle, WA and Vancouver, B.C.) Basically, I'm required to not work on anything not related to whatever the purpose of my visit is. For example, if I have a meeting with Team A then I'm not legally allowed to work on anything unrelated to meeting with Team A. I'm on a business trip to meet with Team A. I'm not in Canada to do my normal work.
bloomca 10y ago
So, many comments here target US or Trump in particular. But in fact, as many noted, there is not real connection – it started long time ago. Also, I bet, there are quotas (e.g. number of people) to be detained, so they have to fulfil it. Also, US is just an example here (because many conferences are held in the US), but also there are stories from the UK, for instance. From my point of view, the problem is that with social networks it is extremely easy to get access to your whole life – it is already pretty easy to identify person on the facebook, for instance (right now there is no way to prove that it is _exactly_ you, but I am pretty sure they will be soon). So, with restrictions on such monopoly media (and I've heard it is already harder to register on the Facebook), it is very easy to end up in a situation where we will get "human score" (similar to credit score, but in the digital world), which will be used in such situation. And even the bigger problem is that it might be needed for a work, for a loan application, etc, so you wouldn't be able to do all this without it (or even "to apply for a visa your score should be higher than 3.0". My predictions are that governments will try to work more closely with popular platforms trying to emerge such (there were few stories than people were detained because of tweets) metrics, and to broad access not only from your phone, but from their device, just your user profile.
- ibejoeb 10y ago
  The UK border is far worse. Surprisingly, the easiest border I've ever crossed on an American passport was Russia's. No questions, not hassles, neither in nor out.
elorant 10y ago
Why can't US adopt Israel's border control practices? Going in and out of Israel is a breeze. Sure, it's strict, as it should be, but you never feel harassed or worse. And surely their problem with terrorism is equal if not larger than that of US.
- jug5 10y ago
  The part you don't understand is that the US "border control" is about security theatre and not actual security.
- reirob 10y ago
  I don't know if it changed in the meantime, but I was flying to Israel in 99 and it was an experience I will not forget my whole life. It included the security officers making a call to my parents pretending to be my friend and asking where I am - I guess it was a trick. My mother was very scared, because she didn't know this guy's voice. I found this very mean. Hopefully it changed in a positive way.
faragon 10y ago
Please, stop bigotry and nationalist hatred. That's for both the US, and the ones willing to do the same as revenge against the US people. Let's stop the nationalist madness together.
edanm 10y ago
I really can't believe all the negativity here towards traveling to the US. You're taking a few admittedly awful anecdotes, and turning them into giant statistics about the country. You know that thought experiment where you have scientists debating global warming, but to make it clear just how much consensus there is, instead of having 1 scientist against and 1 pro, you have 1 against and a whole crowd pro? I run this thought experiment every time I enter the states. I can usually see around me many thousands of people in the airport, getting along just fine. I can imagine the many tens of thousands who go through those airports every day, and the probably millions all across the country who go through the airports without trouble. These millions are what you should be stacking up against the dozens of anecdotes you get on the web. (For what it's worth, I have had very easy experiences with immigration, with mostly people being very nice to me, but a few times someone was rude/mean to me. Nothing more than that.)
- bloomca 10y ago
  Yes, you are right, but a mere possibility of searching my phone and going through possibly humiliating experience makes me to avoid it at all. I know, chances are small, and I'll likely avoid all of this stuff, but I hate such unfair communication, and therefore I don't even want to try it. For me it is important, and I wouldn't trade my confidence even for a small chance.
- dx034 10y ago
  I agree with you. I'd actually like to know how many people really get send back at the border. There are occasional stories but the number can't be higher than 0.1% or so..
- robteix 10y ago
  But from the company's perspective, all that matters is that it _can_ and _does_ happen. I don't believe anyone is saying every single person coming into the US will get searched. We _know_ they are not. But searches _do_ happen and _are_ legal, and that alone justifies preparing for the eventuality. My employer has always had rules about how to take care of data on your devices. They tell you to enable encryption and to never leave your company laptop alone and stuff like that. The vast majority of employees will never have their devices stolen, but the fact that some might is enough justification to make sure everyone does their best to protect their data. It's the same thing. That you always had very easy experiences with immigration _is_ the anecdote here, because it does nothing to change the fact that _some_ people will get their devices searched (and data potentially copied) by Immigration agents.
TuringNYC 10y ago
So what happens if you have 2FA via SMS, but obviously you are traveling and cannot get an international SMS? Should one turn off 2FA before traveling to the US?
secfirstmd 10y ago
For those interested in more information and security guides to travelling through borders, we have some in our Android mobile app Umbrella https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.secfirst.umbrella https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.secfirst.u... or raw content here: https://github.com/securityfirst/Umbrella_content https://github.com/securityfirst/Umbrella_content
futurix 10y ago
I feel like posting something positive here - I travelled to the US last week for tourist-y purposes and the border control was fast, efficient, nobody looked at my devices (even though I had 3 phones with me), and the only gripe was with tourists of certain nations constantly trying to jump the queues.
djhworld 10y ago
I visited the US last year for a conference (from the UK) Border Guard was very angry at me for some reason, very cold, didn't smile. Quite curt with his responses. Which was strange because he was laughing and joking with the couple before me in the queue. He took particular umbrage with the fact that I'd ticked "Business" on my customs form, as I wasn't sure what else to tick - I was attending the conference on behalf of my employer who had paid for my trip.
bladecatcher 10y ago
It's not clear to me whether the US Border control can ask you to login on their desktop even if you're not carrying any devices. In such a case, there's no way to avoid being subject to search.
throw2016 10y ago
This is just ugly. We have become a mirror image of what we claim to be against. No one in human history has woken up one day suddenly to totalitarianism but the process in undeniably well under way here. The posturing and denial may continue for now but it is only a matter of time before the edifice of pretension falls on the weight of its own contradictions. The soft power and moral credibility is gone. No one can take any US position on human rights seriously. What's left is force and brazen hypocrisy as we become more brazen building totalitarian infrastructure, go about destroying entire countries and putting millions of lives in disarray to pursue 'strategic objectives' or to put it simply make more money. Internally it seems citizens don't care about privacy, spying, human rights or the destruction of other countries as long as the money is flowing. It keeps on becoming more and more egregious as more boundaries are crossed yet there is no citizen response. If there is a value system its certainly not visible. The government can do whatever it wants. In the end we seem to have succeeded in building a commercial hub, not a country. Humanity and all that makes it wonderful beyond the practicality of making money will rest elsewhere.
memiux 10y ago
What is SIP?
- memiux 10y ago
  Security, Infrastructure & Performance (SIP) SIP is a instant-response team. https://github.com/basecamp/handbook/blob/master/orgchart.md#security-infrastructure--performance-sip https://github.com/basecamp/handbook/blob/master/orgchart.md...
AngeloAnolin 10y ago
Kind of disheartening to read that (most) of the comments here diverted away from the topic of Basecamp's travel guide, which shows a lot of character from this company. A company composed of a lot of remote workers outside US that definitely goes out of their way to have their employees come into the US for their business meetings is a keeper. On a side note, I am a bit confused on a questionnaire asked at the Customs: Here to do work? Nope! Here on business, meeting with Basecamp. Wouldn't this be under the discretion of the customs officer to determine whether business meeting qualifies as work? I suppose that being on a business meeting with your company still predisposes the fact that you are technically still paid on those days that you are meeting with your company?
- talklittle 10y ago
  The work vs. business question is simpler than that. Business = working in US for a foreign company. Work = working in US for a US company. Presumably Basecamp has set up business entities abroad. https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/2272/about-different-types-of-visas-for-business-vs-work-in-the-u-s https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/2272/about-differ...
- mdc2161 10y ago
  I ran into this a lot while crossing the border into Canada as a consultant, I presume it is similar crossing the border in the other direction. Internal business meetings did not require a work visa, while meetings with one of our clients did.
Mhodesty 10y ago
It really is a shitty feeling for me. I grew up in New York, and was too young to really understand what was going on during the Bush days, so for me the Trump era is a new feeling. This is the first time in my life I am embarrassed to be an American.
grecy 10y ago
Does anyone know how homeland security will react when I say I don't have a cell phone? (I genuinely, honestly don't)
shifte 10y ago
Has anyone created a tool to automate the removal and restore of work and secrets for this purpose?

