11 ms·

Not quite so relevant to NZ but since I'm guessing many HNers are wondering what happens at the US border: https://www.eff.org/wp/defending-privacy-us-border-g

by patio11 13y ago

Not quite so relevant to NZ but since I'm guessing many HNers are wondering what happens at the US border: https://www.eff.org/wp/defending-privacy-us-border-guide-travelers-carrying-digital-devices https://www.eff.org/wp/defending-privacy-us-border-guide-tra... I worry about this, since I travel frequently. Then again, I also worry about plane crashes. I think both are probably irrational, but having plans is what keeps the boogeyman away at night, so here's mine: 1) Remain polite and professional. 2) Decline to consent to any search. Comply with officers' demands that they tell me I'm legally required to comply with. Ask for that demand to be produced in writing. I'm willing to wait for a supervisor while they figure out how to do that, even if it means I miss my flight. I will get a receipt and/or report number and/or some other official written record of the incident if any seizure, including seizure of information, takes place. 3) Immediately after reaching my destination, file written grievances with any and all responsible agencies. They must have a spreadsheet tracking passenger complaints somewhere. Let's increment that while having someone commit, on paper, to a version of events of what happened and a legal rationale to why that was justified. This will only cost me a bit of time and money, and I have lots of time and money, but it has heavily asymmetric payoff in the event of a lawsuit or PR battle. But honestly? Mathematically, I'm much, much more at risk of getting mugged in Chicago on my way home from the airport than getting held up by Customs. I don't exactly live in fear of muggings but I take sensible precautions like e.g. backing up my data, making sure that I can turn a factory-new laptop into a working dev environment within a day, and carrying insurance. I'm pretty sure most of these still work even if I happen to lose a laptop to Customs rather than to a mugger.

