US Border Officers Don’t Always Delete Collected Traveler Data(engadget.com)
engadget.com
US Border Officers Don’t Always Delete Collected Traveler Data
https://www.engadget.com/2018/12/11/cbp-officers-fail-to-delete-traveler-data/
40 comments
The authority to conduct such searches should simply be removed. Border searches are nominally for the purpose of preventing the importation of something that's illegal to import, but it's trivial to transfer information that's illegal to import (e.g. child pornography) over the internet instead.
Exactly, something can be constitutional while nobody practices it.
Eugenics being a good example. Supreme Court upheld it 100 years ago, no constitutional amendment or ongoing fight with "two camps", people just stopped. State laws changed, licensing organizations stopped supporting it.
In this case, President could unilaterally tell the Border Patrol to not do it. Congress could make consequences.
Eugenics being a good example. Supreme Court upheld it 100 years ago, no constitutional amendment or ongoing fight with "two camps", people just stopped. State laws changed, licensing organizations stopped supporting it.
In this case, President could unilaterally tell the Border Patrol to not do it. Congress could make consequences.
Eugenics is still practiced in developed countries today. It just became opt-in, e.g. screening pregnant women for downs syndrome, which is standard procedure: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/down-syndrome...
Edit: I'm not saying that's comparable to practices called "eugenics" in the 1st half of the 20th century. Just narrowly responding to "people just stopped [the practice of eugenics]". The Wikipedia article on the subject agrees with this usage of the word, "practices that [aim to] improv[e] the genetic quality of a human population"[1].
There's also the whole topic of "designer babies" which has also been called "new eugenics"[2].
This is admittedly way off-topic from the original discussion. I just thought it was an interesting side-note.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_reproductive_technolo...
Edit: I'm not saying that's comparable to practices called "eugenics" in the 1st half of the 20th century. Just narrowly responding to "people just stopped [the practice of eugenics]". The Wikipedia article on the subject agrees with this usage of the word, "practices that [aim to] improv[e] the genetic quality of a human population"[1].
There's also the whole topic of "designer babies" which has also been called "new eugenics"[2].
This is admittedly way off-topic from the original discussion. I just thought it was an interesting side-note.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_reproductive_technolo...
Doctor's unilaterally sterilizing adults is an unpopular practice, which is what is referred to in my original post.
> screening pregnant women for downs syndrome
That’s not related to eugenics.
That’s not related to eugenics.
No, that is exactly eugenics. It is removing an unwanted part of the (potential) population. I happen to think it is a really good idea, but it does solidly fall under the term eugenics.
Detecting and aborting low-quality babies isn't related to eugenics?
First detecting often does not result in abortion, let alone mandatory abortion or sterilization by the state.
Eugenics also generally focused on sterilization vs termination, with a focus on long term changes in the human population. And sterilization is only relevant for people likely to reproduce so the elderly and people with Down syndrome are irrelevant from a eugenics standpoint.
Finally, small scale things like prescreening sperm donors is not going to make a meaningful difference to the overall population. For eugenics to have a meaningful impact the idea was to manage the overall population at scale. It’s a more insidious idea than often portrayed in a modern context because the original idea has become anathema.
Eugenics also generally focused on sterilization vs termination, with a focus on long term changes in the human population. And sterilization is only relevant for people likely to reproduce so the elderly and people with Down syndrome are irrelevant from a eugenics standpoint.
Finally, small scale things like prescreening sperm donors is not going to make a meaningful difference to the overall population. For eugenics to have a meaningful impact the idea was to manage the overall population at scale. It’s a more insidious idea than often portrayed in a modern context because the original idea has become anathema.
Low-quality babies? Wow. Because they don't meet your standards?
They're human babies, and there is no such thing as a low quality human; though people like you sure come close enough.
They're human babies, and there is no such thing as a low quality human; though people like you sure come close enough.
Border searches are nominally for the purpose of
preventing the importation of something that's
illegal to import
This would seem more plausible if the searches were only restricted to people who only had single intent visas. Is that the case?
I haven't seen the program but it seems hard to believe that enough people would have a clear message about their intent in their email to make this program worth it. You'd have to go through 1000s of regular people to find the one odd person who contradicted themselves in an email. "Don't worry bud. I am pretending to go as a tourist but will actually look for a job and then apply for a work visa! haha!"
I haven't seen the program but it seems hard to believe that enough people would have a clear message about their intent in their email to make this program worth it. You'd have to go through 1000s of regular people to find the one odd person who contradicted themselves in an email. "Don't worry bud. I am pretending to go as a tourist but will actually look for a job and then apply for a work visa! haha!"
They don't right off the bat search your phone. Rather it's if the questions they ask don't match up exactly, or you mention other red flags. Canada and a few other countries do it too.
