As a citizen of the US I hate how SCOTUS has ground the fourth amendment down to practically nothing. It's absurd how people want the constitution to only apply to citizens, when IMO what makes the US unique is that it's constitution and the rights it grants are assumed to already exist for everyone, and all it does is acknowledge and respect them and order the government to do likewise. I very much doubt this will change anytime soon. At this point I'd be all for just abolishing the DHS and everything under it -- I don't think the DHS has, since it's inception, actually done anything that protects the homeland in any capacity. I could be wrong, but if it has actually done something, it's so inconsequential that nobody talks about it.
The DHS is an umbrella organization with a huge number of parts under it, including stuff like FEMA (emergency management), customs, the coast guard, the secret service, monitoring of agricultural pathogens (formerly part of USDA), infrastructure protection (formerly part of FBI), federal law enforcement training, etc.
Abolishing "everything under" the DHS would do incredible damage. The various agencies lumped under the DHS could plausibly be re-organized again, though I'm not sure it would serve much purpose.
The biggest problem is that voters keep putting incompetent ideologues in charge of the federal government.
Okay, but again, the problem causing the jackbooted thugs is poor voter choices in the recent presidential election, ongoing citizen apathy, a Supreme Court enabling it, and a GOP which is thoroughly corrupted from top to bottom, not Customs inspections, FEMA disaster assistance, or Coast Guard rescues.
The fix to this is to swap out the nation's leaders, not to throw away every governmental institution with any relation to public safety.
>Okay, but again, the problem causing the jackbooted thugs is poor voter choices in the recent presidential election, ongoing citizen apathy, a Supreme Court enabling it, and a GOP which is thoroughly corrupted from top to bottom, not Customs inspections, FEMA disaster assistance, or Coast Guard rescues.
Right, and funding for customs inspections, FEMA disaster assistance and the Coast Guard are all already being cut in favor of jackbooted thugs.
>The fix to this is to swap out the nation's leaders, not to throw away every governmental institution with any relation to public safety.
I never suggested that DHS should be abolished. That was someone else[0].
Pretty much the basis for the DHS was 9/11 and terrorism, but terrorism exists in the first place due to US support for Israel and unnecessary interference in the Middle East. I don't particularly like the Islamic nations one bit, but even I see the connection of pointless US foreign policies to terrorism. Moreover, Israel is in large part militarily capable of defending itself. As such, the argument for DHS was all very circular. If you take away the circles, there's nothing left.
A country that so hates its own constitutional democracy cannot possibly support the democracy of other nations.
> terrorism exists in the first place due to US support for Israel and unnecessary interference in the Middle East.
I'm no fan of being Israel's sugar daddy but that's a gross mis-characterization of the situation.
The terrorism landscape of the 80s through 2010s has to do with the cold war, the post-colonial governments of the middle east, etc, etc. It's not a simple problem.
But yeah we should def stop supporting Israel. Not our sandbox, not our problem.
From my memory of our history class in Canadian high school: Russia invaded Afghanistan -> U.S. armed Islamic fighters -> radical networks formed seemed to be the genesis?
You don't get to the "radical islamists wage jihad on US dime" step without the "corrupt post-colonial governments leave citizens dissatisfied, citizens turn to religion" step.
Who installed the corrupt post-colonial governments? Who destabilized middle eastern countries to create an opening for those governments to take power? Who funded the groups who ended up taking power?
> But I get it, reality is complex and "murka bad" is simple.
You just agreed that the Western world is largely behind the blowback, so why are you still dismissing it? Yeah, it's complex and largely predicated on the interests of the West, to the detriment of the citizens of the ME. Do you have something to add?
Edit: I see you're editing your response to address the points in this post. I'll wait till you're done to respond again.
> If you want that narrative stick to latin america.
You're again agreeing with me but trying to make it seem like you're not? Yeah agreed, the history of Western intervention in Latin America is horrific. You should see what they've been doing in the Middle East!
I'm not agreeing with you any more than a middle-ish politician that gets endorsed by some hate group is agreeing with them.
Your opinion here is overly broad and reductive to the point of being stupid and wrong. The nations of the middle east have fucked with each other more than anyone has fucked with them in the past 50yr, though of course they all seek and sometimes get outside aid when doing so.
Bin Laden had a famous quote that translates to "the americans are bad and the shia are worse". I think that sums a typical local attitude up pretty well.
> I'm not agreeing with you any more than a middle-ish politician that gets endorsed by some hate group is agreeing with them.
Ok, then you should adopt a position contrary to mine.
Again, I agree that the ME is complex, but I'm not sure how that disputes the fact that the Western world has meddled in their affairs and destabilized ME countries to the point that they can no longer function independently and fall to authoritarian governments (or have one installed).
> The nations of the middle east have fucked with each other more than anyone has fucked with them in the past 50yr
Yes, their neighbors have "fucked with them," but the West has "fucked with them" more and caused more lasting damage.
For example, in the past 50 years, the US has overthrown the government of Iran, materially supported both belligerents in the Iran-Iraq war, trained and funded and provided material support to militias in Syria and Yemen (including non-stop drone strikes for literally years), supported Israel apartheid unconditionally, invaded Iraq twice, not to mention the 20 year wars in Iraq and Afghanistan which have completely gutted those countries ability to self-govern. Even internal conflicts in the Middle East are stoked and backed by Western powers.
Also funny that you mention bin Laden, he's a good example of blowback resulting from US intervention.
Countries back radical groups all the time. The "reasons" for Al Qaeda turning back on the US were:
1) support for the existence of Israel: just the idea of it, not necessarily the finer points, like whether it should coexist with an Arab Palestinian state. Zionism, whether it meant only taking up part of what was Mandatory Palestine, or all of it, flew directly in the face of the idea of pan-Arabism and Islamic theocratic chauvinism.
2) the Saudi royal family's request that the US-led coalition defend Saudi Arabia during the Persian Gulf War - that was something that Usama bin Laden really hated, as he thought that it should be on the Saudis themselves and Islam as a whole to defend its birthplace, not some Western power.
That's half of the picture. The radical networks didn't target the US just randomly or for nothing. It is specifically because of the US interference in the Middle East and its avid and persistent support for Israel that the US was targeted by Al-Qaeda.
I think that's true although I'm not an expert, my point was kinda just the straight line to Osama bin Laden who was a fighter during that earlier period and 9/11 but your additional context is appreciated. :)
This. I will continue maintaining the opinion that the US needs to just stop supporting Israel. Seriously. Israel can fight it's own religious wars and I see no reason for us to be backing that when our very constitution says "Hey, no endorsing any religion!" If I remember right, Israel has only been able to do half the things it's done with respect to wars because we've just kept giving them weapons and supplies in the first place.
> A country that so hates its own constitutional democracy cannot possibly support the democracy of other nations.
The whole "support democracy" thing has been a ruse for a while now. Democracy has become a synonym for "human rights", and that's always been for sale. Not just in the US, either. The last 35 years have been characterized by exporting economic infrastructure from the US (and West at large) to a place that specifically does not support democracy because, hey, it's cheaper to make stuff there, and line need go up.
Hell, touching on the Middle East, the only reason the region has a seat at the international table at all is because we're willing to look past the abysmal human rights record so long as the oil stays cheap. Otherwise it's a bunch of arid land with very strict rules. Not exactly the kind of place progress and development flock to.
This isn't just an American thing, but it's certainly applicable here.
You've got to be kidding me. If anything, the synonym would be "allows US business interests to pillage their resources." Every time a foreign nation attempts to nationalize a resource, we come in and destabilize their government, install a western friendly autocrat, and install our global businesses to extract their resources.
If we were as venomous as you seem to charge, China wouldn't look anything like it does today, but otherwise, you're saying much the same thing as I am.
Disclaimer: not an american, but I too am a citizen of a country with borders.
As far as I understand, there's 3 categories here, citizens, non-citizen residents, and non-citizens non-residents.
The greatest spikes in constitutional and legal rights and guarantees come from being a resident. Being a citizen gives you political rights like voting and participating in the three branches sure, but for the average man it's nothing compared to the rights bestowed by simply walking down a street freely and engaging in free commerce.
This might be one of those restrictions of freedom that allow for greater freedoms to be guaranteed down the line.
Once a non citizen goes through the border, they enjoy a huge spike in rights and guarantees, if you losen the border, you dilute the rights of the residents and citizens, and you add costs (especially if you let aliens in that don't even pay taxes, enjoying only rights but no responsibility)
Ironically, if you value your freedoms as a resident, you should value restricting freedoms at the border.
Similar to how GPL briefly restricts user rights by requiring them to share the source code.
> Ironically, if you value your freedoms as a resident, you should value restricting freedoms at the border.
Can you clarify this? This doesn't make any sense to me. Freedoms like those granted in the US bill of rights are specifically designed to be universally applied regardless of citizenship status as long as you are within the geographical boundaries of the US or otherwise subject to it's jurisdiction, from my understanding.
Correct, we are in agreement. As a resident or citizen you get most consitutional rights. Before they cross the border they don't have those rights, the moment they cross the border, non-citizens enjoy those rights (looks possible to reverse or deny resident rights by deporting).
So just by crossing the line into the US a person would enjoy almost all of the rights of a citizen. But critically, they don't have these rights BEFORE crossing the border, the border control is the point at which those rights are granted.
>Before they cross the border they don't have those rights, the moment they cross the border, non-citizens enjoy those rights (looks possible to reverse or deny resident rights by deporting).
And all persons in the United States, regardless of status have essentially had their civil liberties significantly curtailed/removed within 100 miles of a border crossing[0].
You might think, "well we need to catch those folks who illegally cross the border, so we need a buffer zone to do so." But the wording (and more importantly the implementation) of these "border zones" include all points of entry like airports. Which means that civil liberties are negated/limited within 100 miles of airports where international flights land.
Which creates reduced civil rights zones around the majority of the US population. Meaning that if I'm within 100 miles of Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International airport (which is many hundreds of miles away from any land border, as are most International airports), civil rights for all persons, citizen, resident or otherwise, are curtailed -- permanently and without recourse.
I'm not aware of these 100mile regulations, but it makes sense in modern times, borders (and transport in general) have ceased to be euclidean, the borders of a country are no longer the geometric perimiter, but include airports. And naturally a border must have a "thickness" (even if 100 miles might be on the thick side) and there must be a grey area where border officials have jurisdiction of, but entrants are not yet considered admitted.
In the same manner that you shouldn't expect to conduct everyday business near the border of a country or near military operations or near power plant facilities, maybe we will start treating airports with such a respect. Yes sir, no sir, don't say "bomb" as a joke, etc...
