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How to Keep ICE Agents Out of Your Devices at Airports
- mothballed 7mo agoI treat all items on an international trip as disposable. Been robbed by thieves, police (Mexico lol), and brutalized by US CBP enough to know it's not worth it to try and take anything across borders besides the shirt on your back. Anything carried is a liability for them to claim you filled some customs form wrong or to fake a drug dog hit on it.
- hedora 7mo agoSFO has had repeated hilarious and/or high profile incidents involving the TSA / luggage handlers stealing people's stuff. They stole a pocket knife from my checked bag once. https://abc7ny.com/archive/9192371/ https://abc7ny.com/archive/9192371/ This one's my favorite: If you want the police to keep ignoring complaints then don't steal service revolvers! https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/3rd-sfo-baggage-handler-sentenced-in-thefts-3287302.php https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/3rd-sfo-baggage-handler...
- righthand 7mo agoBurner phones for all! Defund, disband, destroy DHS, ICE, CBP, TSA.
- next_xibalba 7mo ago[flagged]
- vkou 7mo agoWhat social safety net? Is there some office that I can just show up without any papers and get free money?
- mothballed 7mo agoYou basically can for WIC, but that's about it. Although the other big one is public schooling is also almost always entitled to everyone at quite high cost (despite poor performance per dollar).
- hedora 7mo agoNote that the performance / dollar is much worse for immigrants than for citizens. You still have to pay for things like social security, etc, but you don't get to collect those benefits. Before someone says "but illegal immigrants don't those taxes!", note that they actually do: If not, then their employer is engaged in tax fraud, which is much easier to prove and prosecute than trying to track down and check the immigration statues of each of their employees. The US government runs a huge profit on legal immigrants (above average job creation / economic growth), and on illegal immigrants (they pay for services they cannot utilize).
- raw_anon_1111 7mo agoIf they are employing people who are not eligible to work , they are already committing fraud
- vkou 7mo ago'Who' is doing work is hard to enforce. 'How you pay them' is easy. Most businesses do not handle enough cash to be able to pay a lot of staff off the books, and if you are doing it through the regular financial system, the tax man will find it very easy to make sure that you pay your dues.
- raw_anon_1111 7mo agoEvery employer I worked for has forced me to prove I was eligible to work.
- mothballed 7mo ago
- mathisfun123 7mo agoDo you know what the words "social safety net" mean? Hint: it's not whatever you think the police are handling.
- marssaxman 7mo agoYou must be young. Many of us who are middle-aged or older clearly remember what the US was like before it created the present security apparatus, and "total collapse of the social safety net" is quite the opposite of what I would expect if we rolled it back. Wouldn't it be nice if we could use the billions we waste on this repressive jackboot-theater for an actual safety net instead? We could live in a less brutal society.
- raw_anon_1111 7mo agoLast year I flew out of Costa Rica and London. They have the same security requirements except the removal of shoes as does getting on the Chunnel between London and Paris. Is there any country anywhere in the world that doesn’t have basically the same requirements? You seem to be glossing over all of the hijackings that happen back in the day.
- marssaxman 7mo agoWhat do hijackings have to do with a social safety net? > They have the same security requirements Yes, the US has significant influence over international aviation security regulations. There are two reasons that no US airliner has been successfully hijacked in a quarter of a century, and neither has anything to do with TSA screening: first, cockpit doors are now locked during flight, and second, passengers now know that there is nothing to be gained by cooperating with hijackers and nothing to be lost by fighting back.
- raw_anon_1111 7mo ago> What do hijackings have to do with a social safety net? Many of us who are middle-aged or older clearly remember what the US was like before it created the present security apparatus > passengers now know that there is nothing to be gained by cooperating with hijackers and nothing to be lost by fighting back. Yes passengers are going to rise up and fight people with guns? How do you fight back against a terrorist with a bomb on board? Even trained SWAT teams basically know that if you try to take over a plane from terrorists, who ever goes in front is going to get shot at, aisles are the perfect kill zone. Just from me flying on a plane as much as I do, the perfect way to take over a plane would be to book first class tickets in the front of the plane - less crowded, usually with people who are less willing to fight back and you’re not surrounded by people on both sides and sweep the aisle. This reminds me of the yokels running around in the South playing militia in the woods thinking their cache of guns can take on the US military or even a well trained local SWAT force. Everyone thinks they are Rambo
- hedora 7mo agoNone of those organizations do anything to help regular people. They're all just creeping tentacles of fascism. (Most of them either didn't exist in the 1990s, or are unrecognizable now.) If they were defunded, we could spend the money on fire departments (how many cities has the US lost in the last few years to forest fires, and how many cities to immigrants?), local police (to prosecute property and white collar crimes, and even government / police corruption), and mental health care (to reduce or even eliminate mass shootings - this worked in the US in the past, and works in every other country on earth right now). Also, "social safety net" refers to things like social security, disability, not illegal deportations of non-criminals or what ever those organizations are focused on these days. The actual social safety net is on teetering on the edge of collapse because it's funding was stolen from the organizations you are defending.
