I was going to SV and landed at SFO. The flight was long and I was tired, and raised additional suspicion of the security guy. He asked me about the purpose of my (two-week-long) visit. I replied "software integration". He asked then, "what sort of software integration can be done in only 2 weeks?" I must say, this question remained unanswered. He let me in, it was 2006.

"None, but don't tell management that please."

I would advise strongly against that kind of snarky or funny responses. It is a no-no. Give a standard answers the lawyer might have presented you.

I dunno, when I was coming back from Europe a while back the homeland security guy in the airport asked me if I wanted a full cavity search. I was like "no?..." And he was like, ah, you don't fit the profile anyways.

I've found American Border Patrol and Customs to be fairly relaxed though. I am a white American guy from the Midwest, so that may have something to do with it. I find the TSA to be more of a pain.

The real problem with border patrol is that how you are treated depends entirely on the individual border agent. I've had agents joke with me, I've had agents grill me. I've even had an agent with an earphone in his ear, dance music pumping, as he stamped my passport and visa in time with the beat.

I've long since learned the lesson that joking around with them is absolutely never, ever worth it. It's sad, because it presumably makes their jobs joyless, and the actual nice people more likely to leave. But here we are.

> But here we are.

The terrorists are winning. sigh

“No” (in a different tone perhaps) or “no thanks” does seem like the straightforward, serious answer to that question.

Maybe Hollywood should make a "Party Patrol" about a group of CBP officers joking with hungover college kids returning from spring break in Mexico. Think along the lines of "Super Troopers".

Oh if you are American and/or white it is a different case.

I know, all these European migrants are running around out here scared because Lord Merkel tells them to be when they have nothing to worry about

Its a hard point to convey without really spelling out the underbelly of American society

If anything it's Granny Merkel and we don't need her to be worried. What really scares me is that people seem to believe anything they read/heard/watched on the internet without checking or even asking for the source of the claims/news. O, and Trump scares me. Not because I fear a war or something. But because he's a negative example of the good old 'anything is possible in America' and he somehow deleted that 'land of the free' part...at least in my version of reality (yep, that's ok, everybody got his own reality. But we're all in IT here, we know that, right?

> asked me if I wanted a full cavity search

If you wanted?!

No way this is real.

Threats are common. I was flying within the USA with a young toddler still nursing. We had some breast milk and was ordered to dump it, by a TSA agent, standing in front of a sign saying milk was fine.

I mentioned the sign and was threatened with a "deep" inspection and guaranteed enough detention time to miss the flight.

We dumped it, boarded a 5 hour flight, pushed the call button and asked for cow milk to help get through the flight. They came back, 3 other moms did the exact same thing, and got told they were out of milk.

Quite unpleasant, security theater is such a waste.

I was once traveling back from Italy after attending PKDD conference. I was really sick and had a really bad headache, so the following exchange really scared me:

    "Why did you go to Italy?"
    - To attend a conference.
    "Which conference did you attend?"
    - European Conference on Machine Learning
    "Machine Learning? (smile) How do you learn from machines?"

I forgot the exact answer I gave, but I was pretty afraid that he had a Wikipedia page on "Learning from Machines" and would not let me pass if I failed.

I imagine their main goal is to keep you talking. More questions they ask, the more you need to answer and the more they can watch your body language and responses for signals.

And completely misinterpret it: http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100526/full/465412a.html

"Yet a growing number of researchers are dubious — not just about the projects themselves, but about the science on which they are based. "Simply put, people (including professional lie-catchers with extensive experience of assessing veracity) would achieve similar hit rates if they flipped a coin," noted a 2007 report1 from a committee of credibility-assessment experts who reviewed research on portal screening.

"No scientific evidence exists to support the detection or inference of future behaviour, including intent," declares a 2008 report prepared by the JASON defence advisory group. And the TSA had no business deploying SPOT across the nation's airports "without first validating the scientific basis for identifying suspicious passengers in an airport environment", stated a two-year review of the programme released on 20 May by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of the US Congress."

Are you sure he wasn't just joking around? I've had a TSA officer joke around asking me if I hacked into their devices (I was wearing a hackathon t-shirt)

> Are you sure he wasn't just joking around?

One rule of thumb is that you Never joke with the airport security (1). So wouldn't that go both ways?

1) https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/oliver-burkemans-b...

So you're saying I should better not sport my new t-shirt in the airport?

http://www.tshirthell.com/funny-shirts/if-im-not-on-a-watchl...

My then-teenage brother once went through US immigration wearing a t-shirt branded with the initials of the then-popular brand, French Connection UK.

Needless to say the US immigration officials took some offense and asked him a bunch of questions. I'm not sure they realised it didn't say what they thought it did, even after we explained about French Connection.