Sure, you can fight for your rights against government oppression, but I think that resisting control just provides an alibi for illegal actors, and on the converse, cooperating reduces the need for excessive measures by making it easy to identify adversarial actors that do not cooperate.
It's a matter of subjective values, what do you think is more dangerous, an overzealous government or power plant disasters? I think we should be more concerned about power plant disasters, so I will not go exercise my rights near a power plant. Similarly, what do I think is more important, fighting drug trade and tax evasion? Or hiding my porn purchases from my banker? I think fighting drug trade and tax evasion are more important, so I try not to use cryptocurrency for porn purchases. Similarly, I think terrorism and illegal immigration are more important than border officers looking at my personal messages. And no you cannot have it both ways, you either cooperate and help one side, or you refuse to cooperate and provide alibies for enemies of the state.
We have not discussed at this point what your values are, I do not know whether you think drug trading or theft or tax evasion, or terrorism are ok, or child pornography, I presume not, it is more likely you are an individual concerned about personal privacy, but consider that I have no way to distinguish whether you support any of the above, and when you speak with people who support your right to privacy, or more so, individuals that try to convince you that your privacy is of utmost importance, consider whether they themselves are guilty of one of these crimes? Think of which side you are on, whether by being guilty of one crime, you are associating with a coalition of slightly guilty citizens, or whether a couple of your pseudonymous friends are actually massively criminal and your behaviour pooling protects them.
We can also acknowledge that there exists a conflict and a tradeoff between personal liberties and crime countermeasures. And that tradeoff is everchanging, post-911 lots of people would have agreed that some personal liberties needed to be sacrificed, and many would agree that eventually we overcorrected and needed to dial it back. We had a period of peace in the middle where some crimes were mostly used as a symbol for "criminals", but nowadays we have a lot of war going on, how sure are you that your peers in crypto exchanges are not involved with war trade? I don't think drone trade is being done with fiat trade at all. International drug trade probably uses crypto exchanges, offshore accounts, and undoubtedly smugglers cross borders as well.
Have you ever considered how your role in drug trade, child abuse, and war? I'm making no claims that exercising your constitutional rights "helps" or "fights" crime (I find it reasonable that if I make such moral objections, you might be forced to exercise the rights to protect them), but provided that those rights are recognized and guaranteed, consider whether they must always be exercised to the extreme? If you were able to forfeit some of your rights and help fight crime, wouldn't you do it? It is one of the most extreme forms of liberties to sacrifice it, to always instinctively exhert your rights in any opportunity possible is actually a sign that the right is in trouble, and therefore I would claim that since I can occasionally forfeit my right to not being searched, I have a stronger form of freedom (in that sense, you may have more freedom in others).
Here's a scene from Mad Men that I like on the subject. The main character (very right wing traditional) is in the middle of a pot smoking beatnik party. The beatniks are exercising their right to not be searched in their private domicile, and they are partaking in a somewhat harmless illegal activity, but in doing so the police outside of their building becomes the enemy, instead of an ally that is investigating a crime. Not only is the Beatnik placed on the same 'side' as a night-time gunfighter, but also their exercise of their liberty to smoke weed interferes with their liberty to just go outside of their apartment. The main character smoking the legal herb I think cements the bipartisan political divide and their relationship with the law.
Data and logic are great and all, but I wouldn't sleep on art as a means to think.
>We have not discussed at this point what your values are, I do not know whether you think drug trading or theft or tax evasion, or terrorism are ok, or child pornography,
No we haven't. You know why? Because it ain't any of your business, that's why.
And it ain't the government's business either.
What I think and/or believe is my business. Who and how I choose to share that with is also my business and anything else you or I have to say is irrelevant.
As for what I do, that's a different discussion. It's also none of your business, except as those actions impact or influence you.
in contrast, the government sometimes (often?) does have an interest and, potentially, a role in what people, myself included, do.
> if you loosen the border, you dilute the rights of the residents
Strip searching tourists, interrogating them about which social media jokes they shared, or locking them up for weeks without charges and then deporting them based on nothing more than their political views does not strengthen the rights of residents.
> especially if you let aliens in that don't even pay taxes, enjoying only rights but no responsibility
If you are talking about people working in the US without visas, this is a serious misconception. The large majority of undocumented people working in the US pay the same taxes as anyone else, including income and payroll taxes (sometimes under a borrowed social security number, but sometimes with an ITIN, "individual taxpayer ID no."; the IRS is happy to take the money without worrying about immigration status), but don't reap the benefits of those. So it's rather the opposite: all the responsibilities but dramatically fewer rights. In aggregate, undocumented immigrants pay on the order of $100 billion of US taxes every year.
The context of my post was phone searches at the US border, inmigration is a wide scope, strip searching tourists and interrogating about jokes is really out of context and not was was the topic of the article shared.
Searching phones is not really related to reviewing social media is it? You don't need to search a phone to access a public profile. No, searching a phone searches for private messages, maybe you talked with an employer on the US and you are on a tourist visa? Maybe there's talks about drug use or money laundering? or worse?
>If you are talking about people working in the US without visas, this is a serious misconception.
You talk as if there were some sort of authorative objective dataset, but by nature, how can you measure unreported income?
You can search for FUTON sources all you want, but I've worked with immigrants that don't report income on my country. And just because something "doesn't happen" would be a terribe reason not to protect against it.
Would you leave your port 22 open without password just because "it is a misconception" that russians are brute forcing into systems? No, you would simply protect against it, you don't need evidence to implement security mesaures.
> ... as if there were some sort of authorative objective dataset, but by nature, how can you measure unreported income?
Citizen also take cash jobs and don't report the income, yet they have more options and access to resources. Unlike undocumented persons. I'm guessing you feel the same about citizens dodging their tax responsibilities at least as strongly as you do undocumented workers. See the end for a solution, for the undocumented at least.
See [0] for a breakdown of taxes and contributions.$19.5B in Federal Income tax, $32.3B in Social Insurances taxes payed through automatic withholding from their paychecks in 2022. They are not getting jobs where they would owe at the end of the year. They pay the same sales and excise taxes on goods and services, property taxes on renting/owning etc. $96.7B total taxes paid in 2022.
Some use "borrowed" SSN (usually provided by the employer or employer referred source), they don't get to file for a refund; some use ITINs and are also likely forgo refunds thus pay more taxes than a similarly employed citizen while losing out on benefits they are supposedly "stealing". They have no way to access social security.
A 2006 study showed they contributed so much to Texas' GDP that Texas refuses to conduct further studies on their economic impact [1] A Texas economic analysis firm in 2016 estimated a contribution of $11.8B to the state after subtracting $3.1 B the state spent for their health, education, other public services.[2]
The simple solution is access to work authorization. They trade being exploited by employers to paying more taxes for that security. If citizens wanted the jobs they do we would not have a chronic shortage of workers in those positions, Notably hospice and construction.
> I'm guessing you feel the same about citizens dodging their tax responsibilities at least as strongly as you do undocumented workers
No, it's not the same. Immigrants can be deported, which is not the case for citizens by birthright. Additionally birthright citizens have not opted to be born in their country, however immigrants have made the choice to be in their country of destiny, so they are in a much weaker moral and legal position to justify tax evasion.
Where are your numbers? You're claiming that immigrants steal public services and don't pay taxes, but haven't provided proof except for anecdotes and conjecture.
I have met one immigrant that didn't pay taxes, which is sufficient to develop and support measures to protect against immigrants. Also, you do not need evidence to claim that there is at least one immigrant who doesn't pay taxes, given the sheer numbers of our countries and the economic incentive to pay taxes, the burden of proof would be reversed if you claim that this doesn't happen.
Not everything needs a double-blind randomized longitudinal trial, sometimes you just need to act instead of being paralyzed by overanalysis of the obvious.
> As far as I understand, there's 3 categories here, citizens, non-citizen residents, and non-citizens non-residents.
The US Constitution applies to persons within US jurisdiction.
The Fourth Amendment protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government. This protection extends to individuals' persons, houses, papers, and effects.
The cited article is about searching phones at port of entries before admission to the states, not within a 100 mile radius.
There may not be consensus on where the border is binary, or whether it's phased, whether it's 100 miles thick or 1 centimeter thick, whether it's here or there. But we have consensus that there exists a border and that you can people that have not yet entered do not have the constitutional rights of persons in the jursidiction yet.
So much freedom. It is scary to see how fast the USA is falling. But at least we now have an answer to how this all could have happened in Germany, why they didn't stop the builders of the concentration camps and how come the 'good Germans' did nothing. The price is a little steep though.
The most surprising thing to me is that people that are by most measures intelligent are falling for it hook, line, and sinker.
About half of Americans apparently don't have a passport and according to other sources I found only about <30% of Americans have travelled internationally in the past year.
So I imagine this revocation of freedom doesn't affect everyone equally. Presumably things are still mostly fine for those folks or at least they wouldn't have experienced it.
2/3 of the US population lives within the border zone (defined as within 100 miles of any border or entry point). Likewise, every major city is basically one giant border zone.
So, you could conceivably be a citizen, but CBP/ICE think you might be here illegally, so they can stop you without a warrant. How are you going to prove you're a citizen? There is no national ID, passports aren't required nor are they held by the majority of citizens, and unless something has changed, green card holders / permanent residents aren't required to carry their papers.
> [...] unless something has changed, green card holders / permanent residents aren't required to carry their papers.
I agree with your larger overall point, but this specific part isn't true.
Nothing has changed recently, but green card holders/permanents residents (over the age of 18) have been required to carry their green card with them since a long time ago (since the implementation of the Alien Registration Act of 1940, according to Google). I remember back when I got mine in 2012, it was a requirement as well (though, I will admit, it was not really enforced).
Here is the relevant quote from Section 264(e) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (I.N.A.)[0] addressing this:
> Every alien, eighteen years of age and over, shall at all times carry with him and have in his personal possession any certificate of alien registration or alien registration receipt card issued to him pursuant to subsection (d). Any alien who fails to comply with the provisions of this subsection shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and shall upon conviction for each offense be fined not to exceed $100 or be imprisoned not more than thirty days, or both.
And here[1] is an additional resource confirming this.
Huh, that's interesting... certainly nobody I know with a green card (myself and my family included prior to 1997) ever carried it daily. They were generally kept in the "important papers" box/safe with passports and things.
Ayup, literally same. I know mom carried for a bit, but then decided that she was running a higher risk of losing it that way, and did the same thing you did. It was not really enforced in recent times, but we knew that it was technically still required on paper.
> you could conceivably be a citizen, but CBP/ICE think you might be here illegally, so they can stop you without a warrant.