- cdrnsf 7mo agoICE is a relatively new creation and DHS itself is a massive organizational Frankenstein's monster. Both can and should be dissolved.
- tencentshill 7mo agoThey didn't exist before 2001. Congress can create alternatives that actually serve and protect the people.
- htx80nerd 7mo ago[flagged]
- vonneumannstan 7mo agoSo weird that railing against government overreach is now considered a leftist position when it was a fundamental right position for decades... You could not lick the boot harder if you tried.
- crimsoneer 7mo ago[flagged]
- moribvndvs 7mo agoWe lived in caves with no society before ICE?
- hypeatei 7mo agoDisbanding draconion intelligence apparatus that didn't exist before 2001 would not mean we're back to living in caves.
- hedora 7mo agoIt would mean we'd have the right to live in caves without presenting papers though.
- 4MOAisgoodenuf 7mo agoDo you not remember life before ICE and TSA or are you not old enough to legally rent a car?
- mindslight 7mo agoYour assertion of age is way off. Most people are going to be well into adulthood by the time they've flown enough to perceive the "security" process as its own thing.
- hedora 7mo agoDHS was created after 9/11. Most car rental places won't rent to people under the age of 25. There's maybe a few month period between the birth day cutoff and the founding of the DHS.
- mindslight 7mo agoRead my comment again. The assertion I was responding to was "Do you not remember", not were you not alive. I'm well past the minimum age for renting a car, but I would not say that I remember airport security before the TSA - because I didn't experience it enough for it to have left any impression. I do remember a much more recent trip to a foreign country, where on the return we were just walking through an airport hallway when I realized we had just gone through the security point. That is the way to do things.
- seethishat 7mo agoDon't carry them with you. I'm old and I can tell you from experience... you can live life without holding a cellphone all the time. It's not as hard as you think.
- blovescoffee 7mo agoDo you really recommend people travel internationally in 2026 without a cellphone? I’m kind of bewildered by this suggestion. As someone who has to go between LATAM and US frequently, I have no choice but to bring my cellphone.
- skateflat 7mo agoI went to Thailand for three weeks in November. I didn’t bring a phone or a laptop. I printed my maps, reservations, and emergency numbers. It was awesome. Don’t lock yourself into imaginary prisons.
- mothballed 7mo agoI don't bring phones either. I go straight to the nearest mall/bazaar/market and buy one. Anyplace developed enough that you need a phone has them for sale. Anyplace where you can't find a phone has enough other people without them you can still get around. The phone gets trashed before I go through the next international border.
- f1shy 7mo agoIMHO today is difficult to do anything without a smartphone. I hate the state of affairs, but it is just so. Anything needs an app to work. Public services in some countries requiere it. Paying, etc. But in traveling is almost essential. GPS to navigate, search for hotels, places to eat, take fotos… yes, you could carry many devices… but seriously?! Ah btw… what about being in touch with family?
- testing22321 7mo agoDo you remember a time people did all those things without a phone? I’ve driven across multiple continents and many dozens of countries without a phone or gps. Talking to locals to ask directions is half the fun, especially when I don’t speak the language. I’ve been invited to parties, weddings and more because of it.
- htx80nerd 7mo ago[flagged]
- vonneumannstan 7mo agoAh yes sneaking in via extremely secure international airport checkpoints. Classic
- JMKH42 7mo ago[dead]
- mindslight 7mo agoWhile heartily agreeing with the thrust of your comment, I think the answer has to do with whether they are "uppity" or if they have an aggrieved husband. (of course the outgroup always morphs to fit the current needs of the regime. and by the time it's "good upstanding family men" being executed often enough that it's un-ignorable, it will be too late for most of them to suddenly develop morals)
- zouhair 7mo agoDon't go to America is the best alternative.