These were obviously simpler times as I also as a teenager once went through US immigration wearing a Threadless Community Party t-shirt: https://www.threadless.com/product/383/the_communist_party

The dyslectic f*ck brand was and still is annoying. In Melbourne AU they had a 20 or 30 metre tall logo covering an entire wall of an industrial building. Very glad to see it gone.

A friend of mine got pulled aside for extra questioning at Newark in the mid-90s because he was wearing a t-shirt that proclaimed "Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast". I think the officer presumed it was some sort of drug reference.

What a guy.

I'm not going to tell you what you can and can't do. But a quick google should show you how wise that is. Or rather, isn't:

https://www.google.com/search?q=airport+offensive+tshirt

RIP the First Amendment.

Probably don't wear a shirt with blinking lights on it either.

http://boingboing.net/2007/09/21/mit-student-arrested.html

In what possible universe do you think that TSA/border security/etc. is a power-symmetric universe? Of course they'll joke around and abuse their power if they like it - you, me and everyone else they're inspecting are powerless to them and they'll happily use that fact.

I wouldn't say never, but you need to let them initiate it and it needs to be obvious. I've had them bust my chops before - some are funny people, and others are looking to seeing if you're too tense or acting odd.

I've noticed lately that there are now TSA agents in the security lines which are ostensibly there to help direct people, but you can tell they are very high social aptitude people and very smooth. They are feeling people out and seeing if anyone is super nervous or suspicious.

I noticed this before they instituted the "random arrow iPad." I'm not sure about their level of social aptitude though. I got sent to the quick screening line 5 or 6 times in a row, but the people I saw flagged for the slower screening were people who I thought looked calm but less whitebread than me. People with their hair dyed blue, holes in the knees, etc.

I think the person who is actually reading people is the person who checks your ID and boarding pass. Though honestly I think that process would be pretty easy to fool either way.

I agree with you in general, but it's important to keep in mind that border patrol and airport security are two almost completely unrelated things.

You don't, but there are jokes and jokes (and they certainly do joke sometimes)

From stories I heard airport security is more serious than CBP though

A couple of times I've managed to defuse TSA officers after they're convinced I'm not a danger to the country, and they turn into humans again. Once I was visiting just to meet a friend and we were planning on a road-trip up to Canada. The officer quizzed if we were going in order to do drugs (which is a thing apparently?), and when I answered in the negative he sighed, said "ah, I was young once too" and let me in...

I was there to do some training, to teach the guys there how to use Yocto, Qt, etc., and the officer asked me: "So you're coming in to teach us so we can take your job?" Needless to say that I was really confused.

Could be :) Unfortunately I was feeling really bad that day so I was a little paranoid.

I'm glad I don't work at Wikipedia, because after what happened to that guy I'd be tempted to detect if a request comes from any TSA terminal and serve midget porn instead :)

One time, while going into Panama, the border agent wrote a couple words on a sheet of paper and asked me to pronounce them: ship, sheep. Thinking this was some kind of shibboleth, I complied. She then wrote a couple more, I think they were chair and share, again I complied. Finally she wrote another pair, I don't remember what exactly, but I was getting very worried that this was some kind of bizarre profiling by accent and I was about to find myself in a Panamanian detention center.

She looked up and laughed, and in very broken English explained she was trying to use the accents of incoming Americans to improve her accent to help in her job when dealing with English speaking foreigners.

As an additional data point, in 2000, both a fellow traveler and I were asked mathematical questions by US immigration officers in Canada. He answered correctly, I was unable to do so, but we were both allowed to enter without further investigation. I thought the experience was fine.

I have had less pleasant, aggressive questioning dealing with British immigration when flying into Heathrow as well as Irish immigration when flying out of Heathrow, though in the latter case the proximal cause was my fellow traveler choosing to lie. :(

> He answered correctly, I was unable to do so, but we were both allowed to enter without further investigation.

It's like that cliché often employed in coding interviews, but immigration officers are more serious about it: They don't need a correct answer, they are interested primarily in observing your answering process.

It may be a bit dated nowadays, but from travelling through Central America back in the 80s, I made it a habit to never ever use the phrase "fellow traveler" around US border officials:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fellow_traveller

Thanks for the reference! I didn't know about that euphemism.

Ah, the good old prisoner's dilemma.

> Usually I clear immigration in Ireland (one of the few places you can do the immigration before you leave), and those folks are always much more pleasant.

FYI: It's not just Ireland that let's you clear US-immigration before departure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_border_precleara...

I've been going through Dublin myself for years, and I can highly recommend it: In worst case, you'll be told to leave the terminal, but you won't go into a holding cell - and yes, officers there are much more friendly than their counterparts in the US (I guess they are all infected by the Irish hospitality).

