7 ms·

There is no reason anyone should search a phone, because anyone smuggling "illegal data" can just transfer it directly over the internet undetected. This is ho

There is no reason anyone should search a phone, because anyone smuggling "illegal data" can just transfer it directly over the internet undetected. This is horrible and ridiculous.

stevewepay 12y ago
They can read through the person's text messages to look for evidence of illegal activities. This happened to one of my friends while trying to enter the US, and she was given a 10 year ban from entering the US because of things written in her text messages. They essentially accused her of trying to engage in immigration fraud because she had texted with one of her friends some jokes about getting married for a green card.
- loceng 12y ago
  I'm guessing they knew the text messages existed before they requested to see the phone.
  - chc 12y ago
    That seems like a pretty wild guess.
    - loceng 12y ago
      I can only assume you don't know what the NSA has been up to?
      - chc 12y ago
        I don't doubt some people in the government have the capability to read people's text messages, but what you're suggesting is way past that. In the scenario you seem to be proposing, some random border agents are not only privy to top-secret NSA projects, but also have access to the data collected by said top-secret projects, and not only that, but they know everybody who's going to drive across the border on a given day, and not only that, but they pre-screen all of those people's data to see who's planning to marry for a green card so that they can manually screen the people's devices and then pretend it was random search. Basically, these people are not the NSA, so assuming that they have the capabilities of the NSA seems a bit far-fetched.
        zero_iq 12y ago
        It doesn't mean anything of the sort. They just need a tip-off at the border. They don't need access to everything or even need to know how or why. They don't even need to know that it's a tip-off: a computer could just spit out "selected for random phone search" and maybe "suspected immigration fraud" when that person reaches border control. The border agent needn't know how or why the selection was made, nor have access to any top-secret data. Just follow instructions. With automated screening using access to a database of everybody's communications, I'm sure you could easily predict more than 80% of the people who cross country borders within 24-hours. For flights, that would be close to 100% accurate. With satnav, you'd probably catch a good portion of the rest who drive across.
        chc 12y ago
        And who do you reckon is doing all of this expensive, technically demanding and legally hazardous work just to catch people getting married for green cards? The NSA does not give a crap about that. If every government agency were dipping into the NSA's cookie jar of secrets so liberally, we'd most likely have known about all these not-so-secret programs years before Snowden ever worked there. It's not impossible, but it's sufficiently implausible that you'd be crazy to bet on it.
        spacemanmatt 12y ago
        I understood (arguably too much) The Cube as an allegory for the intelligence machine we have built/are building. That was a really hard realization. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0123755/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0123755/
  - stevewepay 12y ago
    No, they did not know it existed. I'm sure they suspected something (no idea why), but they just pulled over her entire family's car, and did a blanket search. She was on H1B, so she lost her job and had to fly back to Asia with nothing except the clothes she packed for a weekend road trip to Canada.
    - loceng 12y ago
      They're not going to tell that they already had them (with everyone elses' communications gathered) and then reviewed them.
    - barrkel 12y ago
      More validation of my decision not to move to the US after I got my H-1B.