That's terrible advice, please stop giving terrible advice like that. ICE need to have probable cause (about you specifically, by name, not just your street or zipcode or "people of your ethnicity/appearance" or "people in that store/restaurant/parking lot"), beyond a verbal "uhh we think you're here illegally". You have the right to ask them why. And the 4th Amdt still exists, for all people, so no they can't stop you in your vehicle or inside your own house without probable cause and a [signed, valid] warrant [naming you specifically, and signed by a judge].
> How are you going to prove you're a citizen?
If you're a citizen, you can simply state to them you're a citizen (better when you're on bodycam; and repeat it (on bodycam) to any other ICE officials you interact with, and make mental note of their names or else descriptions so you can subsequently identify them). Pragmatically, you could also identify yourself as such to any bystanders or anyone videoing things.
"U.S. citizens do not have to carry proof of citizenship if they are in the U.S." [0] Read that again and again. Ok?
For sure ICE could knowingly violate a citizen's rights, detain them unlawfully (for hours or days), beat them up, send them to a detention center, even (in very rare cases) deport them. That becomes a political as much as legal matter. If you have constitutional/legal rights and due-process but refuse to stand up for them, do those rights functionally cease to exist? Do they magically get restored in 2029(/2033)? Time to stop being complacent.
(Obviously noncitizens do not have all the above protections, and need to be more careful.)
In the meantime, to inform yourself about your rights, and to get advice how to deal with ICE, both for citizens, GC holders, visa holders, visitors and undocumented people, see: https://www.aclu.org/ or other webinars. But, stop speculating or spreading misinformation. If you don't know, ask here.
> That's terrible advice, please stop giving terrible advice like that. ICE need to have probable cause (about you specifically, by name, not just your street or zipcode or "people of your ethnicity/appearance" or "people in that store/restaurant/parking lot"), beyond a verbal "uhh we think you're here illegally". You have the right to ask them why. And the 4th Amdt still exists, for all people, so no they can't stop you in your vehicle or inside your own house without probable cause and a [signed, valid] warrant [naming you specifically, and signed by a judge].
This is technically true but in practice (as we've seen multiple times recently), if ICE wants to stop you or interrogate you or even arrest you, they will do so without a warrant.
I have an accent. If ICE stops me at a traffic check (which they run on public streets in DC) and asks for my papers (which I can't provide, as I'm a citizen), am I just supposed to hope and pray they take me at my word? Not a great system. And as much as I'd love to take it to the man, I'm just going to avoid downtown for now.
> So I imagine this revocation of freedom doesn't affect everyone equally. Presumably things are still mostly fine for those folks or at least they wouldn't have experienced it.
Sure, and most Americans have never had their speech censored by a government entity so getting rid of the first amendment would be fine for most people.
| only about <30% of Americans have travelled internationally in the past year
30% sounds insanely high. I suspect at least half of Americans haven't even taken a _vacation_ in the past year, let alone _travelled internationally_.
> Approximately 40 million Americans travel abroad each year. This figure represents about 12% of the U.S. population. Travel data reveals that Americans commonly visit destinations in Europe, Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean.
Higher than I would have thought! I was just thinking about this again and my SWAG was 5%. I asked ChatGPT which repeated the shockingly high 28% number, but it elides the fact that this was in a (small) survey of 2000 "travelers" (whatever that means-- but i suspect it means 2000 people who travelled in the past year):
> In the past year, the poll of 2,000 U.S. travelers, conducted by Talker Research, found 94% have traveled domestically, and 28% have traveled internationally.
Even if I happen not to hold any particularly radical political opinions, if political speech is censored, my rights of free expression are also decreased. I may not practice a minority religion, but if the state systemically attacks one religion, my freedom of religion is also attacked.
The same is no less true for the 4th amendment; I may not be a target of the police at the current moment, but if they have the ability to search and take stuff at will, I am still less free.
If we've learned anything from the catastrophes of the 20th century, it should be that you need to resist attacks on freedom even when they only involve smaller groups, because they will come for you eventually and by then it may be too late.
That's hard to do in practice when at any given moment the people screeching about a given affront are the same people who were cheering AML/KYC a decade ago because they didn't like tax evasion and the people screeching about that were all in favor of invasive policing over drugs a decade before that and so on and so on.
This is not new and started under obama. Courts have ruled that until you pass customs you are not IN the country and thus 4th amendment does not apply. IF you are a citizen, it STILL DOES apply so they cannot force you into a search or deny you entry but they can confiscate your device.
> You can refuse, after which they are empowered to jail you and seize your belongings.
Or you can vote with your feet and stop going there.
> Sorry but I'm not seeing the connection between searching belongings whilst crossing an international border to the mass genocide of 6M people.
Nazism did not start with genocide. It ended with genocide. If your position is that as long as we haven't seen the death of 6M people then sure, you're right this isn't Nazism. But if you see the endless propaganda, the creations of large 'outgroups' and the building of actual concentration camps as possibly leading in that direction then now would be a good time to do something about it. Otherwise you'll be in a long line of people saying 'wir haben es nicht gewusst' in a couple of years. But you did.
The Federal government has always had broad lateral regulatory powers over the influx and outflux of people and goods across the border, citizens or not. The U.S. has had laws on the book to this effect all the way back to 1789. This is one of the defining features of a sovereign country. There's not a single country on planet earth that doesn't permit searches at the border.
Thank you for entirely missing the point here and illustrating mine by being one of those good people that keep on justifying what is happening by pointing to legal texts. In what world do you think it is normal for border patrol to search private devices? I've crossed in and out of former East Germany and Poland when they were still behind the iron curtain and never ever had to so much as show what I had in my pockets. By the time countries like that were examples to be held up to countries that nominally value personal freedom, freedom of expression and freedom from political and religious persecution you have to wonder if you are not in the words of Mitchell and Webb 'the baddies'.
The article doesn't say, but I wonder how many of those searches were truly at a border? For those unaware, the US defines the border as anyplace within 100 miles of a border, where international airpots are considered "the border" in addition to the actual physical border. This means something like 2/3 of US residents live "at the border" and are subject to border policies. It also means just about the entirety of every major city is also completely within the border region, even a city like Denver that is nowhere close to an actual border.
Ah, I misread (but can't edit any more)... lots of online content describing CBP/ICE operations near major international airports, which I took to mean those airports were considered borders that start a "new" 100 mile zone.
That's incorrect (per the ACLU post in the sibling comment) - it just happens that many major airports are within the 100 mile zone, so CBP/ICE can run operations there (beyond what they might run at an airport well inside the heartland).
Out of curiosity I tried to find where in the US _wouldn't_ be considered a border zone if that was the case. Looks like the largest strip is from Death Valley to Idaho - when you get further north there are too many regional airports with the occasional flight to Canada, or you run into the actual "border zone." The real trick is to find the furthest East point, which I think might (?) exist near Elkins, WV?
Fingers crossed I'll nerd snipe someone here into finding it.
Non-coastal cities that fall within the zone where I wouldn't really expect a border check (ignoring the big cities Houston)...
Charlottesville, VA
Sacramento, CA
Portland, OR
Madison, WI
Syracuse, NY
I have always considered crossing the US border as a training for backup recovery from catastrophic failure. Wiping my phone and laptop clean has shown me where I have gaps in backup recovery.
Between this, the forced social media disclosure, the alleged entry denials for memes and the detaining of people I'm just not going to go to travel to the USA anymore.
For that level of risk I'd rather go see Shenzhen frankly.
A friend asked me to visit them in the states, there is no way I’m going currently - hopefully at some point in the future. I’ve had fun there in the past under Republican administrations - so this isn’t a blue/red thing - it just doesn’t appear safe to cross the boarder right now.
Yes, it was a sad moment, years ago now, the day I realized that I'd likely never travel to China. Sadder still to acknowledge I'd feel safer doing so than entering the modern US.
It is, but it is always hard to figure out causes as there are other economic indicators and any one could also be the cause of tourism being down. Not to mention random changes in what people do. Statisticians can dig through this data and way what is signal, but so far I've only seem people quoting absolute numbers and stating whatever cause fits their pet beliefs.
Yes it is. At least in NYC. I'm including multiple links to the data, lest folks try to claim it's some sort of TDS[0] fueled plot against our beloved and incredibly popular leader.
Anecdotally it is, but I wondered if I could find supporting statistics. I live near Yellowstone NP which has a fair proportion of non-US visitors based on my personal observations (perhaps 25%). Stats are collected on a monthly basis. July is the most recent month with full data (obviously). Report URL below.
The report says the visit count (MAU?) in July is down 18% vs last year. Since I can't think of any local issue (fire, flood, weather...) that would have had an affect on visitor count this year vs last, that seems quite a large change. Especially when the fact that only a proportion of visitors are not from the US.
>Would probably look suspicious but doubt they could do much more than grill you about it a bit
And if they don't like your answers, they can detain you without charge indefinitely and then deport you -- and not necessarily to your home country.
It's a bad idea to come to the US -- for any reason -- at this time.
N.B.: I say that as an American living in the US. What's more, my father was an immigrant (who never became a citizen) and my mother's parents were also immigrants. As such, were it not for immigration, I would not exist as my parents met here in the US. Please don't come here. It breaks my heart to say it, but it isn't safe for you.
To clarify, my admonition not to visit the US wasn't a warning from a xenophobe promising harm to foreigners.
Rather it was an earnest concern for the health and well-being of fellow humans given the harsh, punitive and cruel tactics being used on people by my government.
If and when we stop treating visitors like criminals, I will once again heartily recommend that folks come and visit the US. It's an amazing place with all sorts of fabulous places, things and people. And despite the loudest and nastiest among us, most Americans are kind and decent people.
Same. No interest in going to that country. We'll continue travel in Canada or throughout Europe as we have over the last year and a bit. We used to go to the US to camp and on family vacations in the winter, but we skipped that last year and this year and have no plans to visit unless the situation changes.
This is bad, and the erosion of rights at the border is a serious issue of liberty in our modern age, but in many powerful ways the US is still ahead of many Western countries in terms of rights at the border, for both citizens and noncitizens.
For example, in New Zealand, you can be fined $5000 if you do not unlock your phone at the border, and later still compelled to unlock it. The US does not have any fines or laws to compel access. Of course, in any country, refusing the orders of a customs official will get you banned from the country, so that's a strong enough incentive for most tourists.
In terms of frequency: New Zealand searches 671 devices per year on 3M tourists, the US searches 46k/yr on 72M tourists, Australia 8.3k/yr on 6M tourists. That works out to 671/3M tourists is 0.02%, 46k/72M tourists is 0.06% and 8.3k/6M tourists is 0.14%.