- Ekaros 7mo agoOnly go to good parts. Like Mexico and South America in general.
- jeffrallen 7mo agoCanada's ok, but only in May and October. The rest of the year is ice and/or black fly season.
- ishouldstayaway 7mo agoIn English, "America" means the USA specifically. But you knew that already and decided to just post bait.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- calderarrow 7mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humour
- shimman 7mo agoSeems too subjective. I don't think it'll take off.
- ishouldstayaway 7mo agoHey look judging from how this thread evolved in the last several hours, at least it turned out that the bait worked and a bunch of people were dumb enough to take it? ha ha
- smarf 7mo agoor, perhaps, they are wryly pushing back against the USA capturing a generic geographic term for themselves
- comrade1234 7mo ago"Immigration and Customs Enforcement have already started targeting travelers, with agents in plain clothes forcefully detaining a mother in front of her young daughter at San Francisco International Airport on Sunday after a tip from the Transportation Security Administration." I don't think the tsa is at sfo. They use a private contractor for tsa functions. Is the quote made-up?
- jcrawfordor 7mo agoTSA does more than just the security checkpoints, even at airports with privatized screening TSA does all of the back-office work, including some on-site staff. The physical screening is the only thing that can be contracted out, not the whole rest of the process like maintenance of risk databases. What might confuse things a bit is that this incident happened hours before ICE agents started reinforcing TSA at checkpoints and seems mostly unrelated, other than establishing the general principle that ICE will arrest people at airports based on tips from TSA's flight booking records.
- ceejayoz 7mo agohttps://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/24/us/tsa-data-ice-deportation-san-francisco-airport.html https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/24/us/tsa-data-ice-deportati... > Ms. Lopez-Jimenez, 41, a native of Guatemala, and her daughter, Wendy Godinez-Lopez, were flagged by T.S.A. officials on Friday when they showed up on a passenger list for a Sunday flight from San Francisco to Miami. The agency then tipped off Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to the documents. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/12/us/politics/immigration-tsa-passenger-data.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/12/us/politics/immigration-t... > Under the previously undisclosed program, the Transportation Security Administration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement of travelers are sharing names and birth dates of travelers believed to have been ordered out of the country by an immigration judge. ICE can then send agents to the airport to detain and quickly deport those people. They don't have to be at the airport to do this; airlines have to send them the manifest. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-19/chapter-I/part-122/subpart-H/section-122.75a https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-19/chapter-I/part-122/sub... > Except as provided in paragraph (c) of this section, an appropriate official of each commercial aircraft (carrier) departing from the United States en route to any port or place outside the United States must transmit to the Advance Passenger Information System (APIS; referred to in this section as the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) system), the electronic data interchange system approved by CBP for such transmissions, an electronic passenger departure manifest covering all passengers checked in for the flight.
- chasil 7mo agohttps://archive.ph/4U0YX https://archive.ph/4U0YX
- nequals30 7mo agoFor Linux users, you could try disabling the desktop environment when going through the airport (or using termux-launcher on your phone). It'd be fun to see how they'd handle a CLI. Might result in getting detained, though.
- MSFT_Edging 7mo agoinsert "wrench" xkcd here
- GTP 7mo agoYou're an hacker, detained.
- nine_k 7mo agoThe usual fare: log out, disable biometrics, use long pins and passwords, power off. Prefer a burner device, or clean your device and restore when you arrive. I remember how Google's internal guidelines for travel circa 2011 required to remove any material under NDA from your laptop when traveling to China or Russia; you had to restore it over the VPN after a safe arrival. Funny that now the same precautions apply to the US :((
- joe_mamba 7mo ago>you had to restore it over the VPN after a safe arrival How do you restore it via VPN? Don't you first need a workable OS to connect to VPN first?
- f1shy 7mo ago“Remove material under NDA” not format blank the computer.
- nine_k 7mo agoYou have a working OS! But you're logged out, all sensitive data is removed (safely overwritten with random data first), and you don't have the means to connect to the VPN or anything corporate (it was before zero-trust architecture), even at gunpoint. You can check your flight status, or look up a cafe nearby to eat, etc. But you have to go to a Google office in the destination city, identity yourself, and get the trusted bits restored on your corp machine. This, together with an OTP device, finally allowed you to reconnect to the internal network (and go check fresh memegen).