    - tlrobinson 12y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction
  - Someone1234 12y ago
    Why? I've been stopped entering the US for similar reasons, and they searched everything. Read every piece of paper, they even switched on my camera and flicked through the pictures asking me questions about what they found, they didn't search my phone but only because they didn't run across it during the search (my backpack has very many pockets, and they missed a few). I have no doubt at all that they routinely search through people's phones, laptops, tablets, and similar. And if you watch those Passport Patrol style shows where they film in immigration/customs, you can see it is common on there too.
    - loceng 12y ago
      You need to make it commonplace so people become tolerant to it. It doesn't mean there isn't specific targeting done with private data prior to.
      - Someone1234 12y ago
        Maybe, but since you have no specific basis or proof that that was the case in the above example, we can just move forward assuming it was part of a common pattern of searches conducted by US immigration and customs on a daily basis.
        loceng 12y ago
        Not really. Both options should be kept on the table, in our minds.
loceng 12y ago
Or on a USB or other device that's easily hidden.
MollyR 12y ago
Whether its right or wrong, I imagine it's a way to catch low hanging fruit.
cpncrunch 12y ago
You could, but if you watch some episodes of "border security" you'll see that they catch people doing illegal stuff all the time by searching their phones. Usually it's illegally working (which obviously wouldn't apply in this case). However they also are looking for child porn, which may be been why they wanted to search this guy's phone.
- Canada 12y ago
  That's a bullshit excuse border guards give to search electronic storage.
  - cpncrunch 12y ago
    Why is it a "bullshit excuse" if they do actually manage to catch many people by searching phones?
    - Karunamon 12y ago
      It's a bullshit excuse because "protecting the children" are items #1 and #2 on the list of "flimsy justifications for surveillance overreach", right next to "preventing terrorism" at #3. I'm serious. Any time you hear those terms and the discussion is not about speed limits in a school zone, red flags should be going up in your mind. It's not about how many people they catch - even if they had a 100% success rate at nabbing every abuser that crossed the border, it's about civil liberties.
      - cpncrunch 12y ago
        I was simply pointing out the reason for the searches. As it stands, the law currently lets them do these searches, and I was explaining the reasoning behind these searches (which should be pretty obvious to anyone who has watched those TV shows). As for why they want to search for pedophiles at airports: the reason is presumably because there is a serious problem of child sex tourism in certain countries (Thailand for example). You could use the same argument about guns or drugs -- why search people who they suspect are carrying guns or drugs? The reasoning is presumably that stopping these at the border prevents them from coming into the country. To be honest I don't have a problem with being searched at airports. IMO the small inconvenience is outweighed by the benefit of putting the occasional pedophile in jail, preventing diseases from fruit/meat entering our country, and criminals bringing machine guns into the country, etc. I guess from the downvotes and comments that a lot of HN posters have a different opinion.
gav 12y ago
Unlocking my phone for border officials in 2013 when I arrived in Canada cost me about $300. They turned on cellular data when it was left in airplane mode so they could search through my emails. I fly internationally on business and the Canadian border officials are the worst I've run across.
- driverdan 12y ago
  Why didn't you refuse the search?
- shard 12y ago
  This brings up an interesting point. Next time I fly with my smartphone, I am going to remove my SIM card so that something like this doesn't happen.

