33
what to do with your phone on nternational travel?
(leminal.space)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2026
33 points (97.1% liked)
Privacy
50831 readers
1607 users here now
A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
Some Rules
- Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
- Don't promote proprietary software
- Try to keep things on topic
- If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
- Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
- Be nice :)
Related communities
much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)
founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
Yeah, and call it my middle class white American audacity but I'd be willing to go toe to toe with them on that BS for quite some time. I'd be focused on keeping control and being the most pristine accuser in a civil rights lawsuit that there ever was.
I'm read up enough on US Borders and customs policy to know them confiscating and hooking up my phone to a laptop to try to crack my password is a different thing than manipulating me into volunteering my pin. That's what they're trying to do, pressure people into "voluntarily" giving their pin, which gets the cops off the hook for following their protocol for conducting searches within their more restrictive rules for cracking into a device. Same as letting them in the front door of my house, if a person "voluntarily" lets cops into their house when the cops apply pressure, the homeowner has allowed them out of all the rules and oversight that come with getting a warrant.
I think you're right, it is important for people to know their rights, but also understand that these people are making it up as they go.
In the activist example, they claimed they had evidence he had child pornography. Do they even have to find anything real to fuck up your day if they want to?
Here's an important point from the activist distress code case: CBP had a plan to target him for this treatment in advance before he showed up at the border checkpoint that day. The airlines send them passenger manifests 72 hours in advance.
100% of the time, if they take you to the little room, start asking you questions, and want to look through your phone, they already believe you're guilty of something specific.
If that happens to you, you need to understand that you have already been the "target" of an investigation. There is nothing you can do or say in that room that will convince them otherwise. The best thing you can do is shut the hell up, do as little as possible, and don't make their case for them.
And don't believe anything they're telling you either. The cops can lie to you, but you can't lie to the cops. It's a crime.