Personally, I have fought against these searches for nearly my entire life. But to pretend that the US is on some sort of unique authoritarian slide is laughable. In the UK, today, most forms of protest are illegal. The EU has mandated cellular devices which record your car's location - on every new car. We should stand united against authoritarianism worldwide, not divided and pointing and laughing at each other in some sort of sad petty tribalism. I don't want to score cheap points on the internet, I want all people worldwide to enjoy liberty and privacy. United we stand, divided we fall.
The problem is that customs officials (and immigration officers) are granted an extreme amount of power through discretionary authority. Congress has yet to actually constrain this, and from my understanding the statutory language is so broad that determinations can be made based on literally anything. Which is why that hole "abolish ICE" got quite popular (and in many places is still around). Congress and the courts are way too deferential when it comes to these two, instead of holding them up to an incredibly high standard and giving the courts that level of discretion, which is where it belongs.
The idea is to prevent us from hitting rock bottom wrt rights by addressing abuses as they occur, not years down the line when we finally realize we no longer have rights or recourse.
Who's pointing and laughing? I don't see people in the US laughing at other countries becoming worse and I don't understand how pointing out that that the US is becoming more authoritarian leads to tribalism. Are you talking about countries outside the US?
When something like this happens in the US, the general European internet response is to shake their heads about how the US is becoming literal Nazis and Europe is superior (one example: the current most popular comment chain in this thread.)
When something like Chat Control, mandatory cellular location recording devices in cars, anti-encryption laws, elimination of the right to protest in the UK, etc happens, the American response is to shake their heads and do much the same.
I don't find that productive. That sort of division is toxic. And the broader strategy - provoking us to hate our brothers across the Atlantic - has long been a core strategy of the enemies of Western civilization.
The reason why other members of the core white-anglo-saxon empire, Canada, UK, Aus, NZ have draconian surveillance systems is because it's the only way the US can "legally" hoover up a lot of this data as it's own constitution gets in the way.
A small island state in the south Pacific, close only to Aus & Antartic penguins, doesn't need or care about your data.
An outpost of the wasp empire, without constitutional impediments getting the way, ABSOLUTELY DOES want to hoover up as much data that passes through it as possible.
Which do you think NZ is? "5 eyes" has the membership it has, for a reason.
So yes, as the centre of this unholy empire, the US is involved, and responsible.
That is an inaccurate summary of the Five Eyes program / intelligence disclosures. Almost all of the bulk+targeted surveillance of US citizens was carried out by the NSA directly - they have the biggest budget, the most power and brains. Not to mention, at the time of the leaks, datacenters were generally quite centralized in the US. The sharing of non-US-citizen data, of course, was (and almost certainly still is) rampant. But sharing of US citizen data was mostly from specific operations, not ongoing programs. I would be happy to be corrected if there is a leak that I have not heard of.
This is not to justify any part of modern surveillance, which I have protested against for many years. Nor is it to dodge US responsibility.
Back to the topic we're discussing - border phone searches - the US surveils their own citizens far less than the other Anglo countries. 22% of the searches were of US citizens, while US citizens make up a bit over half of border crossings. Australian citizens make up a similar proportion of Australian border crossings, but 42% of searches were of Australian citizens. Combine that with the figures above, and an Australian citizen going home has about a 4x higher chance of getting their phone searched than an American citizen. Very roughly, 0.025% vs 0.11%.
NZ is absurd because given large numbers, someone could have genuinely forgotten their password from a night of heavy drinking, or from a password change that wasn't jotted down.
>But to pretend that the US is on some sort of unique authoritarian slide is laughable.
It is, but maybe you just haven't been paying close enough attention. Device scanning at the border is not the only indication of this, there are many. Masked federal agents arresting anyone they want without any warrant and then sending them to prisons in foreign countries without due process, should be ringing authoritarian alarm bells for everyone, including you.
I wonder what people these days think about the song "Imagine" by John Lennon. Free travel, world peace and equality is so out of fashion that a strong majority seems to think that it is OK to restrict people's movement around the world and feel so terrified of foreigners and yet without seeing the irony the same people would talk about becoming interplanetary species. I wouldn't be surprised if the totalitarians drop the "think of the children" line and just doi everything for "national security".
I'm not fan of the trend, I'm open about it I despise travel restrictions and the security theater but I really want to hear from people who like the new way the world is headed for.
I mean, of course, we all would like to be able to travel without restrictions ourselves. The concern for people in developed nations is what would happen to their quality of life if people from poorer nations could freely migrate.
Europe has ~750 million people, and even with current policies (where migrants might drown when their boat sinks while the Greek Coast Guard looks on and laughs) millions of migrants try to enter Europe each year.
The US has ~340 million people, and even with current policies (where children might be separated from parents and placed into cruel detention centers) millions of migrants try to enter the US each year.
If movement was free, how many hundreds of millions would pour from Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and South Asia into Europe and the US? The 3+ billion who live in the tropics are only going to become more likely to try to migrate as the climate continues to warm.
What makes you think that everyone wants to come to Europe? Have you considered that instead of geofencing the non-millionaire population like cattle, maybe not bombing or couping the poor countries is a better option?
People don't actually leave the places they grow up or their families and friends to live on European food stamps.
Also, Europe tends to receive the worst people because the legal routes are closed. We end up with people who dare to go to the illegal routes for other reasons than running for their lives.
US a similar thing, instead of relying on illegal workforce just let in people from the main gates and watch out for shady types.
There are so many things that can be done to address the issues instead of dividing the world limited travel areas.
> I wouldn't be surprised if the totalitarians drop the "think of the children" line and just doi everything for "national security".
Republicans are planning to ban all pornography under the guise of "national health crisis". It's in their Project 2025 playbook which they have been following very closely.
Is it the same people who just made the Epstein files go away? I can't believe people keep falling for the same stuff all the time. Thanks god EU is incapable of acting together, some of the members still keep trying anyway.
Does using GrapheneOS guard against such searches? Also, what is the future of GrapheneOS given that Google's release of the source code for Pixel's kernel was dropped, replaced with a generic image.
To a degree. You have the duress pin, so you can wipe your phone quickly if need be. But I wouldn't call that guarding, your phone won't get searched but if TSA or ice saw you wipe your phone in front of them with a, to them, unknown feature, I doubt they'll let you enter the country.
I've been debating one how to get a work laptop into the US safely. Last time, earlier this year, I didn't really have any worries, nor was I searched, nor where my devices. While I still believe the risk is close to zero, I have been designing a solution for my laptop.
There's not really anything on my laptop, other than SSH keys and some stuff that's in git anyway. So it can technically just be a clean Linux installation on a old burner laptop. When I'm across the border, I could simply install my password manager and pull everything from git.
For the phone that's a little more tricky, because I'd need my 2FA for the password manager. I suppose I could do a "blank" phone and just have the TOTP QR code printed on a piece of paper.
It just seems like it's more suspicious to carry two blank devices.
> Ask them to stop being unreasonable and stop spreading lies or you will cut them off.
This is often how families of cult members act when they discover their family member has joined a cult. Usually it has the effect of pushing the cult member to become further indoctrinated because the cult is the only thing in their life that offers them acceptance and validation. Instead, talk to them using their terms and get them to understand your world view in their terms.
Some people will still be obstinate and I do not have a solution for that; I am, however, certain that invalidating them is not a solution, even if one believes that what they are saying is not valid. The point is that people need to feel safe in order to change their opinions (doing so is a very vulnerable moment) and constantly invalidating someone is a great way to make sure they constantly feel psychologically unsafe around you.
Just to reiterate: if one is really hoping to change the mind of someone close to them, don't give them an ultimatum to change their mind or you'll cut them off. The result will be that they don't change their mind and you remove yourself from a good position to effect that change.
Does that work if the cult violations become more and more normalized?
If the cult believes to ignore anyone that disagrees, how do you break through? Crime has gone down over the decades and people are still screaming their heads off at it at every level. How do you embrace cult think about spreading insecurity? How can you argue on their terms when their terms aren’t even remotely accurate?
As a citizen of the US I hate how SCOTUS has ground the fourth amendment down to practically nothing. It's absurd how people want the constitution to only apply to citizens, when IMO what makes the US unique is that it's constitution and the rights it grants are assumed to already exist for everyone, and all it does is acknowledge and respect them and order the government to do likewise. I very much doubt this will change anytime soon. At this point I'd be all for just abolishing the DHS and everything under it -- I don't think the DHS has, since it's inception, actually done anything that protects the homeland in any capacity. I could be wrong, but if it has actually done something, it's so inconsequential that nobody talks about it.
The DHS is an umbrella organization with a huge number of parts under it, including stuff like FEMA (emergency management), customs, the coast guard, the secret service, monitoring of agricultural pathogens (formerly part of USDA), infrastructure protection (formerly part of FBI), federal law enforcement training, etc.
Abolishing "everything under" the DHS would do incredible damage. The various agencies lumped under the DHS could plausibly be re-organized again, though I'm not sure it would serve much purpose.
The biggest problem is that voters keep putting incompetent ideologues in charge of the federal government.
>Abolishing "everything under" the DHS would do incredible damage.
As we're seeing with cuts to anything other than programs enabling masked, jackbooted thugs to beat/harass/disappear brown people.
Okay, but again, the problem causing the jackbooted thugs is poor voter choices in the recent presidential election, ongoing citizen apathy, a Supreme Court enabling it, and a GOP which is thoroughly corrupted from top to bottom, not Customs inspections, FEMA disaster assistance, or Coast Guard rescues.
The fix to this is to swap out the nation's leaders, not to throw away every governmental institution with any relation to public safety.
>Okay, but again, the problem causing the jackbooted thugs is poor voter choices in the recent presidential election, ongoing citizen apathy, a Supreme Court enabling it, and a GOP which is thoroughly corrupted from top to bottom, not Customs inspections, FEMA disaster assistance, or Coast Guard rescues.
Right, and funding for customs inspections, FEMA disaster assistance and the Coast Guard are all already being cut in favor of jackbooted thugs.
>The fix to this is to swap out the nation's leaders, not to throw away every governmental institution with any relation to public safety.
I never suggested that DHS should be abolished. That was someone else[0].
You might take that up with them instead.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44963940
Pretty much the basis for the DHS was 9/11 and terrorism, but terrorism exists in the first place due to US support for Israel and unnecessary interference in the Middle East. I don't particularly like the Islamic nations one bit, but even I see the connection of pointless US foreign policies to terrorism. Moreover, Israel is in large part militarily capable of defending itself. As such, the argument for DHS was all very circular. If you take away the circles, there's nothing left.