There is no reason anyone should search a phone, because anyone smuggling "illegal data" can just transfer it directly over the internet undetected. This is horrible and ridiculous.

stevewepay 12y ago

They can read through the person's text messages to look for evidence of illegal activities. This happened to one of my friends while trying to enter the US, and she was given a 10 year ban from entering the US because of things written in her text messages. They essentially accused her of trying to engage in immigration fraud because she had texted with one of her friends some jokes about getting married for a green card.

loceng 12y ago
I'm guessing they knew the text messages existed before they requested to see the phone.
- chc 12y ago
  That seems like a pretty wild guess.
  - loceng 12y ago
    I can only assume you don't know what the NSA has been up to?
    - chc 12y ago
      I don't doubt some people in the government have the capability to read people's text messages, but what you're suggesting is way past that. In the scenario you seem to be proposing, some random border agents are not only privy to top-secret NSA projects, but also have access to the data collected by said top-secret projects, and not only that, but they know everybody who's going to drive across the border on a given day, and not only that, but they pre-screen all of those people's data to see who's planning to marry for a green card so that they can manually screen the people's devices and then pretend it was random search. Basically, these people are not the NSA, so assuming that they have the capabilities of the NSA seems a bit far-fetched.
      - zero_iq 12y ago
        It doesn't mean anything of the sort. They just need a tip-off at the border. They don't need access to everything or even need to know how or why. They don't even need to know that it's a tip-off: a computer could just spit out "selected for random phone search" and maybe "suspected immigration fraud" when that person reaches border control. The border agent needn't know how or why the selection was made, nor have access to any top-secret data. Just follow instructions. With automated screening using access to a database of everybody's communications, I'm sure you could easily predict more than 80% of the people who cross country borders within 24-hours. For flights, that would be close to 100% accurate. With satnav, you'd probably catch a good portion of the rest who drive across.
        chc 12y ago
        And who do you reckon is doing all of this expensive, technically demanding and legally hazardous work just to catch people getting married for green cards? The NSA does not give a crap about that. If every government agency were dipping into the NSA's cookie jar of secrets so liberally, we'd most likely have known about all these not-so-secret programs years before Snowden ever worked there. It's not impossible, but it's sufficiently implausible that you'd be crazy to bet on it.
        spacemanmatt 12y ago
        I understood (arguably too much) The Cube as an allegory for the intelligence machine we have built/are building. That was a really hard realization. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0123755/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0123755/
- stevewepay 12y ago
  No, they did not know it existed. I'm sure they suspected something (no idea why), but they just pulled over her entire family's car, and did a blanket search. She was on H1B, so she lost her job and had to fly back to Asia with nothing except the clothes she packed for a weekend road trip to Canada.
  - loceng 12y ago
    They're not going to tell that they already had them (with everyone elses' communications gathered) and then reviewed them.
  - barrkel 12y ago
    More validation of my decision not to move to the US after I got my H-1B.
  - tlrobinson 12y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction
- Someone1234 12y ago
  Why? I've been stopped entering the US for similar reasons, and they searched everything. Read every piece of paper, they even switched on my camera and flicked through the pictures asking me questions about what they found, they didn't search my phone but only because they didn't run across it during the search (my backpack has very many pockets, and they missed a few). I have no doubt at all that they routinely search through people's phones, laptops, tablets, and similar. And if you watch those Passport Patrol style shows where they film in immigration/customs, you can see it is common on there too.
  - loceng 12y ago
    You need to make it commonplace so people become tolerant to it. It doesn't mean there isn't specific targeting done with private data prior to.
    - Someone1234 12y ago
      Maybe, but since you have no specific basis or proof that that was the case in the above example, we can just move forward assuming it was part of a common pattern of searches conducted by US immigration and customs on a daily basis.
      - loceng 12y ago
        Not really. Both options should be kept on the table, in our minds.

loceng 12y ago

Or on a USB or other device that's easily hidden.

MollyR 12y ago

Whether its right or wrong, I imagine it's a way to catch low hanging fruit.

cpncrunch 12y ago

You could, but if you watch some episodes of "border security" you'll see that they catch people doing illegal stuff all the time by searching their phones. Usually it's illegally working (which obviously wouldn't apply in this case). However they also are looking for child porn, which may be been why they wanted to search this guy's phone.

Canada 12y ago
That's a bullshit excuse border guards give to search electronic storage.
- cpncrunch 12y ago
  Why is it a "bullshit excuse" if they do actually manage to catch many people by searching phones?
  - Karunamon 12y ago
    It's a bullshit excuse because "protecting the children" are items #1 and #2 on the list of "flimsy justifications for surveillance overreach", right next to "preventing terrorism" at #3. I'm serious. Any time you hear those terms and the discussion is not about speed limits in a school zone, red flags should be going up in your mind. It's not about how many people they catch - even if they had a 100% success rate at nabbing every abuser that crossed the border, it's about civil liberties.
    - cpncrunch 12y ago
      I was simply pointing out the reason for the searches. As it stands, the law currently lets them do these searches, and I was explaining the reasoning behind these searches (which should be pretty obvious to anyone who has watched those TV shows). As for why they want to search for pedophiles at airports: the reason is presumably because there is a serious problem of child sex tourism in certain countries (Thailand for example). You could use the same argument about guns or drugs -- why search people who they suspect are carrying guns or drugs? The reasoning is presumably that stopping these at the border prevents them from coming into the country. To be honest I don't have a problem with being searched at airports. IMO the small inconvenience is outweighed by the benefit of putting the occasional pedophile in jail, preventing diseases from fruit/meat entering our country, and criminals bringing machine guns into the country, etc. I guess from the downvotes and comments that a lot of HN posters have a different opinion.

gav 12y ago

Unlocking my phone for border officials in 2013 when I arrived in Canada cost me about $300. They turned on cellular data when it was left in airplane mode so they could search through my emails. I fly internationally on business and the Canadian border officials are the worst I've run across.

driverdan 12y ago
Why didn't you refuse the search?
shard 12y ago
This brings up an interesting point. Next time I fly with my smartphone, I am going to remove my SIM card so that something like this doesn't happen.