I've got some bad news for you, there's a bill being debated in Canada about giving US officials the discretion to hold or detain travellers at pre-clearance centres:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/pre-clearance-border-canada-...

https://openparliament.ca/bills/42-1/C-23/

If it passes in Canada, it's only a matter of time before it happens in Ireland (or you lose the pre-clearance option).

I entered the US a few times on a visa waiver for business, and (truthfully) stated my business as "teaching dating advice to men". I got a lot of laughs, but luckily no actual in-depth questions.

He probably meant the problem of the seven bridges of Koenigsberg, which was solved by Euler, and is one of the easiest to explain to laypeople, which is good for making documentaries.

I'm not saying we shouldn't resist these types of arbitrary unofficial screening processes whenever we encounter them but if I weren't such a confrontational type of person for these things, I would just listen to my lawyers and just bring employment verification letter and visa letters with me whenever I travel abroad.

Most of Canada has USA immigration in their airports, so it's not exactly rare.

Canada, Ireland, and Abu Dhabi do US immigration at their own airports before you leave. I've never heard of any other pair of countries with any similar arrangements.

Indeed Canada, Ireland, and Abu Dhabi wait until you arrive there from the USA to do their own immigration so it only goes one way.

US preclearance exists in certain airports in Canada, Ireland, Bermuda, the Bahamas, Aruba, and the UAE.

The US-Canada agreement is the oldest one, largely due to the amount of cross-border air travel, and Canada has the right under the agreement to operate preclearance stations for the Canadian border inside US airports, but has never chosen to do so.

I've learned that, when coming to the US from Europe, if I can't get a direct flight, I prefer my change to be in Canada. This way, I can pass immigration on the Canadian airport, while I'm idling between flights anyway. Also, the one time I did it, there was almost no queue (in Toronto).

When I had a connection in Canada, my incoming flight was delayed, the lines were long and I was at risk of missing my connection, so I made the opposite conclusion.

France and UK when traveling by train.

Finland to Russia on train, the Russian Border security checks you while the train is still in Finland, speeding 200km/h towards Russia. And vice versa when going in the other direction.

Saves a lot of time and hassle.

That's awesome. Did the crossing a couple of decades ago and that was also the case, though not when 'speeding' but when changing engine at the border, and then it didn't go 200km/h at any point, and that's probably a good thing as there were man-sized gaps between left and right of the iron floating bridge connectors between carriages, but same principle.

Every long distance international train ride I've done has involved handing the conductor your passport if on a sleeper (typically overnight crossing), or someone coming round to check if it's not a sleeper.

Also from Switzerland to France, if departing from Geneva. As well as Geneva airport having a dedicated section for flying to france.

The same practice was recently implemented for a train from Ukraine to Poland.

Same when travelling by ferry across the Channel.

And ferry.

Not sure if Abu Dhabi still does it. It has, however, been an unmitigated disaster:

http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2014/09/07/etihads-ab...

In case anyone is looking for some alt-anecdata on that: I was surprised to see that article, because I've been through that facility 4 times and every time has been excellent and fast (I'd even say faster than my experience in Dublin, though that was fine too). I much prefer it than having to do it after landing after 30 hours of flying... ymmv i guess

Maybe you where flying at different times? I can imagine that when they fill up four wide bodies within a couple of hours that this can be problematic.

What sounds really, really annoying is that there are no facilities whatsoever (save for a coffee kiosk) and that you can't even sit down until the gate opens.

Personally, I wouldn't know since I never flew via Abu Dhabi (let alone to the US).

Etihad are still advertising it on their flights. The entire airport is a bit of a disaster to be honest.

Sweden just got a deal for the same arrangement with the US.

That's crazy dangerous considering the recent terrorist incidents

Yeah, Tim Pool just finished his visit to Sweden. He barely made it out alive

(he ate too much dangerously delicious lasagna when in Malmo)

Haha! Can not tell if serious... :-/

Don't worry. Sweden will rebuild. #SwedenIncident

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028682137

And Manchester will be the first UK airport with preclearance.

Driving the Channel tunnel between UK and France, they each have "immigration" on the opposite sides. You drive through the French passport control before you get into the tunnel to leave the UK.

Driving????

There's a tunnel that goes under the channel connecting the two countries.

It's a train tunnel though, so you cannot technically drive a car there.

Well you drive onto the train and you stay in your car and drive out. So yeah, you do drive a car there, the ground beneath you changes but you haven't really stopped driving.

Israel in Greece

And in Geneva airport

Exiting Germany to fly to UK we do get checked. UK does not do an exit check when flying back the other way.

Ya, sure it's one way. I'm not sure how my comment was interpreted as meaning anything else.