A country that so hates its own constitutional democracy cannot possibly support the democracy of other nations.
> terrorism exists in the first place due to US support for Israel and unnecessary interference in the Middle East.
I'm no fan of being Israel's sugar daddy but that's a gross mis-characterization of the situation.
The terrorism landscape of the 80s through 2010s has to do with the cold war, the post-colonial governments of the middle east, etc, etc. It's not a simple problem.
But yeah we should def stop supporting Israel. Not our sandbox, not our problem.
From my memory of our history class in Canadian high school: Russia invaded Afghanistan -> U.S. armed Islamic fighters -> radical networks formed seemed to be the genesis?
You don't get to the "radical islamists wage jihad on US dime" step without the "corrupt post-colonial governments leave citizens dissatisfied, citizens turn to religion" step.
Who installed the corrupt post-colonial governments? Who destabilized middle eastern countries to create an opening for those governments to take power? Who funded the groups who ended up taking power?
It's the same folks who invented the word for the phenomenon we're currently discussing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowback_(intelligence)
>Who installed the corrupt post-colonial governments?
Ugh, mostly the British and the French though I supposed Ike got conned into helping the Brits with one of them.
>Who destabilized middle eastern countries to create an opening for those governments to take power?
rofl, everyone, but mostly their neighbors
>Who funded the groups who ended up taking power?
Same answer as above.
But I get it, reality is complex and "murka bad" is simple. If you want that narrative stick to latin america.
> But I get it, reality is complex and "murka bad" is simple.
You just agreed that the Western world is largely behind the blowback, so why are you still dismissing it? Yeah, it's complex and largely predicated on the interests of the West, to the detriment of the citizens of the ME. Do you have something to add?
Edit: I see you're editing your response to address the points in this post. I'll wait till you're done to respond again.
> If you want that narrative stick to latin america.
You're again agreeing with me but trying to make it seem like you're not? Yeah agreed, the history of Western intervention in Latin America is horrific. You should see what they've been doing in the Middle East!
I'm not agreeing with you any more than a middle-ish politician that gets endorsed by some hate group is agreeing with them.
Your opinion here is overly broad and reductive to the point of being stupid and wrong. The nations of the middle east have fucked with each other more than anyone has fucked with them in the past 50yr, though of course they all seek and sometimes get outside aid when doing so.
Bin Laden had a famous quote that translates to "the americans are bad and the shia are worse". I think that sums a typical local attitude up pretty well.
> I'm not agreeing with you any more than a middle-ish politician that gets endorsed by some hate group is agreeing with them.
Ok, then you should adopt a position contrary to mine.
Again, I agree that the ME is complex, but I'm not sure how that disputes the fact that the Western world has meddled in their affairs and destabilized ME countries to the point that they can no longer function independently and fall to authoritarian governments (or have one installed).
> The nations of the middle east have fucked with each other more than anyone has fucked with them in the past 50yr
Yes, their neighbors have "fucked with them," but the West has "fucked with them" more and caused more lasting damage.
For example, in the past 50 years, the US has overthrown the government of Iran, materially supported both belligerents in the Iran-Iraq war, trained and funded and provided material support to militias in Syria and Yemen (including non-stop drone strikes for literally years), supported Israel apartheid unconditionally, invaded Iraq twice, not to mention the 20 year wars in Iraq and Afghanistan which have completely gutted those countries ability to self-govern. Even internal conflicts in the Middle East are stoked and backed by Western powers.
Also funny that you mention bin Laden, he's a good example of blowback resulting from US intervention.
Don't do personal attacks on HN, calling things stupid and wrong in this context is mean spirited. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Countries back radical groups all the time. The "reasons" for Al Qaeda turning back on the US were:
1) support for the existence of Israel: just the idea of it, not necessarily the finer points, like whether it should coexist with an Arab Palestinian state. Zionism, whether it meant only taking up part of what was Mandatory Palestine, or all of it, flew directly in the face of the idea of pan-Arabism and Islamic theocratic chauvinism.
2) the Saudi royal family's request that the US-led coalition defend Saudi Arabia during the Persian Gulf War - that was something that Usama bin Laden really hated, as he thought that it should be on the Saudis themselves and Islam as a whole to defend its birthplace, not some Western power.
That's half of the picture. The radical networks didn't target the US just randomly or for nothing. It is specifically because of the US interference in the Middle East and its avid and persistent support for Israel that the US was targeted by Al-Qaeda.
I think that's true although I'm not an expert, my point was kinda just the straight line to Osama bin Laden who was a fighter during that earlier period and 9/11 but your additional context is appreciated. :)
This. I will continue maintaining the opinion that the US needs to just stop supporting Israel. Seriously. Israel can fight it's own religious wars and I see no reason for us to be backing that when our very constitution says "Hey, no endorsing any religion!" If I remember right, Israel has only been able to do half the things it's done with respect to wars because we've just kept giving them weapons and supplies in the first place.
> A country that so hates its own constitutional democracy cannot possibly support the democracy of other nations.
The whole "support democracy" thing has been a ruse for a while now. Democracy has become a synonym for "human rights", and that's always been for sale. Not just in the US, either. The last 35 years have been characterized by exporting economic infrastructure from the US (and West at large) to a place that specifically does not support democracy because, hey, it's cheaper to make stuff there, and line need go up.
Hell, touching on the Middle East, the only reason the region has a seat at the international table at all is because we're willing to look past the abysmal human rights record so long as the oil stays cheap. Otherwise it's a bunch of arid land with very strict rules. Not exactly the kind of place progress and development flock to.
This isn't just an American thing, but it's certainly applicable here.
You've got to be kidding me. If anything, the synonym would be "allows US business interests to pillage their resources." Every time a foreign nation attempts to nationalize a resource, we come in and destabilize their government, install a western friendly autocrat, and install our global businesses to extract their resources.
If we were as venomous as you seem to charge, China wouldn't look anything like it does today, but otherwise, you're saying much the same thing as I am.
I couldn't tell if you meant human rights sarcastically or not. It's hard to tell these days.
Disclaimer: not an american, but I too am a citizen of a country with borders.
As far as I understand, there's 3 categories here, citizens, non-citizen residents, and non-citizens non-residents.
The greatest spikes in constitutional and legal rights and guarantees come from being a resident. Being a citizen gives you political rights like voting and participating in the three branches sure, but for the average man it's nothing compared to the rights bestowed by simply walking down a street freely and engaging in free commerce.
This might be one of those restrictions of freedom that allow for greater freedoms to be guaranteed down the line.
Once a non citizen goes through the border, they enjoy a huge spike in rights and guarantees, if you losen the border, you dilute the rights of the residents and citizens, and you add costs (especially if you let aliens in that don't even pay taxes, enjoying only rights but no responsibility)
Ironically, if you value your freedoms as a resident, you should value restricting freedoms at the border.
Similar to how GPL briefly restricts user rights by requiring them to share the source code.
> Ironically, if you value your freedoms as a resident, you should value restricting freedoms at the border.
Can you clarify this? This doesn't make any sense to me. Freedoms like those granted in the US bill of rights are specifically designed to be universally applied regardless of citizenship status as long as you are within the geographical boundaries of the US or otherwise subject to it's jurisdiction, from my understanding.
Correct, we are in agreement. As a resident or citizen you get most consitutional rights. Before they cross the border they don't have those rights, the moment they cross the border, non-citizens enjoy those rights (looks possible to reverse or deny resident rights by deporting).
So just by crossing the line into the US a person would enjoy almost all of the rights of a citizen. But critically, they don't have these rights BEFORE crossing the border, the border control is the point at which those rights are granted.
IANAL
>Before they cross the border they don't have those rights, the moment they cross the border, non-citizens enjoy those rights (looks possible to reverse or deny resident rights by deporting).
And all persons in the United States, regardless of status have essentially had their civil liberties significantly curtailed/removed within 100 miles of a border crossing[0].
You might think, "well we need to catch those folks who illegally cross the border, so we need a buffer zone to do so." But the wording (and more importantly the implementation) of these "border zones" include all points of entry like airports. Which means that civil liberties are negated/limited within 100 miles of airports where international flights land.
Which creates reduced civil rights zones around the majority of the US population. Meaning that if I'm within 100 miles of Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International airport (which is many hundreds of miles away from any land border, as are most International airports), civil rights for all persons, citizen, resident or otherwise, are curtailed -- permanently and without recourse.
[0] https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/border-zone
I'm not aware of these 100mile regulations, but it makes sense in modern times, borders (and transport in general) have ceased to be euclidean, the borders of a country are no longer the geometric perimiter, but include airports. And naturally a border must have a "thickness" (even if 100 miles might be on the thick side) and there must be a grey area where border officials have jurisdiction of, but entrants are not yet considered admitted.
In the same manner that you shouldn't expect to conduct everyday business near the border of a country or near military operations or near power plant facilities, maybe we will start treating airports with such a respect. Yes sir, no sir, don't say "bomb" as a joke, etc...
Sure, you can fight for your rights against government oppression, but I think that resisting control just provides an alibi for illegal actors, and on the converse, cooperating reduces the need for excessive measures by making it easy to identify adversarial actors that do not cooperate.
It's a matter of subjective values, what do you think is more dangerous, an overzealous government or power plant disasters? I think we should be more concerned about power plant disasters, so I will not go exercise my rights near a power plant. Similarly, what do I think is more important, fighting drug trade and tax evasion? Or hiding my porn purchases from my banker? I think fighting drug trade and tax evasion are more important, so I try not to use cryptocurrency for porn purchases. Similarly, I think terrorism and illegal immigration are more important than border officers looking at my personal messages. And no you cannot have it both ways, you either cooperate and help one side, or you refuse to cooperate and provide alibies for enemies of the state.
We have not discussed at this point what your values are, I do not know whether you think drug trading or theft or tax evasion, or terrorism are ok, or child pornography, I presume not, it is more likely you are an individual concerned about personal privacy, but consider that I have no way to distinguish whether you support any of the above, and when you speak with people who support your right to privacy, or more so, individuals that try to convince you that your privacy is of utmost importance, consider whether they themselves are guilty of one of these crimes? Think of which side you are on, whether by being guilty of one crime, you are associating with a coalition of slightly guilty citizens, or whether a couple of your pseudonymous friends are actually massively criminal and your behaviour pooling protects them.