381 points by slyall 10y ago

I live in Europe. From my perspective going to US looks like going to some kind totalitarian country. First I have to got visa which is not automatically approved because I'm Polish not British. Then I have to go trough a lot of, mostly pointless, security checks, checking social accounts, interrogations, scans and manual personal revisions. On any stage of that I can be handcuffed and sent back to Europe for almost no reason. It's sad but from where I sits US starts to look like all of those countries they was fighting with "for the freedom".

louhike 10y ago
Yes, it feels strange but me and my girlfriend have decided it is not worth it to try to go to america on holidaysfor now because of all these difficulties.
collyw 10y ago
The UK seems to be trying its hardest to catch up.
- krtkush 10y ago
  India is going further and beyond[1]. [1] http://www.firstpost.com/india/aadhaar-mandatory-citizens-dont-have-absolute-right-on-their-body-privacy-argument-bogus-govt-tells-sc-3420398.html http://www.firstpost.com/india/aadhaar-mandatory-citizens-do...
  - TheArcane 10y ago
    This right wing wave is agaibst globalization. What do you expect?
- Yizahi 10y ago
  On the visa price front they already beat everyone else. 115$ for half year visa? Or 450$ for two years visa? Great.
  - te_chris 10y ago
    Walk in the park. I just got a Tier 1 (Exceptional Talent) visa. Total cost for mine and my partners (including flights home to NZ because, apparently, the world would end if people on working holiday visas were allowed to transition in-country)? £~5.5k
  - Markoff 10y ago
    that seem pretty reasonable compared to third world country like China where I had to pay like 110€ for yearly FAMILY visa, because why not charge husband of Chinese citizen visa (plus had to renew it each year like some newcomer student) and you can't even work with this visa anyway, according Chinese government you should be freeloading on your spouse now compare it with my wife in EU - 5 year residence permit for free, of course including work permit and also because she is taking care of our child she got free healthcare insurance
danieldk 10y ago
We had serious plans to go on holiday to the US this year. I have been in the US at least a dozen of times, and absolutely love the desert states, Oregon, and Washington. Entering the US was already a large hassle, but with Trump's travel bans, rumors of phone, laptop, and social media checks, we have decided to postpone our travel plans until the political/security climate improves. Semi-related: we were in the market for a new car. One of the factors we decided to go for a European car this time (we had a Ford Focus before) is that we'd like to support Trump America as little as possible. Before you say that this is overreacting, hear me out: the US belongs to US citizens. If you want this president, fine. But some of his policies, such as denying climate change and undermining journalism is going te have a large influence on the rest of us.
- ItendToDisagree 10y ago
  The majority of US citizens did not vote for Trump. Just thought I'd point out that most people DO NOT want this president.
  - bkor 10y ago
    Around half did want him? That's a significant of people to me, no matter if they have the majority or not.
    - klausjensen 10y ago
      Technically, only ~57% of eligible voters actually voted. Of those, about half voted for Trump. So only about 27% of all eligible voters actually voted for Trump. That is pretty standard for a US presidential election. Those are the rules for democracy, so he is the legitimately elected president. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/10/13587462/trump-election-2016-voter-turnout https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/10/13587462/...
      - danieldk 10y ago
        So only about 27% of all eligible voters actually voted for Trump. The remaining 43% voted for 'I'll take whoever wins'. So, ~72% of the eligible voters can be held accountable for him becoming president. Those are the rules for democracy, so he is the legitimately elected president. Definitely, it is legitimate, even if we don't like the outcome ;).
apexalpha 10y ago
GF traveled to the US for work, a conference in Houston. Everyone that looked Arab of Muslim was 'randomly' picked out of line. Some of the employees had to undress and squat in front of the TSA and one had to undergo cavity searches. These were regular European citizens. Let's just say conferences will be help in Europe or Canada in the future...
- HappyTypist 10y ago
  Are you serious? Strip and cavity searches? This needs to be on the media.
  - irrlichthn 10y ago
    What would it change?
  - Markoff 10y ago
    it's not that uncommon even in Europe to be honest, if you will find German policeman who had bad day and you drive car with foreign (PL, CZ mostly) license plate you can be searched same way under suspicion of carrying drugs and you can do nothing about it and it's happening occasionally
    - crummy 10y ago
      do we have the same definition of "cavity search"? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_cavity_search https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_cavity_search
      - Markoff 10y ago
        yes but you won't find articles about this in international media, because it's just lowly Eastern Europeans
  - fastball 10y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWdD206eSv0&hl=en-GB&gl=GB https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWdD206eSv0&hl=en-GB&gl=GB