salient 13y ago
Do you get searched by the TSA even when you're using the US airport as a hub, and not visiting US? Because I was already thinking of avoiding US as a hub if possible, but I wasn't sure if it was necessary or not.
- rbritton 13y ago
  TSA searches only usually apply at the transition points from the outside into the terminals. Not all airports have the terminals all connected on the "secure" side though, so if changing airlines you may have to go through them. Customs is a different story, and I'm not sure how that works in this case.
  - ubernostrum 13y ago
    When connecting from Country A to Country C via Country B (i.e., flight goes from A to B, then another flight from B to C), some countries offer "transit" -- they do not require clearing Country B's customs or security, and simply allow you to step off one plane and onto the other. The US is not one of those countries. When connecting between two other countries via the US, a passenger must clear US Customs, then US TSA security procedures before being permitted to board the second flight.
    - NickNameNick 13y ago
      I've transited through the US at LAX before, and while I did have to go through customs, I did not have to go through TSA.
- patio11 13y ago
  My understanding is that US airports are generally not configured to separate transit passengers from the rest of the airport (there is a term of art for this but it is eluding me at the moment). As a consequence, if you're in America even for a few minutes, you'll meet with our good friends at Customs and Border Patrol. CBP is not TSA.
  - chris_j 13y ago
    The term that I've heard used for this is sterile transit. I'm not aware of any US airports having it.
    - NickNameNick 13y ago
      LAX has it, I've been through on the London to Auckland route, both ways. Both times they didn't have enough staff to man the separate customs desk, and ran us through a general customs hall.
      - eitally 13y ago
        There are a few other airports that do, too, but it's uncommonly used.
      - nwp90 13y ago
        It's been and gone a few times over the years on that route. At times immigration but no baggage claim, at times transit lounge (actually I'm not sure I ever did go through when that was in force, I think it came and went in-between trips for me), at times full re-check-in... anyway, I think the setup was different every time. And every time they found a way to make it a PITA. I eventually got fed up with it, and don't travel that way any more. I prefer via Dubai, Hong Kong, or Shanghai. Border control officers there, while still clearly doing their job meticulously, manage to be polite as well.
    - PeterisP 13y ago
      Interesting, as far as I seem to remember all the airports in Europe I've been to had this concept, except tiny regional airports. Probably because traditionally pretty much any connecting flight involved transit through a third country that you'd need a separate visa to visit. The idea is that you "enter the country" when going out from the main part of the airport, but you can go from any arriving flight to any departing flight without doing so, and most of the facilities - shops, waiting rooms, etc - are 'inside the zone' as well.
- teh_klev 13y ago
  Last time I passed through LA on the way to NZ from London, and back, I was eyeball scanned and fingerprinted. I had a moan about this here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6566274 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6566274 At the time they didn't appear to be siphoning off folks for hand-luggage special treatment, though it wouldn't surprise me if they did.
  - verytrivial 13y ago
    "Bio" scanning. Reminds me of a trip out via London Luton a year or so ago. They were "trialling" one of those hugely expensive and ineffective backscatter scanners. We, my partner and I were pulled out of the flow and asked if we'd like to try it. "We can't decline, can we?" I ask. "Ha, ha. No. But it is really safe." The operator when into sales pitch mode. I said I was well aware of the technology but understood it to overall reduce security because of the money wasted that would otherwise be spent on trained personnel. He repeated again that it was safe, by which point my girlfriend was already shepparded into the device. "I mean," he jokes, "you're not pregnant are you?" "Yes," she honestly replied, now standing arms raised in front of the sensor. After a short pause, another assurance of safety followed. I said I would happily undergo a manual search, but he said that would not be required. Scan over, we were let go. "Well," my partner began as we strolled passed the duty free, unable to really pay attention to it now. "That was humiliating." Indeed it was.
- aragot 13y ago
  Would be good to compare that risk with the risk of passing borders in countries prone to corruption. How could we compute stats about that?
  - entropy_ 13y ago
    From my experience crossing the Syrian border many many times, it's resolved with (at most) a 20$ bill(or the equivalent in Syrian pounds). Same goes for traffic violations or pretty much anything that deals with the police or customs in any way. I'm guessing that this wouldn't be the case for someone whose name is on a list somewhere or someone actually caught smuggling something(might work but would definitely set you back more). But at least in my(and friends') experience, it's never been a problem specifically because of the corruption. Police and customs people are not robots following orders from on high, they're robots who'll bother you to no end until you pay them and will leave you alone and might invite you over to a cup of coffee once you do.