We can also acknowledge that there exists a conflict and a tradeoff between personal liberties and crime countermeasures. And that tradeoff is everchanging, post-911 lots of people would have agreed that some personal liberties needed to be sacrificed, and many would agree that eventually we overcorrected and needed to dial it back. We had a period of peace in the middle where some crimes were mostly used as a symbol for "criminals", but nowadays we have a lot of war going on, how sure are you that your peers in crypto exchanges are not involved with war trade? I don't think drone trade is being done with fiat trade at all. International drug trade probably uses crypto exchanges, offshore accounts, and undoubtedly smugglers cross borders as well.
Have you ever considered how your role in drug trade, child abuse, and war? I'm making no claims that exercising your constitutional rights "helps" or "fights" crime (I find it reasonable that if I make such moral objections, you might be forced to exercise the rights to protect them), but provided that those rights are recognized and guaranteed, consider whether they must always be exercised to the extreme? If you were able to forfeit some of your rights and help fight crime, wouldn't you do it? It is one of the most extreme forms of liberties to sacrifice it, to always instinctively exhert your rights in any opportunity possible is actually a sign that the right is in trouble, and therefore I would claim that since I can occasionally forfeit my right to not being searched, I have a stronger form of freedom (in that sense, you may have more freedom in others).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z6vsYELcjw
Here's a scene from Mad Men that I like on the subject. The main character (very right wing traditional) is in the middle of a pot smoking beatnik party. The beatniks are exercising their right to not be searched in their private domicile, and they are partaking in a somewhat harmless illegal activity, but in doing so the police outside of their building becomes the enemy, instead of an ally that is investigating a crime. Not only is the Beatnik placed on the same 'side' as a night-time gunfighter, but also their exercise of their liberty to smoke weed interferes with their liberty to just go outside of their apartment. The main character smoking the legal herb I think cements the bipartisan political divide and their relationship with the law.
Data and logic are great and all, but I wouldn't sleep on art as a means to think.
>We have not discussed at this point what your values are, I do not know whether you think drug trading or theft or tax evasion, or terrorism are ok, or child pornography,
No we haven't. You know why? Because it ain't any of your business, that's why.
And it ain't the government's business either.
What I think and/or believe is my business. Who and how I choose to share that with is also my business and anything else you or I have to say is irrelevant.
As for what I do, that's a different discussion. It's also none of your business, except as those actions impact or influence you.
in contrast, the government sometimes (often?) does have an interest and, potentially, a role in what people, myself included, do.
> if you loosen the border, you dilute the rights of the residents
Strip searching tourists, interrogating them about which social media jokes they shared, or locking them up for weeks without charges and then deporting them based on nothing more than their political views does not strengthen the rights of residents.
> especially if you let aliens in that don't even pay taxes, enjoying only rights but no responsibility
If you are talking about people working in the US without visas, this is a serious misconception. The large majority of undocumented people working in the US pay the same taxes as anyone else, including income and payroll taxes (sometimes under a borrowed social security number, but sometimes with an ITIN, "individual taxpayer ID no."; the IRS is happy to take the money without worrying about immigration status), but don't reap the benefits of those. So it's rather the opposite: all the responsibilities but dramatically fewer rights. In aggregate, undocumented immigrants pay on the order of $100 billion of US taxes every year.
The context of my post was phone searches at the US border, inmigration is a wide scope, strip searching tourists and interrogating about jokes is really out of context and not was was the topic of the article shared.
Searching phones is not really related to reviewing social media is it? You don't need to search a phone to access a public profile. No, searching a phone searches for private messages, maybe you talked with an employer on the US and you are on a tourist visa? Maybe there's talks about drug use or money laundering? or worse?
>If you are talking about people working in the US without visas, this is a serious misconception.
You talk as if there were some sort of authorative objective dataset, but by nature, how can you measure unreported income?
You can search for FUTON sources all you want, but I've worked with immigrants that don't report income on my country. And just because something "doesn't happen" would be a terribe reason not to protect against it.
Would you leave your port 22 open without password just because "it is a misconception" that russians are brute forcing into systems? No, you would simply protect against it, you don't need evidence to implement security mesaures.
> ... as if there were some sort of authorative objective dataset, but by nature, how can you measure unreported income?
Citizen also take cash jobs and don't report the income, yet they have more options and access to resources. Unlike undocumented persons. I'm guessing you feel the same about citizens dodging their tax responsibilities at least as strongly as you do undocumented workers. See the end for a solution, for the undocumented at least.
See [0] for a breakdown of taxes and contributions.$19.5B in Federal Income tax, $32.3B in Social Insurances taxes payed through automatic withholding from their paychecks in 2022. They are not getting jobs where they would owe at the end of the year. They pay the same sales and excise taxes on goods and services, property taxes on renting/owning etc. $96.7B total taxes paid in 2022.
Some use "borrowed" SSN (usually provided by the employer or employer referred source), they don't get to file for a refund; some use ITINs and are also likely forgo refunds thus pay more taxes than a similarly employed citizen while losing out on benefits they are supposedly "stealing". They have no way to access social security.
A 2006 study showed they contributed so much to Texas' GDP that Texas refuses to conduct further studies on their economic impact [1] A Texas economic analysis firm in 2016 estimated a contribution of $11.8B to the state after subtracting $3.1 B the state spent for their health, education, other public services.[2]
The simple solution is access to work authorization. They trade being exploited by employers to paying more taxes for that security. If citizens wanted the jobs they do we would not have a chronic shortage of workers in those positions, Notably hospice and construction.
[0] https://itep.org/undocumented-immigrants-taxes-2024/
[1] https://www.texastribune.org/2024/12/06/texas-undocumented-i...
[2] https://www.perrymangroup.com/media/uploads/report/perryman-...
> I'm guessing you feel the same about citizens dodging their tax responsibilities at least as strongly as you do undocumented workers
No, it's not the same. Immigrants can be deported, which is not the case for citizens by birthright. Additionally birthright citizens have not opted to be born in their country, however immigrants have made the choice to be in their country of destiny, so they are in a much weaker moral and legal position to justify tax evasion.
Not the same at all.
Where are your numbers? You're claiming that immigrants steal public services and don't pay taxes, but haven't provided proof except for anecdotes and conjecture.
I have met one immigrant that didn't pay taxes, which is sufficient to develop and support measures to protect against immigrants. Also, you do not need evidence to claim that there is at least one immigrant who doesn't pay taxes, given the sheer numbers of our countries and the economic incentive to pay taxes, the burden of proof would be reversed if you claim that this doesn't happen.
Not everything needs a double-blind randomized longitudinal trial, sometimes you just need to act instead of being paralyzed by overanalysis of the obvious.
> As far as I understand, there's 3 categories here, citizens, non-citizen residents, and non-citizens non-residents.
The US Constitution applies to persons within US jurisdiction.
The Fourth Amendment protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government. This protection extends to individuals' persons, houses, papers, and effects.
Right, so a "Phone search at the US border" would be conducted on an individual not yet in US jurisdiction, thus the 4th amendment wouldn't apply.
I am not a lawyer, but I think that's pretty undisputed and basic.
>I am not a lawyer, but I think that's pretty undisputed and basic.
I and a whole bunch of lawyers do dispute that claim[0].
[0] https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/border-zone
The cited article is about searching phones at port of entries before admission to the states, not within a 100 mile radius.
There may not be consensus on where the border is binary, or whether it's phased, whether it's 100 miles thick or 1 centimeter thick, whether it's here or there. But we have consensus that there exists a border and that you can people that have not yet entered do not have the constitutional rights of persons in the jursidiction yet.
So much freedom. It is scary to see how fast the USA is falling. But at least we now have an answer to how this all could have happened in Germany, why they didn't stop the builders of the concentration camps and how come the 'good Germans' did nothing. The price is a little steep though.
The most surprising thing to me is that people that are by most measures intelligent are falling for it hook, line, and sinker.
> So much freedom.
About half of Americans apparently don't have a passport and according to other sources I found only about <30% of Americans have travelled internationally in the past year.
So I imagine this revocation of freedom doesn't affect everyone equally. Presumably things are still mostly fine for those folks or at least they wouldn't have experienced it.
2/3 of the US population lives within the border zone (defined as within 100 miles of any border or entry point). Likewise, every major city is basically one giant border zone.
So, you could conceivably be a citizen, but CBP/ICE think you might be here illegally, so they can stop you without a warrant. How are you going to prove you're a citizen? There is no national ID, passports aren't required nor are they held by the majority of citizens, and unless something has changed, green card holders / permanent residents aren't required to carry their papers.
> [...] unless something has changed, green card holders / permanent residents aren't required to carry their papers.
I agree with your larger overall point, but this specific part isn't true.
Nothing has changed recently, but green card holders/permanents residents (over the age of 18) have been required to carry their green card with them since a long time ago (since the implementation of the Alien Registration Act of 1940, according to Google). I remember back when I got mine in 2012, it was a requirement as well (though, I will admit, it was not really enforced).
Here is the relevant quote from Section 264(e) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (I.N.A.)[0] addressing this:
> Every alien, eighteen years of age and over, shall at all times carry with him and have in his personal possession any certificate of alien registration or alien registration receipt card issued to him pursuant to subsection (d). Any alien who fails to comply with the provisions of this subsection shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and shall upon conviction for each offense be fined not to exceed $100 or be imprisoned not more than thirty days, or both.
And here[1] is an additional resource confirming this.
0. https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid%3AUSC-prel...
1. https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/do-i-really-need-car...
Huh, that's interesting... certainly nobody I know with a green card (myself and my family included prior to 1997) ever carried it daily. They were generally kept in the "important papers" box/safe with passports and things.
Ayup, literally same. I know mom carried for a bit, but then decided that she was running a higher risk of losing it that way, and did the same thing you did. It was not really enforced in recent times, but we knew that it was technically still required on paper.
> you could conceivably be a citizen, but CBP/ICE think you might be here illegally, so they can stop you without a warrant.
That's terrible advice, please stop giving terrible advice like that. ICE need to have probable cause (about you specifically, by name, not just your street or zipcode or "people of your ethnicity/appearance" or "people in that store/restaurant/parking lot"), beyond a verbal "uhh we think you're here illegally". You have the right to ask them why. And the 4th Amdt still exists, for all people, so no they can't stop you in your vehicle or inside your own house without probable cause and a [signed, valid] warrant [naming you specifically, and signed by a judge].
> How are you going to prove you're a citizen?
If you're a citizen, you can simply state to them you're a citizen (better when you're on bodycam; and repeat it (on bodycam) to any other ICE officials you interact with, and make mental note of their names or else descriptions so you can subsequently identify them). Pragmatically, you could also identify yourself as such to any bystanders or anyone videoing things.
"U.S. citizens do not have to carry proof of citizenship if they are in the U.S." [0] Read that again and again. Ok?