jdietrich 10y ago
If you have to travel to the US, fly via Shannon Airport in Ireland. A special arrangement with the Irish government allows you to pass through US immigration and customs controls while you're still on Irish soil. When you arrive in the US, you're treated as a domestic passenger. You don't avoid the intrusive interrogations, but they're a lot more polite about it because they can't detain you. If you're refused entry, you can fly home at your own leisure rather than being detained and deported. http://www.shannonairport.ie/gns/passengers/prepare/us-preclearance.aspx http://www.shannonairport.ie/gns/passengers/prepare/us-precl...
- mugsie 10y ago
  Dublin airport also has the same arrangement - it makes travelling much easier.
  - s_kilk 10y ago
    And if we're honest, Dublin is a better airport than Shannon
    - youngtaff 10y ago
      Each time I've been through it the US immigration hall in Dublin has been a right 'zoo'
- beagle3 10y ago
  Don't know if it is still the case, but Canada had a similar arrangement last time I flew through Toronto (about 10 years ago)
  - Terretta 10y ago
    Yes
- mstade 10y ago
  Arlanda airport in Stockholm is also working on a pre-clearance arrangement like this[1], although it won't start until 2019 at the earliest it seems. [1]: https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/national-media-release/united-states-sweden-sign-agreement-open-preclearance-facility https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/national-media-release/united-s...
kyrre 10y ago
Judging by the narrative the media is putting out one would think that Poland is a nightmare patriarchal state where rape victims are denied abortion and politicians agree that woman should be paid less because they are too 'small, weak and unintelligent' for equal pay. Be more critical. Traveling to the US is a breeze for Europeans.
- Markoff 10y ago
  Traveling to the US is a breeze for white Europeans. FTFY
  - pferde 10y ago
    A breeze for white Europeans who do not mind all the privacy intrusions and indecencies they have to go through if they so much as blink their eyes or make a face at the wrong moment.
- ItendToDisagree 10y ago
  Why would anyone want to go to a country like that right? Unless they wanted to work in Texas or something.
- therpe1 10y ago
  That's the narrative the media is pushing only in your head. It's obvious you have no respect for the truth but please don't insult the rest of us by misrepresenting easily googleable news stories. Given that your baseless allegations about "the media' who here really needs to be more critical?
- pg314 10y ago
  > Traveling to the US is a breeze for Europeans. No, it isn't. I am European, travelled twice to the US last year. Each time multi-hour wait for the USCBP check. From take-off in Brussels to landing in NYC took less time than getting from JFK to Manhattan. If I can avoid it, I will not be travelling to the US any time soon.
  - 10y ago
wil421 10y ago
Quit believeing everything on the internet. I'm sure those things happen but are so far off the norm. I've been to Europe twice this past year and I don't think it's any different. In Italy there was military everywhere in Rome and Florence. At every monument and Big site there were military with guns looking at everyone. Sometimes stopping people. I've never been patted down and searched as bad as I was in Frankfurt. Security and questioning was on par with US customs. Don't even get me started on Serbia.
- ibejoeb 10y ago
  Europe, indeed. Try going to a museum in Paris. Not even New York has that level of military presence.
falcodream 10y ago
I agree with your observations, but I wanted to offer a positive viewpoint on them. One thing I learned about the US over the years is that a lot of law enforcement's heavy-handedness is an emergent property of supporting a country with extreme notions of personal liberty, not a reaction against it. The gamut of socially acceptable behavior is much wider in the US. That's necessarily reflected in how their police function, and shouldn't be to their detriment.
mtempm 10y ago
You are right. Thats one of the reasons Ron Paul said we need a revolution over here.
openplatypus 10y ago
Fingers crossed EU will implement visa reciprocity rule. Fingers crossed.
- ryfm 10y ago
  so how is it going to make things better?
omk 10y ago
That's almost every developed country for an Indian passport.

oblio 10y ago

I know we would only have anecdotal evidence here, but I'd like to hear from other HackerNews readers. My guess is that based on where you're from and how you look, your experience with the CBP can vary wildly. Edit: s/TSA/CBP.

cr1895 10y ago
FYI: TSA and CBP are not the same. You first interact with CBP when you enter the US, and then you interact with TSA for security while flying within the US.

staticelf 10y ago

I recently visited the US and I thought the process was going to be hell after reading a lot of these threads on HN. Turns out it was pretty chill, got some questions before boarding and was selected for extra security check. Then upon landing I got like 3 questions from the officer, how long I would stay, where my friends were and what the purpose of my trip was. Sure they didn't seem very friendly but it wasn't a big of a hassle. I didn't bring my laptop though because I don't want it searched. It seems like you run on luck mostly. You only need to give up passwords and such if you are unlucky.