- chasil 7mo agoApple devices allow biometrics to be disabled for unlocking the phone. They are still active for accessing anything in the wallet, however.
- TheNewsIsHere 7mo agoYou can completely disable biometry if you wish to do so. Apple Pay without biometrics is somewhat annoying.
- g947o 7mo agoAirlines like Alaska Airlines make it very difficult to board a plane without a phone. It's still possible, but you need to prepare early and get your boarding pass printed at home, provided that you have a printer, apparently.
- esseph 7mo agoYou can also print them at the numerous Alaska Airlines kiosks at most airports
- g947o 7mo ago> Alaska Airlines kiosks Those don't exist. I guess you haven't traveled with Alaska for a while. https://worldaviationfestival.com/blog/airlines/alaska-airlines-removes-kiosks-to-create-a-seamless-airport-experience/ https://worldaviationfestival.com/blog/airlines/alaska-airli...
- esseph 7mo agoI fly with them all the time. You can print your tickets at the ones that do bag check in where bag drop-off is, or the attendant that checks your ID and takes your bags can print them for you.
- TheNewsIsHere 7mo agoI can’t think of a single airline that can’t or won’t print a boarding pass. At least not based in North America.
- hedora 7mo agoI remember when Alaska Airlines wasn't terrible. Any idea what happened? New CEO? Acquisition?
- throwawaya58585 7mo agoA lot of otherwise good companies have found that "Can't use phone" is almost equivalent to "Annoying non-profitable Customer"
- Sophira 7mo agoAdditionally: If you have adb access turned on, turn it off before travelling!
- novaRom 7mo agoAnother method many don't know is to have 2 synchronized phones while traveling, so if one is out of you, you still have full control. Enable self-destruction mode caused by a special unlock PIN on each of them.
- charles_f 7mo agoIt's an interesting state that you can force someone to unlock their phone with biometrics, but you can't force them to reveal a pin. Anecdotally, I have been to the US a few times in the past year, and seen no change myself - where are you going and why? Thanks have a good trip. It was for short business trips, and I'm white with a number of documented entries/departures, so my experience might be very different from the next person though.
- abc123abc123 7mo agoDitch the phone. The liability, tracking and mental health problems created due to modern phones has made owning one unsustainable. Email works, at worst, voip providers exist. Do you need a map? Print one. Do you need directions? Ask someone. Does the restaurant only offer app or qr, ask someone, or go somewhere else. I have never encountered a phone-related problem that could not be solved with: 1. A print out. 2. Asking someone. 3. Using your web browser on your computer. 4. Using some kind of voip if audio communication is needed. Yes, it is not as convenient as the surveillance and privacy nightmares of today, but if your life is only about convenience, then send your money to the government, and let them just decide for you how much money you need, and you don't even have to think about that. A minor inconvenience is a price well paid for freedom from surveillance and excellent mental health. The ones who complain about inconvenience don't really care about privacy, democracy and freedom, so should not complain when these things are attacked.
- bdangubic 7mo agoYou drive car or walk everywhere you go? Car is convenience, yes but it is the privacy nightmare (unless you gamble and drive without plates :) )
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 7mo ago> unless you gamble and drive without plates New cars are being fitted with cell modems to ping cell towers.
- bdangubic 7mo agoYea, driving a modern / newer car is just as bad privacy-wise as having a mobile phone. I mentioned plate readers as I was expecting "Don't drive new cars" given the "don't use mobile phone" comment :)
- thiht 7mo agoInsane take, you can’t expect anyone to agree with this.
- gos9 7mo agoiPhone: clicking power button five times in quick succession locks down to password access only.
- anotherevan 7mo ago"Unlock your phone." "No, I don't have to." Detained in a room for twelve hours. "Okay, okay, here's my phone."
- KetoManx64 7mo agoSo you missed your flight, probably not getting a refund on that ticket, missed the people/plans that were setup around you arriving 12 hours ago? I'd rather wipe my phone and then restore it when I arrive.
- anotherevan 7mo ago"Why are you travelling with a blank phone?" Detained in a room for twelve hours.