    - mnw21cam 13y ago
      When I lived in Kenya, I was stopped for speeding. In a battered old Peugeot 305 estate. Up a steep hill on a main route. At 8000 feet altitude where the already underpowered engine was suffering greatly from lack of air. The policeman was looking for a bribe, but got laughed at instead.
- tsaoutourpants 13y ago
  The answer is yes. All travelers arriving on international flights are screened by CBP, regardless of whether they are transit passengers. Before you go through CBP, you must collect your checked bags, which means after CBP, you must be dumped into the insecure area of the airport, rather than the sterile area. From there, you will need to clear TSA security to make your connection.
num3ric 13y ago
> I'm much, much more at risk of getting mugged in Chicago [...] than getting held up by Customs. That's not true if you work on something like the Tor Project.
- tjk 13y ago
  I'm an European and I lost all hope of ever visiting USA without losing the last bits of my privacy and dignity. Back when TSA screening entered into force I pretty much knew it's over, but actually my somewhat (over?) enthusiastic contribution to the Tor project turned out to be, and I'm not afraid to use that word, the mistake that most probably hit the final nail in the coffin. If even random companies mention my Tor project involvement in their recruitment emails than what is the chance the neurotic and overly paranoid American security agencies will let it slide?
  - zobzu 13y ago
    It's pretty rare that this stuff happens to be honest. I enter the USA very often and TSA agents are very nice more often that not. I should note that i travel with weird electronic gear that they've generally never seen (a lot of it is hand made..) yet, never had any issue. They do scan and ask to see what it is, I always comply with zero question of course.
    - acqq 13y ago
      Are you involved in Tor development or something similar? Is your response relevant then?
  - jmspring 13y ago
    Just to be nit-picky -- TSA != DHS/Immigration.
    - United857 13y ago
      To be more nit-picky, both TSA and immigration (CBP) are separate agencies under the DHS organization.
beedogs 13y ago
> I don't exactly live in fear of muggings but I take sensible precautions like e.g. backing up my data, making sure that I can turn a factory-new laptop into a working dev environment within a day, and carrying insurance. Yep. When I visit the US, I bring a freshly-wiped laptop with no personal data on it with me. If I lose it, it doesn't matter.
- yaeger 13y ago
  Another way would be to have truecrypt completely encrypt the drive in the laptop and have a colleague set up the password. Then, when you have arrived, you ask your colleague to send you the password. That way you have security of the laptop data and you can confidently tell any government agency that you do not know the password should they request it. I hear some companies do it this way. Should the man request the password of the work laptop you brought along? You can just tell em "Take it up with my superior back home"
  - celticninja 13y ago
    Of course they may employ the rubber glove and wrench treatment to make sure you don't know the password.
    - timbro 13y ago
      This story is about New Zealand, but I'm sure we agree on which government exerts the pressure that these police state tactics are about to become the new (and apparently accepted) "normal". I really hate to see the US going down that path, it would have had so much potential to exert positive pressure, to make the World a better place.
    - tripzilch 13y ago
      What's the rubber glove for?
      - test1235 13y ago
        To blow up and make amusing animal shapes with, while everyone's waiting.
rikkus 13y ago
If I decline to consent to a search, I know that I'd immediately be flagged as trouble by the border staff: That's part of their job. I don't think searches are effective, and if I was searched regularly or particularly intrusively, I would start getting upset, but as being searched doesn't sound that traumatic to me (though I've not had more than a pat down and a bag check), for now I'd much rather comply, make my flight, and not be on their database as a troublemaker. If you have a problem with the way border control operates, I think it's a much better idea to try to deal with it while you're not standing in the middle of it.
- tsaoutourpants 13y ago
  This makes you a part of the problem. The government can only take away our freedoms if no one stands up when they try.
- triplesec 13y ago
  To use declining of consent as reason to flag you is unconstitutional, not to mention wrong. Of course there are few sanctions available in this case, which makes such power abuse so insidious.
DanBC 13y ago
TSA Breast Milk Screening Video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jh1h5Mvc3MM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jh1h5Mvc3MM TSA response: http://blog.tsa.gov/2010/12/tsa-response-to-tsa-breast-milk.html http://blog.tsa.gov/2010/12/tsa-response-to-tsa-breast-milk.... She got an apology letter, at least.
- headgasket 13y ago
  Who is John Galt?
latj 13y ago
"I'm much, much more at risk of getting mugged in Chicago on my way home from the airport than getting held up by Custom" These are two very different scenarios. It is much easier to control your own actions than the actions of others. In the latter scenario, your allegedly democratically elected representatives have (indirectly) asked customs to search you. You are mugging yourself and paying the person who is doing it.