Markoff 10y ago
any reason for extra security check, are you white man?
- staticelf 10y ago
  No I don't believe so. I estimate that 1/3 was selected. I am whiter than snow.
  - Markoff 10y ago
    that somehow contradict the other guy who posted that 99.9% are smooth without extra check and now you dump here 33% checked :) that seem fairly big even to me, can't imagine what European country would deserve such percentage, were you departing from Brussels or Istanbul?
    - staticelf 10y ago
      Brussels and my origin is Sweden. The chances of me being a terrorist is pretty much non-existant.
      - Markoff 9y ago
        there you go, HQ of EU and terrorists in Europe
10y ago

sidchilling 10y ago

Woah... this definitely seems over the board! If all of this is required, it's a recent thing, I guess. I have been to the US multiple times with a B1-Business Visa and didn't do any of this stuff. I just showed up and the customs officer asked a bunch of questions about my purpose of visit and that's about it. I didn't need any invitation letter or hotel bookings, etc. Hotel bookings and a LOT of other documentation is required when applying for a tourist / business visa for Europe or UK, but traveling to the US has always been fairly straightforward (except that you need to make two visits the US embassy or consulate twice for the visa formalities). At all times, I had my company laptop with all the data + source code. Is this something that has recently begun?

Fzzr 10y ago
Yes. Recent (this administration) policies allow for demanding passwords etc. at the border. There was an incident where a NASA engineer lost control of sensitive data as a result https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/02/a-nasa-engineer-is-required-to-unlock-his-phone-at-the-border/516489/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/02/a-nas... It's not paranoia. Welcome to 2017. Edit: It's not like they're scanning every cell phone that enters the country... but they reserve the right to.
- jlebrech 10y ago
  what does customs need with a spaceship?
  - Fzzr 10y ago
    Nothing, he was just selected (based on who knows what criteria, they don't need warrants) to be scanned. Whether or not they actually cared about the sensitive data on the device, he still lost control of it long enough for it to be copied or compromised.
- tomp 10y ago
  Please stop spreading lies. This happened long before this administration. E.g. articles from 2016: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/28/us-customs-border-protection-social-media-accounts-facebook-twitter https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/28/us-custom... https://www.theverge.com/2016/12/22/14066082/us-customs-border-patrol-social-media-account-facebook-twitter https://www.theverge.com/2016/12/22/14066082/us-customs-bord...

tremon 10y ago

Besides the obvious "don't cross the border with work data", I found this recommendation much more interesting: [ask] for someone to remove you from the Basecamp team for 1Password so you no longer have access to Basecamp logins and passwords. Maybe we should temporarily suspend our employee's accounts too when they travel to the US.

Markoff 10y ago
maybe just stop traveling to US would be easier and cheaper solution, why one need to be physically present anywhere in 2017? i find it odd, i can understand it for my father that when some of his agricultural company partners has training, people from neighboring countries must travel there for hours to stay there for few hours and go back, but IT company in 2017? reminds me of Huawei which is still organizing teleconferences (!) for trainings, because why not let people call across half planet in horrible quality instead of providing cheap full HD video stream work live chat, it's not like there are hundreds of us, max 100 people present
- pjmlp 10y ago
  Even most IT companies in 2017 still don't allow for home office, and the few that allow it, do a very timid "only in exceptional cases". Meanwhile working for enterprise consulting companies, all of which have offshore teams, means remote work is a daily activity. Funny enough some customers are exactly those companies that forbid home office to their own employees.
  - deathhand 10y ago
    I think the 'owners' don't believe at-home work can scale properly. Given a population a subset of humans will always try to beat the system. The 'butt in seats' mentality is believed to curtail that system cheating behavior.
    - sgift 10y ago
      The idea that a seat in the butt somehow would be a good deterrent against people 'cheating' the system always sounded amusing to me. One would think that companies have some way to measure someones work that's better than "Was he here for at least x hours? Yeah? Great, job done."

kidmenot 10y ago

This only reinforces my intention to postpone my first visit to the US until after this presidency and its associated madness have ended. EDIT: at least until after this presidency.

isaac_is_goat 10y ago
This has nothing to do with Trump, it was going on during the Obama era - and probably Bush and before (but I'm not sure) - but it was never a problem until now. Stop spreading FUD.
- kidmenot 10y ago
  This has nothing to do with FUD, sorry. It's only one of the factors that discourages me from visiting, and if now it has become a problem, it means that this presidency somehow made it worse.
  - vultour 10y ago
    But it literally did not become a problem now. The airport checks are the same as they always were.
  - th4dv 10y ago
    > now it has become a problem It's always been a problem. It's just that now main stream media focus more on these issues to force the anti-trump agenda. (I'm not a huge fan of Trump btw.)
imron 10y ago
Don't expect it to get any better once Trump leaves office. This madness didn't begin with him and it won't end with him either.
- acjohnson55 10y ago
  ^ Yep. Don't get me wrong, Trump is an utter catastrophe. But this was coming either way. The writing was on the wall after Apple vs the FBI showdown in the wake of the San Bernardino shooting. The intelligence apparatus will not tolerate lack of access.

