I'm really not sure if I want to visit the US at all while Trump is in power. Not because I expect the chances of any severe problems are all that huge, but because the growing lack of predictability is just creating sufficient friction.
I don't fancy Trump anymore than the next guy, but this started long before he got elected.
This is driven by the intelligence community for their own power grab and is 100% independent. It would be pushed through no matter who sat in the presidential seat.
Let's just say that if you try to oppose it, in the current (intolerant liberal) political climate someone has enough data on you to ruin your life and career as a politician no matter who you are.
That's a massive amount of power. Seeing how the head of NSA openly and repeatadly lies under oath to no consequence what so ever, I'd be surprised if it's not a power being misused regularly.
You are right to be outraged, but you are wrong to be fearful of Trump. You need to be fearful and angry at the government, regardless of who's the President.
But don't come here telling me administrations are basically the same. And much of the surveillance state exists because of the politicians that pander to the more xenophobic demographics. Look how much of the previous 8 years they spent portraying Obama as a crypto-Muslim, bent on the the Islamicization of the United States yadda yadda. Every time he tried to dismantle or scale back any aspect of the national security state (Guantanamo being an obvious example) conservatives howled about him enabling terrorism and putting the American people in danger. To ignore those factors is to deceive yourself about the political dynamics that shape your environment.
Obama managed to push affordable care act through despite republican howls. Perhaps there are other reasons for his change of heart on other topics.
I can deal with an authoritarian government as a visitor if I know what to avoid while visiting. Not so if the rules can change at the whim of someone who seems unstable.
> If you still think of the world as divided into good and evil, then I have to break it to you that you have been played. Brainwashed by years and years of media programming.
> One man's terrorist is another man's hero. The U.S routinely bombs other sovereign countries and this is show cased as a "hero" activity. If the bombed people retaliate, they are terrorists. The truth is not black/white. Same way U.S data surveillance is OK but same thing done by China is seen as backward regime.
The reason I find it bizarre is that I've visited the US about two dozen times over many years, and while I know there are plenty of issues for many visitors, it used to be fairly predictable who would get stopped, and I used to feel safe that I would not get pulled aside and face more invasive questioning or searches.
As I've noted elsewhere, part of what is changing is that it appears this predictability is out of the window: Things like NASA employees stopped or how a few days ago a former Norwegian Prime Minister travelling on a diplomatic passport was stopped. And so.
In a way, I suppose, I get to finally experience the uncertainty people from less favoured countries and/or darker skinned/with a muslim sounding name have dealt with for much longer. That is perhaps the only benefit of this mess: It's finally affecting groups of people that may cause it to become politically untenable over time.
But what has changed is the predictability and the extent of use of these types of powers.
I used to feel safe that I would not get taken aside and have to deal with this type of thing, but now I see no reason to any more, because there seems to be no reason to assume that the rules won't suddenly change overnight.
On entering the UK on the other hand, I still feel reasonably safe that though I know they can, the odds that they will are extremely low.
It used to be that I'd consider what to clean off my laptop before entering places like China. Now I'm not sure I'll even want to bring my regular laptop to the US.
That way you could simply put it into lockdown mode before you enter border checks and not use the phone except for minimal calling features.
Most MDMs can wipe the phone or data on it in the event you leave the country.
It strikes me that yielding to unjust approaches is fundamentally problematic on two fronts:
- The action of forcing legal citizens to unlock their personal information certainly is questionable constitutionally.
- The idea that one can perform these sorts of workarounds is likely biased with privilege.
Visiting the US now demands exactly the same measures as visiting China.
There's also the possibility of seizure -- not getting your encrypted hard drive back because you refused to co-operate.
Otherwise you get rubber hose cryptanalysis: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13629728
Bruce Shneier's advice: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/07/laptop_securi...
Wipe phone when you pass through border, restore afterwards. If you're really paranoid, if the device leaves your presence it's to be considered physically compromised.