by patio11 13y ago

salient 13y ago

Do you get searched by the TSA even when you're using the US airport as a hub, and not visiting US? Because I was already thinking of avoiding US as a hub if possible, but I wasn't sure if it was necessary or not.

rbritton 13y ago
TSA searches only usually apply at the transition points from the outside into the terminals. Not all airports have the terminals all connected on the "secure" side though, so if changing airlines you may have to go through them. Customs is a different story, and I'm not sure how that works in this case.
- ubernostrum 13y ago
  When connecting from Country A to Country C via Country B (i.e., flight goes from A to B, then another flight from B to C), some countries offer "transit" -- they do not require clearing Country B's customs or security, and simply allow you to step off one plane and onto the other. The US is not one of those countries. When connecting between two other countries via the US, a passenger must clear US Customs, then US TSA security procedures before being permitted to board the second flight.
  - NickNameNick 13y ago
    I've transited through the US at LAX before, and while I did have to go through customs, I did not have to go through TSA.
patio11 13y ago
My understanding is that US airports are generally not configured to separate transit passengers from the rest of the airport (there is a term of art for this but it is eluding me at the moment). As a consequence, if you're in America even for a few minutes, you'll meet with our good friends at Customs and Border Patrol. CBP is not TSA.
- chris_j 13y ago
  The term that I've heard used for this is sterile transit. I'm not aware of any US airports having it.
  - NickNameNick 13y ago
    LAX has it, I've been through on the London to Auckland route, both ways. Both times they didn't have enough staff to man the separate customs desk, and ran us through a general customs hall.
    - eitally 13y ago
      There are a few other airports that do, too, but it's uncommonly used.
    - nwp90 13y ago
      It's been and gone a few times over the years on that route. At times immigration but no baggage claim, at times transit lounge (actually I'm not sure I ever did go through when that was in force, I think it came and went in-between trips for me), at times full re-check-in... anyway, I think the setup was different every time. And every time they found a way to make it a PITA. I eventually got fed up with it, and don't travel that way any more. I prefer via Dubai, Hong Kong, or Shanghai. Border control officers there, while still clearly doing their job meticulously, manage to be polite as well.
  - PeterisP 13y ago
    Interesting, as far as I seem to remember all the airports in Europe I've been to had this concept, except tiny regional airports. Probably because traditionally pretty much any connecting flight involved transit through a third country that you'd need a separate visa to visit. The idea is that you "enter the country" when going out from the main part of the airport, but you can go from any arriving flight to any departing flight without doing so, and most of the facilities - shops, waiting rooms, etc - are 'inside the zone' as well.
teh_klev 13y ago
Last time I passed through LA on the way to NZ from London, and back, I was eyeball scanned and fingerprinted. I had a moan about this here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6566274 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6566274 At the time they didn't appear to be siphoning off folks for hand-luggage special treatment, though it wouldn't surprise me if they did.
- verytrivial 13y ago
  "Bio" scanning. Reminds me of a trip out via London Luton a year or so ago. They were "trialling" one of those hugely expensive and ineffective backscatter scanners. We, my partner and I were pulled out of the flow and asked if we'd like to try it. "We can't decline, can we?" I ask. "Ha, ha. No. But it is really safe." The operator when into sales pitch mode. I said I was well aware of the technology but understood it to overall reduce security because of the money wasted that would otherwise be spent on trained personnel. He repeated again that it was safe, by which point my girlfriend was already shepparded into the device. "I mean," he jokes, "you're not pregnant are you?" "Yes," she honestly replied, now standing arms raised in front of the sensor. After a short pause, another assurance of safety followed. I said I would happily undergo a manual search, but he said that would not be required. Scan over, we were let go. "Well," my partner began as we strolled passed the duty free, unable to really pay attention to it now. "That was humiliating." Indeed it was.
aragot 13y ago
Would be good to compare that risk with the risk of passing borders in countries prone to corruption. How could we compute stats about that?
- entropy_ 13y ago
  From my experience crossing the Syrian border many many times, it's resolved with (at most) a 20$ bill(or the equivalent in Syrian pounds). Same goes for traffic violations or pretty much anything that deals with the police or customs in any way. I'm guessing that this wouldn't be the case for someone whose name is on a list somewhere or someone actually caught smuggling something(might work but would definitely set you back more). But at least in my(and friends') experience, it's never been a problem specifically because of the corruption. Police and customs people are not robots following orders from on high, they're robots who'll bother you to no end until you pay them and will leave you alone and might invite you over to a cup of coffee once you do.
  - mnw21cam 13y ago
    When I lived in Kenya, I was stopped for speeding. In a battered old Peugeot 305 estate. Up a steep hill on a main route. At 8000 feet altitude where the already underpowered engine was suffering greatly from lack of air. The policeman was looking for a bribe, but got laughed at instead.
tsaoutourpants 13y ago
The answer is yes. All travelers arriving on international flights are screened by CBP, regardless of whether they are transit passengers. Before you go through CBP, you must collect your checked bags, which means after CBP, you must be dumped into the insecure area of the airport, rather than the sterile area. From there, you will need to clear TSA security to make your connection.