SCdF 10y ago

Just don't travel there. I'm sure I'd be fine: I've been fine a dozen times before. That was before they decided that it was OK to demand passwords and so on. Maybe now it would be worse. Or maybe my skin colour lets me off the hook. Regardless, I'd rather just not waste jet fuel on flying to a place that treats anyone this way. Your phone/tablet/laptop is, for better or worse, a gateway to your entire life. It contains your photos, bank account credentials, messages between friends, messages between you and your wife, photos between you and your wife… Random border thugs absolutely should not have the right to rummage through it in another room. There are plenty of ways to do meetings remotely. There are plenty of places in the world you can travel to for work meetups that aren't the US. Just don't travel there.

polotics 10y ago
Only rational explanation: the current POTUS is a closet ecologist, decided to use scare tactics to reduce needless CO2 waste. (unlikely, but still...)
- samat 10y ago
  This started long before Trump
- pjc50 10y ago
  The only ration explanation is that the policy is what it claims to be: racial and nationalist discrimination. After all, that's what the huge pre-election rallies were cheering.
cm2187 10y ago
For me it's less the risk of being search than the massive queues in US airports that turn me off. Feels like queuing for food in Moscow in the Soviet area, just to take a plane.
- LeifCarrotson 10y ago
  The Soviet era. But yes, I just traveled from Shanghai back to my home in the US. The queues in China were much, much shorter than those in the American airports. PVG posted a "25 minutes or less" target for all travellers to get through security and immigration. And they hit it, even at peak travel times with huge volumes of people. At American airports if you arrive less than an hour before boarding they might not allow you in until you rebook on a later flight. You could see it in the architecture of their systems: The American facilities have huge snaking queues designed for as much capacity as possible, which lead to obvious bottlenecks. And when you arrive at the front of the line, a gruff immigration officer in tactical gear doesn't look at the line except to say "No line jumping!" while they're taking 10 minutes on one individual. In China, there's just not enough distance in the line to allow a long delay to form, there's no single point bottlenecks to slow down the system, and helpful people direct you to the shortest lines.

omarqureshi 10y ago

I'm a British Muslim who flew to the US on Sunday. Honestly I had assumed it would be hell. In actual fact it was only a little more painful than before. I'm used to being randomly selected for an additional search every time in the UK premiere flight. My colleague (another British Muslim) was also selected which we found quite amusing. On the other side it wasn't bad, just answered truthfully, only snag was my colleague who accidentally had both a 10 year business visa and an ESTA at the same time who then had to go down to immigration to have it removed. After immigration I was asked to speak to a customs officer and that was it, I continued on my journey. Little more painful but not overly. Personally I think this guide is a little extreme and I'm sure in the worst case it probably does apply.

smoyer 10y ago
Welcome to the U.S.
mattmanser 10y ago
This is more to deal with the business risk rather than a personal risk. The US targeting companies with large amounts of data, obtaining passwords to access all of Basecamp's data, either for industrial espionage or counter-terrorism.
kalleboo 10y ago
There are 10s of millions of visitors to the US every year, and we hear about what, a couple incidents per year? That said, that's still too high a risk for business data.
Markoff 10y ago
your are not selected randomly, they use profiling and they search Muslims because majority of terrorists are Muslims, i can't comprehend why even smart people always come with this random check nonsense, do they really claim it's random and try to hide it instead of telling truth?
- omarqureshi 10y ago
  Yes. I understand this

shpx 10y ago

This is a political statement highlighting the current legal uncertainty of refusing to unlock your devices at the US border[0]. By default iphones and macs are encrypted when you completely power them down, so the right way (assuming you have a good password) is to shut down your computers at the airport and only turn them back on when you've passed the border. Nothing interesting here tech-wise, effectively just a checklist of files to manually delete or encrypt. I'm not a lawyer, but to me this seems like just plugging holes until someone puts up the money and time to rule the whole thing unconstitutional. [0] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/02/what-could-happen-if-you-refuse-to-unlock-your-phone-at-the-us-border/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/02/what-could-happe...

DanBC 10y ago
When they ask you to power on your device, and unlock it, and you refuse they don't say "that's ok, in you go", they deny you entry.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- plandis 10y ago
  If you're not a US citizen. CBP cannot legally deny entry to the US for US citizens.
kalleboo 10y ago
If you're a US citizen they have to let you in, but if you're a visitor they'll probably just turn you back at the border. The article says a South Korean man won a lawsuit against an unreasonable search, but you're not going to be able to do that from your home country.
rurban 10y ago
They closed this loophole a couple of years ago, by explicitly demanding that your devices need to be powered on and have enough battery power when entring the country. So powering off your device, putting out the battery or encrypting it is all forbidden.

rocqua 10y ago

Would it be accepted to give a wipe code rather than a password to customs?

DanBC 10y ago
They would deny you entry if you did that.
- HappyTypist 10y ago
  YMMV. I refused a month ago and sat in secondary for 3 hours, but they eventually let me in. On ESTA.
- dawnerd 10y ago
  You you could be charged with lying and/or destroying evidence and who knows what else. Definitely don't do that. Worse thing to do is lie or attempt to deceive an agent.
paulajohnson 10y ago
They might consider it a lie if you represented it as a password, and arrest you for it.
jlebrech 10y ago
you could require your machine to demand a username as well as password and give them details to a 'clean' user to whoever asks.

binarray2000 10y ago

Are there other US companies which have same/similar policy?

celticninja 10y ago

So what happens when they ask for my Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat logins and I do not have accounts with these companies? If a simple "I don't have social media accounts" is acceptable then I'm not sure why they even ask for passwords. Proving a negative is very hard.