It's not forced, as if you decline, you'll just be denied entry. You could consider that forced, but at that point, the officer has already decided that he doesn't believe you, and you're not entering the US until you can prove it.
It's actually very common for people to come in on a tourist visa and find work. They figure out if you're likely to do that when they ask "what do you do for a living?," "do you have any family in the US," "how much money do you currently have access to?," or if you're staying for longer than they deem reasonable, like a 90 day vacation with $1000 in your bank account.
If they don't believe your answers, they ask for proof, like a return ticket, or possibly your text messages/emails. They can call contacts that you said you were going to visit too.
The show has shown a few successful findings from emails, people with emails from clients in the US arranging in-person visits (regarding contractors who can't work in the US) are common. As are people trying to permanently immigrate illegally, as they talk with their family in the US their plans via SMS.
I'm not trying to argue for this practice, and I'm all for making borders less closed off and open. I'm just saying the justification given by the government for it. Especially since the current administration is hard-set on stopping illegal immigration, and the majority of illegal immigrants actually come here legally, and overstay and work illegally.
It's not forced, as if you decline, you'll just be denied entry. You could consider that forced, but at that point, the officer has already decided that he doesn't believe you, and you're not entering the US until you can prove it.
It's actually very common for people to come in on a tourist visa and find work. They figure out if you're likely to do that when they ask "what do you do for a living?," "do you have any family in the US," "how much money do you currently have access to?," or if you're staying for longer than they deem reasonable, like a 90 day vacation with $1000 in your bank account.
If they don't believe your answers, they ask for proof, like a return ticket, or possibly your text messages/emails. They can call contacts that you said you were going to visit too.
The show has shown a few successful findings from emails, people with emails from clients in the US arranging in-person visits (regarding contractors who can't work in the US) are common. As are people trying to permanently immigrate illegally, as they talk with their family in the US their plans via SMS.
I'm not trying to argue for this practice, and I'm all for making borders less closed off and open. I'm just saying the justification given by the government for it. Especially since the current administration is hard-set on stopping illegal immigration, and the majority of illegal immigrants actually come here legally, and overstay and work illegally.
You don't have to be secret about that since it's legal AFAIK. I've done it myself. Go in on a visa waiver for an interview, go back to my home coutry and have the company apply for the visa afterwards. I told them all of this upfront with an interview email print off.
That's at least more realistically connected to a legitimate government purpose. It seems hugely invasive to be doing without a court order though.
Suggested that show on here as well. The Canada and Australia variants are also a good watch.
neither do the people that work at most of the cell phone stores(verizon, spring, etc)... i knew a couple guys that worked at them and they all were in cahoots to steal private photos from female owned cameras. and then shared them in a massive repo.
this is why i dont let anyone touch my tech.
this is why i dont let anyone touch my tech.
Please blow that whistle loud and clear.
one was/is a multi-state regional manager. these companies don't want this stuff to make the light of day, so even if you reported it, they would bury it. And I have no faith in law enforcement to do anything about it, they are not tech savvy enough to know where to begin.
screwed up world. keep your privacy game tight!
screwed up world. keep your privacy game tight!
Isn't there some kind of reward for whistleblowers in the US? eg % of the fines or something?
uh huh. I don't believe you. it would be trivial to name the company right now. and the police are not stupid, it would be exceedingly easy to investigate this.
clearly you don't understand the incompetence of small town law enforcement, nor their gross lack of technical abilities and resources.
Sorry, but I have to ask — why would they care?
As someone who has "nothing to hide", the prospect of such search is why I don't consider travelling to USA a possibility. Or at least not with my phone / laptop.
What a surprise, right?
I am absolutely SHOCKED, I did not expect this in a million years. Why would I ever have any reason to believe the government isn't telling me the truth? And, as a law-abiding citizen, I can't imagine what they'd even want with it anyway. This must have been an honest mistake.
I think we should tell them that we are really sorry about all that. We should buy them flowers.
I’d be more surprised if anyone in customs/border security actually deleted the collected data. Deleting collected data would imply that they were competent and procedures were being followed, or that procedures exist.
There's unlikely to be any real control put on this, so assuming that this is "a new normal" we need to work out how best to deal with it. I found a couple of articles which cover some precautions but aren't quite "paranoid enough" (warning: both of these articles showed me full-paged ads):
https://www.computerworld.com/article/3209648/android/the-pa...
https://www.wired.com/2017/02/guide-getting-past-customs-dig...