num3ric 13y ago

> I'm much, much more at risk of getting mugged in Chicago [...] than getting held up by Customs. That's not true if you work on something like the Tor Project.

tjk 13y ago
I'm an European and I lost all hope of ever visiting USA without losing the last bits of my privacy and dignity. Back when TSA screening entered into force I pretty much knew it's over, but actually my somewhat (over?) enthusiastic contribution to the Tor project turned out to be, and I'm not afraid to use that word, the mistake that most probably hit the final nail in the coffin. If even random companies mention my Tor project involvement in their recruitment emails than what is the chance the neurotic and overly paranoid American security agencies will let it slide?
- zobzu 13y ago
  It's pretty rare that this stuff happens to be honest. I enter the USA very often and TSA agents are very nice more often that not. I should note that i travel with weird electronic gear that they've generally never seen (a lot of it is hand made..) yet, never had any issue. They do scan and ask to see what it is, I always comply with zero question of course.
  - acqq 13y ago
    Are you involved in Tor development or something similar? Is your response relevant then?
- jmspring 13y ago
  Just to be nit-picky -- TSA != DHS/Immigration.
  - United857 13y ago
    To be more nit-picky, both TSA and immigration (CBP) are separate agencies under the DHS organization.

beedogs 13y ago

> I don't exactly live in fear of muggings but I take sensible precautions like e.g. backing up my data, making sure that I can turn a factory-new laptop into a working dev environment within a day, and carrying insurance. Yep. When I visit the US, I bring a freshly-wiped laptop with no personal data on it with me. If I lose it, it doesn't matter.

yaeger 13y ago
Another way would be to have truecrypt completely encrypt the drive in the laptop and have a colleague set up the password. Then, when you have arrived, you ask your colleague to send you the password. That way you have security of the laptop data and you can confidently tell any government agency that you do not know the password should they request it. I hear some companies do it this way. Should the man request the password of the work laptop you brought along? You can just tell em "Take it up with my superior back home"
- celticninja 13y ago
  Of course they may employ the rubber glove and wrench treatment to make sure you don't know the password.
  - timbro 13y ago
    This story is about New Zealand, but I'm sure we agree on which government exerts the pressure that these police state tactics are about to become the new (and apparently accepted) "normal". I really hate to see the US going down that path, it would have had so much potential to exert positive pressure, to make the World a better place.
  - tripzilch 13y ago
    What's the rubber glove for?
    - test1235 13y ago
      To blow up and make amusing animal shapes with, while everyone's waiting.

rikkus 13y ago

If I decline to consent to a search, I know that I'd immediately be flagged as trouble by the border staff: That's part of their job. I don't think searches are effective, and if I was searched regularly or particularly intrusively, I would start getting upset, but as being searched doesn't sound that traumatic to me (though I've not had more than a pat down and a bag check), for now I'd much rather comply, make my flight, and not be on their database as a troublemaker. If you have a problem with the way border control operates, I think it's a much better idea to try to deal with it while you're not standing in the middle of it.

tsaoutourpants 13y ago
This makes you a part of the problem. The government can only take away our freedoms if no one stands up when they try.
triplesec 13y ago
To use declining of consent as reason to flag you is unconstitutional, not to mention wrong. Of course there are few sanctions available in this case, which makes such power abuse so insidious.

DanBC 13y ago

TSA Breast Milk Screening Video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jh1h5Mvc3MM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jh1h5Mvc3MM TSA response: http://blog.tsa.gov/2010/12/tsa-response-to-tsa-breast-milk.html http://blog.tsa.gov/2010/12/tsa-response-to-tsa-breast-milk.... She got an apology letter, at least.

headgasket 13y ago
Who is John Galt?

latj 13y ago

"I'm much, much more at risk of getting mugged in Chicago on my way home from the airport than getting held up by Custom" These are two very different scenarios. It is much easier to control your own actions than the actions of others. In the latter scenario, your allegedly democratically elected representatives have (indirectly) asked customs to search you. You are mugging yourself and paying the person who is doing it.