HappyTypist 10y ago
They keep it in record and in the future if they ever found out you lied, you can be jailed for 10 years.
- r3m3mb3rm3 10y ago
  Then you can say that you have some accounts but you don't remember the password anymore: "I'm just logged in from my computer at home. If I delete the cookies I don't know if I would be able to get the password again"
  - lukealization 10y ago
    This is genuinely applicable to me. I don't remember any of my passwords since I'm logged in at most places via cookies, and my passwords are completely randomized strings two dozen or more characters long, stored in a password manager. Do border security understand how password managers work, or would I have to tell them how to access my own data? Showerthought: If I delete my password manager from my phone, maybe the password manager should perform geolocation and detect if the application is trying to be installed at an airport (possibly indicating installation against my will). That's a very nuanced situation.
    - hdhzy 10y ago
      I suspect they understand how password managers work and either ask you for access or take your hardware and fiddle with it off-screen (Evil Maid attack? [0]). Otherwise if they don't like you they just send you back home and that's it. [0]: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/10/evil_maid_attac.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/10/evil_maid_att...

lucaspiller 10y ago

Re the purpose of visit, have the rules of what is defined as work changed recently? I traveled a couple of years ago to LA to work on-site with my employer for a couple of weeks - I told the customs official this, and they let me through without issue. I'm from the UK so just got ESTA.

osullivj 10y ago
When they ask if it's work or vacations I always say "meetings". Worked for me so far...

benevol 10y ago

> "Don't Travel With Work Data" Why would I value my personal data any less than my work data? So what this rally means is: "Don't Travel With Any Data". And knowing that they only need to plug an infected USB device into your PC/phone/tablet to infect the latter irrevocably, the situation can now be summed up as: "Don't Travel With Any Data Or Any Hardware". Now what does that say about the sate of a country?

mstade 10y ago
Recall that these are instructions to employees – the company's first obligation is to protect the company, not the employees. Wiping work data is simply a means of limiting liability. Should sensitive data leak out due to a laptop getting seized at the border that's a lot more serious to the company than if your nudes were stolen.
- cmrdporcupine 10y ago
  Contrast this with my employer's advice: cooperate fully with the authorities, our lawyers can and will defend the company, we are more concerned about your safety. Telling people to work travel and then telling them to not bring work data seems like you should have told them not to travel at all?
  - rapind 10y ago
    Retracted. Misread the article. Apologies.
    - cmrdporcupine 10y ago
      I think you're being deliberately obtuse and argumentative. I never mentioned personal time travel. The context is an article telling people not to bring work data with them when traveling for work/professional functions. If you're traveling for work, and your company can't guarantee your safe and reasonably comfortable travel to that destination in a work capacity -- they should recommend you not go.

bnt 10y ago

I'm from Eastern Europe and I (literally) just flew back from a 2 week work trip from the US (California): - Getting a visa was a painless process. I just applied and I got a business visa. - Entering the States required me to show my passport. Nothing else. Nobody asked me why I was going there, nobody asked me to show my phone or laptop (I had both). There was no separation, pat downs etc.

1337biz 10y ago
Maybe because Eastern Europeans are rarely shooting or bombing innocent people? Just a wild, wild guess...
- foldr 10y ago
  In the US you mean? Eastern Europe isn't entirely free of terrorist activity, assuming that you include Chechnya.
  - m_eiman 10y ago
    There's a place called Ukraine…
  - 1337biz 10y ago
    Last time I checked these were local military conflicts and not about murdering innocent civilians around the world.
    - mcrae 10y ago
      You might remember that the perpetrators of the Boston Marathon Bombing were Chechen. I say this not because I think we should screen Chechens more thoroughly now, but because your original appeal to profiling at the border is provably ineffective and, frankly, ignorant.
bloomca 10y ago
There are tons of commentaries like that, and there is nothing wrong with it. Also, US is like second biggest visiting destination in the world, and of course they don't want to scare everyone. So, all of these dreadful stories are true, but they are just a drop in the ocean. The problem here is a possibility. The mere necessity to think about it, to possibly sweat in the line, to think about what have I erased or not, makes it bad. First of all, you are not treated with a dignity. Second of all, without precautions, you easily can be embarrassed (many people don't care and keep really private info, like messages or photos on their phone). And the last – there is a small, but a possibility that you'll fuck up a little, and you will be detained. It is a small chance, but it presents, and it is not a pleasant thought.

marknote 10y ago

Welcome to come to China to make business meetings :)

Markoff 10y ago
no need to worry someone will go through your Facebook, Gmail and other accounts even if they wanted, they will force you to sign up for WeChat and buy Alibaba share on top of it

emeidi 10y ago

I've traveled from Zürich to Los Angeles on Good Friday (April 14, 2017) for leisure - my first visit since February 2016 and thus my first trip to Trump's 'murrica. I was joined with my dad who recently retired and never has left the continent - his first long haul flight and first time to the US. I feared and prepared for the worst and I even was debating about leaving my iPhone, iPad and MacBook Air at home to avoid any searches. It turned out to become the smoothest immigration ever: We stood at the curb waiting for the car rental bus within 45 minutes after we stepped out of the plane. Short lines, smoothly working self-service kiosks, a friendly immigration officer, not one single intimidating or aggressive question. Way to go!

hrrsn 10y ago
I went through LAX for the first time in December 2016. The immigration line was long and took about an hour to get through but other than that it was pretty painless.
pcurve 10y ago
" a friendly immigration officer" I've never seen this one in the U.S. or anywhere else. I think they are trained to be neutral or even aloof.
- staticelf 10y ago
  Upon arriving in Finland the passport control officer even welcomed me in my native tounge (Swedish). If come through passport control in the nordic countries I can guarantee they will be friendly.
- Markoff 10y ago
  i had pretty good experiences in Philippines or Malaysia, i would say at least third of immigration officers i met at various borders were friendly. from Europe recently we had very nice Polish woman officer who was very welcoming to our family with small child in EU passports queue despite my wife not being from EU worst experiences were probably Austrian Nazi guys investigating repeatedly my wife's passport, while at other border with Hungary they let freely roam across Europe thousands of illegal immigrants

jbb67 10y ago

Most of the posts on here are ridiculous. People saying they are not going on holiday to the USA because it's too much of a pain. Seriously. We applied online for the visa thing. It took under 5 minutes. Then at the airport we queued up at immigration for around 10 minutes. We showed our passport and answered one question about purpose of visit, and they waved us though. This is the experience of 99.9% of those who visit.