We need a nice, clean, to-the-point github readme style list. Off the top of my head:
- Backup contents of device to two places, confirm both, delete it all from device
- Record all personal accounts on the phone, make sure the login/email/passwords are known, then remove them all
- Factory reset the device (if asked about why it's "blank", say that you bought it recently, specifically for the trip. Work out some reasonable excuse)
- Create a throwaway account, set that up as the only account on the phone
- Encrypt the device
- Don't use biometric unlocks
- Use a relatively simple passcode that isn't related to any of the ones you may regularly use (unless you already have a regularly used "burner" passcode)
- Remove your local / home sim card before going through customs (if asked, you're planning to buy one that's local to the country you're visiting)
- Any data that you may need to get back on to your phone once you're through customs should be made available somewhere online and accessible via credentials you can either remember or have stored elsewhere. Possibly through a chain of dependence such as remember the credentials to download the VPN config, then access further documents / details via the VPN.
I fundamentally treat phones and laptops as disposable devices so that, if they're lost or stolen there should be minimal life impact. If they're the only store of photos of your kids precious milestones, then you're doing it wrong (you're also probably not someone suspicious, but in that case you shouldn't be subjected to government departments stealing said photos).
https://www.computerworld.com/article/3209648/android/the-pa...
https://www.wired.com/2017/02/guide-getting-past-customs-dig...
We need a nice, clean, to-the-point github readme style list. Off the top of my head:
- Backup contents of device to two places, confirm both, delete it all from device
- Record all personal accounts on the phone, make sure the login/email/passwords are known, then remove them all
- Factory reset the device (if asked about why it's "blank", say that you bought it recently, specifically for the trip. Work out some reasonable excuse)
- Create a throwaway account, set that up as the only account on the phone
- Encrypt the device
- Don't use biometric unlocks
- Use a relatively simple passcode that isn't related to any of the ones you may regularly use (unless you already have a regularly used "burner" passcode)
- Remove your local / home sim card before going through customs (if asked, you're planning to buy one that's local to the country you're visiting)
- Any data that you may need to get back on to your phone once you're through customs should be made available somewhere online and accessible via credentials you can either remember or have stored elsewhere. Possibly through a chain of dependence such as remember the credentials to download the VPN config, then access further documents / details via the VPN.
I fundamentally treat phones and laptops as disposable devices so that, if they're lost or stolen there should be minimal life impact. If they're the only store of photos of your kids precious milestones, then you're doing it wrong (you're also probably not someone suspicious, but in that case you shouldn't be subjected to government departments stealing said photos).
> Factory reset the device (if asked about why it's "blank", say that you bought it recently, specifically for the trip. Work out some reasonable excuse)
Or simply say that you factory reset it because you are traveling to a foreign country, and (1) don't want to risk that you have some app installed that is legal here but not there, and (2) you do not trust the carriers or government there to respect your privacy.
Or simply say that you factory reset it because you are traveling to a foreign country, and (1) don't want to risk that you have some app installed that is legal here but not there, and (2) you do not trust the carriers or government there to respect your privacy.
Perhaps "don't use your real phone" when traveling to the US?
There's no telling what kind of APT's may be installed now or at a future date, so thinking a phone wipe of any kind will do the trick sounds risky.
APT's are apparently commonly used with China, so doubt the US would be any different.
There's no telling what kind of APT's may be installed now or at a future date, so thinking a phone wipe of any kind will do the trick sounds risky.
APT's are apparently commonly used with China, so doubt the US would be any different.
Completely by accident. There was never any intent to mine that information, no sir.
Not wittingly.
Perhaps, but perhaps not. If you've followed the news since 2001, you'll find that improper deletion of data is a theme that goes back a long time to the point where you should really question whether it's really an accident or the result of purposeful lack-of-enforcement of policy.
I believe that was a reference to James Clapper's perjury: https://abcnews.go.com/US/americas-top-spy-james-clapper-mad...
One of many things, yes. Also, see any news story circa 2013 and the Edward Snowden leaks. In more recent and relevant histoy, the border security program is fairly well established to have been rolled out half-baked with the intention of making it a semi-legal limbo for all involved.
So the idea that they are playing loose with the rules on purpose based on recommendations from the top seems warranted.
So the idea that they are playing loose with the rules on purpose based on recommendations from the top seems warranted.
I believe a factor in this is the incentives at play based on a mentality.
The incentives are that if data is deleted, the person doing it can be in trouble for destroying it. The probability of getting in trouble for not deleting is low.
This is based off of a mentality of: If we need the data and delete it, we (the gov) will have less power. If we don't delete it and need it, we will have more.
I believe the flaw in this reasoning is not considering a 3rd possibility: We don't delete it, don't need it, but it falls into other (even less scrupulous hands) that can use it and gain power.
The incentives are that if data is deleted, the person doing it can be in trouble for destroying it. The probability of getting in trouble for not deleting is low.
This is based off of a mentality of: If we need the data and delete it, we (the gov) will have less power. If we don't delete it and need it, we will have more.
I believe the flaw in this reasoning is not considering a 3rd possibility: We don't delete it, don't need it, but it falls into other (even less scrupulous hands) that can use it and gain power.