For sure ICE could knowingly violate a citizen's rights, detain them unlawfully (for hours or days), beat them up, send them to a detention center, even (in very rare cases) deport them. That becomes a political as much as legal matter. If you have constitutional/legal rights and due-process but refuse to stand up for them, do those rights functionally cease to exist? Do they magically get restored in 2029(/2033)? Time to stop being complacent.
(Obviously noncitizens do not have all the above protections, and need to be more careful.)
In the meantime, to inform yourself about your rights, and to get advice how to deal with ICE, both for citizens, GC holders, visa holders, visitors and undocumented people, see: https://www.aclu.org/ or other webinars. But, stop speculating or spreading misinformation. If you don't know, ask here.
[0]: https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/immigrants-rights
> That's terrible advice, please stop giving terrible advice like that. ICE need to have probable cause (about you specifically, by name, not just your street or zipcode or "people of your ethnicity/appearance" or "people in that store/restaurant/parking lot"), beyond a verbal "uhh we think you're here illegally". You have the right to ask them why. And the 4th Amdt still exists, for all people, so no they can't stop you in your vehicle or inside your own house without probable cause and a [signed, valid] warrant [naming you specifically, and signed by a judge].
This is technically true but in practice (as we've seen multiple times recently), if ICE wants to stop you or interrogate you or even arrest you, they will do so without a warrant.
I have an accent. If ICE stops me at a traffic check (which they run on public streets in DC) and asks for my papers (which I can't provide, as I'm a citizen), am I just supposed to hope and pray they take me at my word? Not a great system. And as much as I'd love to take it to the man, I'm just going to avoid downtown for now.
> So I imagine this revocation of freedom doesn't affect everyone equally. Presumably things are still mostly fine for those folks or at least they wouldn't have experienced it.
Sure, and most Americans have never had their speech censored by a government entity so getting rid of the first amendment would be fine for most people.
| only about <30% of Americans have travelled internationally in the past year
30% sounds insanely high. I suspect at least half of Americans haven't even taken a _vacation_ in the past year, let alone _travelled internationally_.
only 3% of us citizens had a passport back in 1989!
passport to resident ratio usa, 1989-2023:
https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/44102530-5b24-467a-8510-c...
Yeah, the number is closer to 10%:
> Approximately 40 million Americans travel abroad each year. This figure represents about 12% of the U.S. population. Travel data reveals that Americans commonly visit destinations in Europe, Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean.
Source: https://travelpander.com/how-many-americans-travel-abroad/
Higher than I would have thought! I was just thinking about this again and my SWAG was 5%. I asked ChatGPT which repeated the shockingly high 28% number, but it elides the fact that this was in a (small) survey of 2000 "travelers" (whatever that means-- but i suspect it means 2000 people who travelled in the past year):
> In the past year, the poll of 2,000 U.S. travelers, conducted by Talker Research, found 94% have traveled domestically, and 28% have traveled internationally.
source: https://www.myjournalcourier.com/features/article/unpacking-...
... that's not how freedom works?
Even if I happen not to hold any particularly radical political opinions, if political speech is censored, my rights of free expression are also decreased. I may not practice a minority religion, but if the state systemically attacks one religion, my freedom of religion is also attacked.
The same is no less true for the 4th amendment; I may not be a target of the police at the current moment, but if they have the ability to search and take stuff at will, I am still less free.
If we've learned anything from the catastrophes of the 20th century, it should be that you need to resist attacks on freedom even when they only involve smaller groups, because they will come for you eventually and by then it may be too late.
That's hard to do in practice when at any given moment the people screeching about a given affront are the same people who were cheering AML/KYC a decade ago because they didn't like tax evasion and the people screeching about that were all in favor of invasive policing over drugs a decade before that and so on and so on.
Resisting tyranny is hard, who knew.
This is not new and started under obama. Courts have ruled that until you pass customs you are not IN the country and thus 4th amendment does not apply. IF you are a citizen, it STILL DOES apply so they cannot force you into a search or deny you entry but they can confiscate your device.
And it would have started before Obama if smartphones were a common thing back then.
100%. No government has ever skipped an opportunity to grab more control. My message was in no way partisan, just historical.
Try entering Australia sometime and report back.
The ABF are empowered to search any electronic devices, copy and retain its contents.
You can refuse, after which they are empowered to jail you and seize your belongings.
Sorry but I'm not seeing the connection between searching belongings whilst crossing an international border to the mass genocide of 6M people.
> You can refuse, after which they are empowered to jail you and seize your belongings.
Or you can vote with your feet and stop going there.
> Sorry but I'm not seeing the connection between searching belongings whilst crossing an international border to the mass genocide of 6M people.
Nazism did not start with genocide. It ended with genocide. If your position is that as long as we haven't seen the death of 6M people then sure, you're right this isn't Nazism. But if you see the endless propaganda, the creations of large 'outgroups' and the building of actual concentration camps as possibly leading in that direction then now would be a good time to do something about it. Otherwise you'll be in a long line of people saying 'wir haben es nicht gewusst' in a couple of years. But you did.
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Mike Godwin agrees that we’re witnessing Nazi shit.
The Federal government has always had broad lateral regulatory powers over the influx and outflux of people and goods across the border, citizens or not. The U.S. has had laws on the book to this effect all the way back to 1789. This is one of the defining features of a sovereign country. There's not a single country on planet earth that doesn't permit searches at the border.
See for yourself: https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?a...
Thank you for entirely missing the point here and illustrating mine by being one of those good people that keep on justifying what is happening by pointing to legal texts. In what world do you think it is normal for border patrol to search private devices? I've crossed in and out of former East Germany and Poland when they were still behind the iron curtain and never ever had to so much as show what I had in my pockets. By the time countries like that were examples to be held up to countries that nominally value personal freedom, freedom of expression and freedom from political and religious persecution you have to wonder if you are not in the words of Mitchell and Webb 'the baddies'.
The article doesn't say, but I wonder how many of those searches were truly at a border? For those unaware, the US defines the border as anyplace within 100 miles of a border, where international airpots are considered "the border" in addition to the actual physical border. This means something like 2/3 of US residents live "at the border" and are subject to border policies. It also means just about the entirety of every major city is also completely within the border region, even a city like Denver that is nowhere close to an actual border.
I'm pretty sure the 100 miles only really applies to the border and the coast and not internal ports of entries. It's still a travesty.
Ah, I misread (but can't edit any more)... lots of online content describing CBP/ICE operations near major international airports, which I took to mean those airports were considered borders that start a "new" 100 mile zone.
That's incorrect (per the ACLU post in the sibling comment) - it just happens that many major airports are within the 100 mile zone, so CBP/ICE can run operations there (beyond what they might run at an airport well inside the heartland).
Shame you’ve been downvoted. According to the ACLU, you’re correct: https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/border-zone
Out of curiosity I tried to find where in the US _wouldn't_ be considered a border zone if that was the case. Looks like the largest strip is from Death Valley to Idaho - when you get further north there are too many regional airports with the occasional flight to Canada, or you run into the actual "border zone." The real trick is to find the furthest East point, which I think might (?) exist near Elkins, WV?
Fingers crossed I'll nerd snipe someone here into finding it.
And here's the 100-mile zone... https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/alliancesandiego/pages...
Non-coastal cities that fall within the zone where I wouldn't really expect a border check (ignoring the big cities Houston)... Charlottesville, VA Sacramento, CA Portland, OR Madison, WI Syracuse, NY
How big a fraction of the US population are we talking about here?
About 2/3 is what I’ve seen.
I have always considered crossing the US border as a training for backup recovery from catastrophic failure. Wiping my phone and laptop clean has shown me where I have gaps in backup recovery.
Between this, the forced social media disclosure, the alleged entry denials for memes and the detaining of people I'm just not going to go to travel to the USA anymore.
For that level of risk I'd rather go see Shenzhen frankly.
A friend asked me to visit them in the states, there is no way I’m going currently - hopefully at some point in the future. I’ve had fun there in the past under Republican administrations - so this isn’t a blue/red thing - it just doesn’t appear safe to cross the boarder right now.
Land of the free?
Yes, it was a sad moment, years ago now, the day I realized that I'd likely never travel to China. Sadder still to acknowledge I'd feel safer doing so than entering the modern US.
I wonder if US tourism is down. We avoided it for travel due to the current situation.
It is. https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/america-only-country-rep...
It is, but it is always hard to figure out causes as there are other economic indicators and any one could also be the cause of tourism being down. Not to mention random changes in what people do. Statisticians can dig through this data and way what is signal, but so far I've only seem people quoting absolute numbers and stating whatever cause fits their pet beliefs.
So far, there isn't enough data to say.
Forecasts apparently still show an increase in international visitors overall (unsure of the split between tourists and business visits).
But, May numbers appear to be down about 7% compared to May 2024.
Yes it is. At least in NYC. I'm including multiple links to the data, lest folks try to claim it's some sort of TDS[0] fueled plot against our beloved and incredibly popular leader.
https://nypost.com/2025/07/25/us-news/foreign-tourism-to-nyc...
https://www.timeout.com/newyork/news/nyc-will-see-a-17-perce...
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/08/nyregion/nyc-tourism.html
https://vinnews.com/2025/07/25/foreign-tourism-to-nyc-faces-...
https://columbianewsservice.com/2025/06/04/new-york-city-see...
https://tjvnews.com/local/new-york/new-york-city-faces-4-bil...
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_derangement_syndrome
Massively, yes.
Anecdotally it is, but I wondered if I could find supporting statistics. I live near Yellowstone NP which has a fair proportion of non-US visitors based on my personal observations (perhaps 25%). Stats are collected on a monthly basis. July is the most recent month with full data (obviously). Report URL below.
The report says the visit count (MAU?) in July is down 18% vs last year. Since I can't think of any local issue (fire, flood, weather...) that would have had an affect on visitor count this year vs last, that seems quite a large change. Especially when the fact that only a proportion of visitors are not from the US.
https://irma.nps.gov/Stats/SSRSReports/Park%20Specific%20Rep...
What would happen if a person tried to enter the United States at the border but were not carrying a phone or a laptop? Do they frown on this?
Would probably look suspicious but doubt they could do much more than grill you about it a bit
>Would probably look suspicious but doubt they could do much more than grill you about it a bit
And if they don't like your answers, they can detain you without charge indefinitely and then deport you -- and not necessarily to your home country.
It's a bad idea to come to the US -- for any reason -- at this time.
N.B.: I say that as an American living in the US. What's more, my father was an immigrant (who never became a citizen) and my mother's parents were also immigrants. As such, were it not for immigration, I would not exist as my parents met here in the US. Please don't come here. It breaks my heart to say it, but it isn't safe for you.