Markoff 10y ago
so you say only 1 passenger out of 1000 has extra search, I highly doubt that
pg314 10y ago
> This is the experience of 99.9% of those who visit. Seems unlikely. The two times I visited the US last year the immigration queue at JFK was a multi-hour wait.
infimum 10y ago
from what i gather all the ridiculous security theater is because there's a non-zero chance of anyone being terrorist. i find it absolutely reasonable to avoid traveling to a place when there's an even bigger chance of being treated like garbage.
GFischer 10y ago
What country are you from? That is not the experience for people from my country (Uruguay, Latin America), nor for any of the high population countries, and it is highlighted in this article. I applied for (and was granted) an U.S. visitor (B-1) visa last month, it was very expensive, I had to fill out a form that took significantly more than 5 minutes (several hours because I had to contact family members for details), and I had to schedule an in-person interview where they (very politely) cross checked most of what I wrote in the visa form, and were very detailed in the questions. That's why the article says "If your country does not participate in the Visa Waiver Program or you are not eligible for an ESTA, you'll need to apply for a B-1 business visitor visa… the long way." "We'll work with you through this process. Start early, as soon as we have dates for a meetup or conference. Visa appointments and processing can take weeks to months." That directly contradicts your claim (and matches my experience). I still haven't flown to the U.S., but those in my family who have, experienced multi-hour delays (my mother lost her flight in Boston only last month due to 2 hours in the immigration queue), most of my family members have been set aside for in-depth questioning at least once, etc. I do know some Europeans have a very different experience (those under ESTA), but I'm not certain your saying "the experience of 99.9% of those who visit" is correct. You might notice that none of the highly populated countries (China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Russia and Mexico) are in this list: http://www.esta.us/visa_waiver_countries.html http://www.esta.us/visa_waiver_countries.html

jlg23 10y ago

> Put Andrea and our attorney on speed dial. If that is advice you have to give to your employees, either stop working for the US army in war zones or hold meetings in a free country.

ksjjf 10y ago

>At Customs: >Here to do work? Nope! Here on business, meeting with Basecamp I never understood this. What's the difference? In both instances, money is being earned.

betaby 10y ago
Important things are a) which entity is going to pay b) where is added value created. In terms of business meeting both are mostly other seas. I had that info about meetings in my travel guide at least for 10 yeas.
plandis 10y ago
I've been told something similar when going to Canada (I work for Amazon and we have offices in Seattle, WA and Vancouver, B.C.) Basically, I'm required to not work on anything not related to whatever the purpose of my visit is. For example, if I have a meeting with Team A then I'm not legally allowed to work on anything unrelated to meeting with Team A. I'm on a business trip to meet with Team A. I'm not in Canada to do my normal work.

bloomca 10y ago

So, many comments here target US or Trump in particular. But in fact, as many noted, there is not real connection – it started long time ago. Also, I bet, there are quotas (e.g. number of people) to be detained, so they have to fulfil it. Also, US is just an example here (because many conferences are held in the US), but also there are stories from the UK, for instance. From my point of view, the problem is that with social networks it is extremely easy to get access to your whole life – it is already pretty easy to identify person on the facebook, for instance (right now there is no way to prove that it is _exactly_ you, but I am pretty sure they will be soon). So, with restrictions on such monopoly media (and I've heard it is already harder to register on the Facebook), it is very easy to end up in a situation where we will get "human score" (similar to credit score, but in the digital world), which will be used in such situation. And even the bigger problem is that it might be needed for a work, for a loan application, etc, so you wouldn't be able to do all this without it (or even "to apply for a visa your score should be higher than 3.0". My predictions are that governments will try to work more closely with popular platforms trying to emerge such (there were few stories than people were detained because of tweets) metrics, and to broad access not only from your phone, but from their device, just your user profile.

ibejoeb 10y ago
The UK border is far worse. Surprisingly, the easiest border I've ever crossed on an American passport was Russia's. No questions, not hassles, neither in nor out.

elorant 10y ago

Why can't US adopt Israel's border control practices? Going in and out of Israel is a breeze. Sure, it's strict, as it should be, but you never feel harassed or worse. And surely their problem with terrorism is equal if not larger than that of US.

jug5 10y ago
The part you don't understand is that the US "border control" is about security theatre and not actual security.
reirob 10y ago
I don't know if it changed in the meantime, but I was flying to Israel in 99 and it was an experience I will not forget my whole life. It included the security officers making a call to my parents pretending to be my friend and asking where I am - I guess it was a trick. My mother was very scared, because she didn't know this guy's voice. I found this very mean. Hopefully it changed in a positive way.

faragon 10y ago

Please, stop bigotry and nationalist hatred. That's for both the US, and the ones willing to do the same as revenge against the US people. Let's stop the nationalist madness together.

