Out of curiosity, do you know if there are any people trying to challenge these rulings/treatment they receive in court?
Actually is that possible in the US or do the border officials still have a stick up their arse? I mean if you work for a big multinational IT company, surely they can provide a few hundred bucks to bribe someone to skip security. Bribing the police is normal in a lot of countries.
" -sir, we have to strip your car to search it for contraband.
-Ok, how long it's going to take?
- About 24-48 hours, but it might take longer if we see anything suspicious
- ok, what do I do in the meantime?
- you can sit on the bench there
- for 48 hours?
- that's correct
- I happen to have this nice bottle of vodka, would you like it as a thank you for your hard service?
- hmmmm I have to check with my superior [ comes back 5 minutes later] - that's fine, we don't need to check your car today, have a safe journey"
Nowadays I'm being told that this practice has been eradicated almost everywhere, but it basically relied on border control agents making your life as miserable as physically possible in hope that you will pay up. If you decided not to, they would eventually let you go, but you're wasting only your own time, they had infinite amount of it and perfect justification for everything they did.
Please elaborate on that.
Amazon: "Employees may not bribe anyone for any reason, whether in dealings with governments or the private sector. " [3]
Apple: "Apple does not offer or accept bribes or kickbacks in any form, and we do not tolerate corruption in connection with any of our business dealings." [2]
Google: "The rule for us at Google is simple – don’t bribe anybody, anytime, for any reason."[1]
[1] https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct.html [2] http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/AAPL/0x0x803576/DAFD8... [3] http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=97664&p=irol-gov... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Corrupt_Practices_Act
For future, for the rest of us, I'm wondering what civil disobedience would look like. Something akin to malicious compliance, work to rule, or...? Actions (or inactions) that we can take to make the whole process infeasible.
For example... Whenever a telemarketer cold calls me, I try to take up as much of their time as possible. Increase their costs, reduce their conversion rate.
I also try to lie as much as possible for forms, surveys, etc. Muddy the data. Increase their costs.
You don't really want them back, anyway. So you just don't carry anything valuable, in any sense.
That's called a vacation.
What you describe is simply impractical for a person in my line of work.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/22/15676696/hbo-silicon-vall...
I guess I could get a fourth phone, the one I use only for talking to my Airport Phone Guy, who would somehow be incorruptible enough to not hijack my bitcoin wallet or take copies of my camera roll (which, if used strategically, could alternately make or ruin entire careers or companies).
I'll be over here in the Real World.
This was back in the 1990s, when asking for your password wasn't a thing I've ever heard of them doing, but also when me bringing 128-bit encryption software (aka the US version of Netscape Navigator) to Japan, where I was a foreign student, was a serious crime akin to arms smuggling.
Of course, I never found out for sure why I was on that list, and eventually I apparently wasn't on it anymore. But during that time I did read a fascinating article in some magazine, by Nathan Myhrvold (the now-infamous patent troll scumbag). Apparently, he was on the same list, despite being a super rich fat white guy from Microsoft.
His theory was that he got on the list by buying one-way plane tickets in cash. That resonated with me, because I often did the same thing back then… I just never really knew when I wanted to come back, and I didn't have much credit on my one credit card.
That's obviously both circumstantial and anecdotal, however I don't think it really takes too much to get on one of these secret (and very probably unlawful, but effectively un-challengeable) lists.
What could the "fat" part of that possibly have to do with anything related to targeting, other than as a cheap excuse for you to denigrate Myhrvold?
But also, yeah: fuck Nathan Myhrvold. He's a smarmy piece of shit whose parasitical exploitation of America's societal weaknesses and dysfunction far outweighs all the modest contributions he's ever made. I hope he trips and falls face-first into one of his large sous-vide contraptions.
(That time, I was denigrating him on purpose.)
NSA didn't want to allow Microsoft to build RSA into Windows and export it. Even though the cat was out of the bag and foreign OEMs and vendors were already selling RSA. NSA wanted Microsoft to not give users more than 40 bits of encryption keys.
So Myhrvold, as President of Microsoft, flippantly offered to pad the keys generated by Windows with NSA's public RSA key. Win Win. Users can export more than 40 bits, and NSA gets a backdoor.
Microsoft won and was allowed to export software using RSA. No doubt that little stunt put Myhrvold on some Watchlist for Life.
It's too bad he became evil after he became a billionaire and started only caring about money and Yachts and hob knobbing with other 1% elites.
Border guards have the power to prevent you from entering the country if they believe your business is unlawful, and asking those questions is one of the ways they decide. We can question whether border guards ought to exist, but, given that they do, refusing to answer their questions seems like a ticket to a back room for hours.
You really never answered their questions on every entry?
If exercising my human rights is "a ticket to a back room for hours", then something is fundamentally broken in our society. You should try it; without doing so you actually have no data about the practical perimeter of your basic rights. This stuff isn't printed in the newspaper.
Yes, I really never answered their questions, except the ones about citizenship and nationality and place of birth—which I answered by presenting my passport.
"Business or pleasure?" is a vague, leading question designed to get you to volunteer as much information as possible. Sometimes I replied "no" or "yes" to that one, with an occasional "On advice of my attorney I decline to answer questions from police except in writing and via counsel" thrown in to break up the monotony.
Never talk to the police.
No. The USA can never deny entry to citizens (nor any other country). They may arrest you on the spot, but can't deny you entry.
Green card holders is a different story, they have no right to enter and are at the discretion of the authorities.
After being locked in secondary with no comms, food, or water for hours on hours enough times, one gives up. CBP once kicked me out of a border control point in northern Vermont, in a snowstorm, in February. I had to hitchhike simply to not freeze (my sim didn't work, so no way to call a cab, and they had sent the bus on without me, hours earlier).
I've been searched, both well and also simply as intimidation, more times than I can remember. Most searches are not thorough in any capacity, but simple displays of power and dominance.
My foreign partners have been repeatedly groped by these pigs. Vacations have been ruined simply by traveling together - they deny foreigners entry.
The file still haunts me. Every time I enter, secondary - with associated 30-500 minutes of delay.
There's no recourse.
I cringe every time I exit the US, for the 2-10 hours I will lose upon my next re-entry.
Their capacity to waste your time is infinite. Your time is finite.
PS: they can also take all your devices for imaging and keep them for 48 hours - but you will likely have to sue them to get them back after that time. Crossing in can be a >$10k/entry affair if they wish it to be, for you.