To clarify, my admonition not to visit the US wasn't a warning from a xenophobe promising harm to foreigners.
Rather it was an earnest concern for the health and well-being of fellow humans given the harsh, punitive and cruel tactics being used on people by my government.
If and when we stop treating visitors like criminals, I will once again heartily recommend that folks come and visit the US. It's an amazing place with all sorts of fabulous places, things and people. And despite the loudest and nastiest among us, most Americans are kind and decent people.
But that time is not now. And more's the pity.
Same. No interest in going to that country. We'll continue travel in Canada or throughout Europe as we have over the last year and a bit. We used to go to the US to camp and on family vacations in the winter, but we skipped that last year and this year and have no plans to visit unless the situation changes.
It's not just you. Tourism to the US from Canada and Europe is declining. https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/america-only-country-rep...
This is bad, and the erosion of rights at the border is a serious issue of liberty in our modern age, but in many powerful ways the US is still ahead of many Western countries in terms of rights at the border, for both citizens and noncitizens.
For example, in New Zealand, you can be fined $5000 if you do not unlock your phone at the border, and later still compelled to unlock it. The US does not have any fines or laws to compel access. Of course, in any country, refusing the orders of a customs official will get you banned from the country, so that's a strong enough incentive for most tourists.
In terms of frequency: New Zealand searches 671 devices per year on 3M tourists, the US searches 46k/yr on 72M tourists, Australia 8.3k/yr on 6M tourists. That works out to 671/3M tourists is 0.02%, 46k/72M tourists is 0.06% and 8.3k/6M tourists is 0.14%.
Personally, I have fought against these searches for nearly my entire life. But to pretend that the US is on some sort of unique authoritarian slide is laughable. In the UK, today, most forms of protest are illegal. The EU has mandated cellular devices which record your car's location - on every new car. We should stand united against authoritarianism worldwide, not divided and pointing and laughing at each other in some sort of sad petty tribalism. I don't want to score cheap points on the internet, I want all people worldwide to enjoy liberty and privacy. United we stand, divided we fall.
The problem is that customs officials (and immigration officers) are granted an extreme amount of power through discretionary authority. Congress has yet to actually constrain this, and from my understanding the statutory language is so broad that determinations can be made based on literally anything. Which is why that hole "abolish ICE" got quite popular (and in many places is still around). Congress and the courts are way too deferential when it comes to these two, instead of holding them up to an incredibly high standard and giving the courts that level of discretion, which is where it belongs.
The idea is to prevent us from hitting rock bottom wrt rights by addressing abuses as they occur, not years down the line when we finally realize we no longer have rights or recourse.
Who's pointing and laughing? I don't see people in the US laughing at other countries becoming worse and I don't understand how pointing out that that the US is becoming more authoritarian leads to tribalism. Are you talking about countries outside the US?
When something like this happens in the US, the general European internet response is to shake their heads about how the US is becoming literal Nazis and Europe is superior (one example: the current most popular comment chain in this thread.)
When something like Chat Control, mandatory cellular location recording devices in cars, anti-encryption laws, elimination of the right to protest in the UK, etc happens, the American response is to shake their heads and do much the same.
I don't find that productive. That sort of division is toxic. And the broader strategy - provoking us to hate our brothers across the Atlantic - has long been a core strategy of the enemies of Western civilization.
The reason why other members of the core white-anglo-saxon empire, Canada, UK, Aus, NZ have draconian surveillance systems is because it's the only way the US can "legally" hoover up a lot of this data as it's own constitution gets in the way.
A small island state in the south Pacific, close only to Aus & Antartic penguins, doesn't need or care about your data.
An outpost of the wasp empire, without constitutional impediments getting the way, ABSOLUTELY DOES want to hoover up as much data that passes through it as possible.
Which do you think NZ is? "5 eyes" has the membership it has, for a reason.
So yes, as the centre of this unholy empire, the US is involved, and responsible.
That is an inaccurate summary of the Five Eyes program / intelligence disclosures. Almost all of the bulk+targeted surveillance of US citizens was carried out by the NSA directly - they have the biggest budget, the most power and brains. Not to mention, at the time of the leaks, datacenters were generally quite centralized in the US. The sharing of non-US-citizen data, of course, was (and almost certainly still is) rampant. But sharing of US citizen data was mostly from specific operations, not ongoing programs. I would be happy to be corrected if there is a leak that I have not heard of.
This is not to justify any part of modern surveillance, which I have protested against for many years. Nor is it to dodge US responsibility.
Back to the topic we're discussing - border phone searches - the US surveils their own citizens far less than the other Anglo countries. 22% of the searches were of US citizens, while US citizens make up a bit over half of border crossings. Australian citizens make up a similar proportion of Australian border crossings, but 42% of searches were of Australian citizens. Combine that with the figures above, and an Australian citizen going home has about a 4x higher chance of getting their phone searched than an American citizen. Very roughly, 0.025% vs 0.11%.
> Almost all of the bulk+targeted surveillance of US citizens was carried out by the NSA directly
If you believe that, then you probably inhabit a parallel universe where Epstein wasn't an Israeli asset, and where he really did kill himself.
In which case, keep calm & carry on...
NZ is absurd because given large numbers, someone could have genuinely forgotten their password from a night of heavy drinking, or from a password change that wasn't jotted down.
>But to pretend that the US is on some sort of unique authoritarian slide is laughable.
It is, but maybe you just haven't been paying close enough attention. Device scanning at the border is not the only indication of this, there are many. Masked federal agents arresting anyone they want without any warrant and then sending them to prisons in foreign countries without due process, should be ringing authoritarian alarm bells for everyone, including you.
I wonder what people these days think about the song "Imagine" by John Lennon. Free travel, world peace and equality is so out of fashion that a strong majority seems to think that it is OK to restrict people's movement around the world and feel so terrified of foreigners and yet without seeing the irony the same people would talk about becoming interplanetary species. I wouldn't be surprised if the totalitarians drop the "think of the children" line and just doi everything for "national security".
I'm not fan of the trend, I'm open about it I despise travel restrictions and the security theater but I really want to hear from people who like the new way the world is headed for.
I mean, of course, we all would like to be able to travel without restrictions ourselves. The concern for people in developed nations is what would happen to their quality of life if people from poorer nations could freely migrate.
Europe has ~750 million people, and even with current policies (where migrants might drown when their boat sinks while the Greek Coast Guard looks on and laughs) millions of migrants try to enter Europe each year.
The US has ~340 million people, and even with current policies (where children might be separated from parents and placed into cruel detention centers) millions of migrants try to enter the US each year.
If movement was free, how many hundreds of millions would pour from Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and South Asia into Europe and the US? The 3+ billion who live in the tropics are only going to become more likely to try to migrate as the climate continues to warm.
What makes you think that everyone wants to come to Europe? Have you considered that instead of geofencing the non-millionaire population like cattle, maybe not bombing or couping the poor countries is a better option?
People don't actually leave the places they grow up or their families and friends to live on European food stamps.
Also, Europe tends to receive the worst people because the legal routes are closed. We end up with people who dare to go to the illegal routes for other reasons than running for their lives.
US a similar thing, instead of relying on illegal workforce just let in people from the main gates and watch out for shady types.
There are so many things that can be done to address the issues instead of dividing the world limited travel areas.
> I wouldn't be surprised if the totalitarians drop the "think of the children" line and just doi everything for "national security".
Republicans are planning to ban all pornography under the guise of "national health crisis". It's in their Project 2025 playbook which they have been following very closely.
Yup... according to this tracker, "Project 2025" is 47% implemented:
https://www.project2025.observer/en
Is it the same people who just made the Epstein files go away? I can't believe people keep falling for the same stuff all the time. Thanks god EU is incapable of acting together, some of the members still keep trying anyway.
Does using GrapheneOS guard against such searches? Also, what is the future of GrapheneOS given that Google's release of the source code for Pixel's kernel was dropped, replaced with a generic image.
To a degree. You have the duress pin, so you can wipe your phone quickly if need be. But I wouldn't call that guarding, your phone won't get searched but if TSA or ice saw you wipe your phone in front of them with a, to them, unknown feature, I doubt they'll let you enter the country.
It's has always been happening, especially for people of some backgrounds. Now it's just happening more.
More of a bad thing is worse than less of a bad thing, right?
Anyone have a link to get around the paywall?
https://archive.ph/cx5HQ
Install this and you'll never need a bypass link again.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bypass_Paywalls_Clean
I use the flag button. Posting paywalled content is dumb, annoying and pointless.
time to start mailing the phone home. lol what a joke
I've been debating one how to get a work laptop into the US safely. Last time, earlier this year, I didn't really have any worries, nor was I searched, nor where my devices. While I still believe the risk is close to zero, I have been designing a solution for my laptop.
There's not really anything on my laptop, other than SSH keys and some stuff that's in git anyway. So it can technically just be a clean Linux installation on a old burner laptop. When I'm across the border, I could simply install my password manager and pull everything from git.
For the phone that's a little more tricky, because I'd need my 2FA for the password manager. I suppose I could do a "blank" phone and just have the TOTP QR code printed on a piece of paper.
It just seems like it's more suspicious to carry two blank devices.
Our country is too dumb to read crime stats. Of course we would make everyone the enemy regardless of what the constitution and stats say.
Do your part and educate an idiot you know. Ask them to stop being unreasonable and stop spreading lies or you will cut them off.
This will probably result in you cutting them off.
We cannot sink into total FUD!
> Ask them to stop being unreasonable and stop spreading lies or you will cut them off.
This is often how families of cult members act when they discover their family member has joined a cult. Usually it has the effect of pushing the cult member to become further indoctrinated because the cult is the only thing in their life that offers them acceptance and validation. Instead, talk to them using their terms and get them to understand your world view in their terms.
Some people will still be obstinate and I do not have a solution for that; I am, however, certain that invalidating them is not a solution, even if one believes that what they are saying is not valid. The point is that people need to feel safe in order to change their opinions (doing so is a very vulnerable moment) and constantly invalidating someone is a great way to make sure they constantly feel psychologically unsafe around you.
Just to reiterate: if one is really hoping to change the mind of someone close to them, don't give them an ultimatum to change their mind or you'll cut them off. The result will be that they don't change their mind and you remove yourself from a good position to effect that change.
Does that work if the cult violations become more and more normalized?
If the cult believes to ignore anyone that disagrees, how do you break through? Crime has gone down over the decades and people are still screaming their heads off at it at every level. How do you embrace cult think about spreading insecurity? How can you argue on their terms when their terms aren’t even remotely accurate?