edanm 10y ago

I really can't believe all the negativity here towards traveling to the US. You're taking a few admittedly awful anecdotes, and turning them into giant statistics about the country. You know that thought experiment where you have scientists debating global warming, but to make it clear just how much consensus there is, instead of having 1 scientist against and 1 pro, you have 1 against and a whole crowd pro? I run this thought experiment every time I enter the states. I can usually see around me many thousands of people in the airport, getting along just fine. I can imagine the many tens of thousands who go through those airports every day, and the probably millions all across the country who go through the airports without trouble. These millions are what you should be stacking up against the dozens of anecdotes you get on the web. (For what it's worth, I have had very easy experiences with immigration, with mostly people being very nice to me, but a few times someone was rude/mean to me. Nothing more than that.)

bloomca 10y ago
Yes, you are right, but a mere possibility of searching my phone and going through possibly humiliating experience makes me to avoid it at all. I know, chances are small, and I'll likely avoid all of this stuff, but I hate such unfair communication, and therefore I don't even want to try it. For me it is important, and I wouldn't trade my confidence even for a small chance.
dx034 10y ago
I agree with you. I'd actually like to know how many people really get send back at the border. There are occasional stories but the number can't be higher than 0.1% or so..
robteix 10y ago
But from the company's perspective, all that matters is that it _can_ and _does_ happen. I don't believe anyone is saying every single person coming into the US will get searched. We _know_ they are not. But searches _do_ happen and _are_ legal, and that alone justifies preparing for the eventuality. My employer has always had rules about how to take care of data on your devices. They tell you to enable encryption and to never leave your company laptop alone and stuff like that. The vast majority of employees will never have their devices stolen, but the fact that some might is enough justification to make sure everyone does their best to protect their data. It's the same thing. That you always had very easy experiences with immigration _is_ the anecdote here, because it does nothing to change the fact that _some_ people will get their devices searched (and data potentially copied) by Immigration agents.

TuringNYC 10y ago

So what happens if you have 2FA via SMS, but obviously you are traveling and cannot get an international SMS? Should one turn off 2FA before traveling to the US?

secfirstmd 10y ago

For those interested in more information and security guides to travelling through borders, we have some in our Android mobile app Umbrella https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.secfirst.umbrella https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.secfirst.u... or raw content here: https://github.com/securityfirst/Umbrella_content https://github.com/securityfirst/Umbrella_content

futurix 10y ago

I feel like posting something positive here - I travelled to the US last week for tourist-y purposes and the border control was fast, efficient, nobody looked at my devices (even though I had 3 phones with me), and the only gripe was with tourists of certain nations constantly trying to jump the queues.

djhworld 10y ago

I visited the US last year for a conference (from the UK) Border Guard was very angry at me for some reason, very cold, didn't smile. Quite curt with his responses. Which was strange because he was laughing and joking with the couple before me in the queue. He took particular umbrage with the fact that I'd ticked "Business" on my customs form, as I wasn't sure what else to tick - I was attending the conference on behalf of my employer who had paid for my trip.

bladecatcher 10y ago

It's not clear to me whether the US Border control can ask you to login on their desktop even if you're not carrying any devices. In such a case, there's no way to avoid being subject to search.

throw2016 10y ago

This is just ugly. We have become a mirror image of what we claim to be against. No one in human history has woken up one day suddenly to totalitarianism but the process in undeniably well under way here. The posturing and denial may continue for now but it is only a matter of time before the edifice of pretension falls on the weight of its own contradictions. The soft power and moral credibility is gone. No one can take any US position on human rights seriously. What's left is force and brazen hypocrisy as we become more brazen building totalitarian infrastructure, go about destroying entire countries and putting millions of lives in disarray to pursue 'strategic objectives' or to put it simply make more money. Internally it seems citizens don't care about privacy, spying, human rights or the destruction of other countries as long as the money is flowing. It keeps on becoming more and more egregious as more boundaries are crossed yet there is no citizen response. If there is a value system its certainly not visible. The government can do whatever it wants. In the end we seem to have succeeded in building a commercial hub, not a country. Humanity and all that makes it wonderful beyond the practicality of making money will rest elsewhere.

memiux 10y ago

What is SIP?

memiux 10y ago
Security, Infrastructure & Performance (SIP) SIP is a instant-response team. https://github.com/basecamp/handbook/blob/master/orgchart.md#security-infrastructure--performance-sip https://github.com/basecamp/handbook/blob/master/orgchart.md...

AngeloAnolin 10y ago

Kind of disheartening to read that (most) of the comments here diverted away from the topic of Basecamp's travel guide, which shows a lot of character from this company. A company composed of a lot of remote workers outside US that definitely goes out of their way to have their employees come into the US for their business meetings is a keeper. On a side note, I am a bit confused on a questionnaire asked at the Customs: Here to do work? Nope! Here on business, meeting with Basecamp. Wouldn't this be under the discretion of the customs officer to determine whether business meeting qualifies as work? I suppose that being on a business meeting with your company still predisposes the fact that you are technically still paid on those days that you are meeting with your company?

talklittle 10y ago
The work vs. business question is simpler than that. Business = working in US for a foreign company. Work = working in US for a US company. Presumably Basecamp has set up business entities abroad. https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/2272/about-different-types-of-visas-for-business-vs-work-in-the-u-s https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/2272/about-differ...
mdc2161 10y ago
I ran into this a lot while crossing the border into Canada as a consultant, I presume it is similar crossing the border in the other direction. Internal business meetings did not require a work visa, while meetings with one of our clients did.

Mhodesty 10y ago

It really is a shitty feeling for me. I grew up in New York, and was too young to really understand what was going on during the Bush days, so for me the Trump era is a new feeling. This is the first time in my life I am embarrassed to be an American.

grecy 10y ago

Does anyone know how homeland security will react when I say I don't have a cell phone? (I genuinely, honestly don't)

shifte 10y ago

Has anyone created a tool to automate the removal and restore of work and secrets for this purpose?