I didn't feel good about it when I found out (actually, the moment I signed the lease), but there was nothing I could do about it.
My exit from Vietnam was almost humorous. I had about 50 DVDs in my suitcase, mostly encrypted backups and burned movies, and every single one was inspected by sight, holding it up to the light (to see how far the burn went?), then left on the floor of the airport for me to pick up. Upon re-entering the US, the customs officers did almost the same thing, and then just confiscated all my discs.
Weirdly, no one on either side checked my laptop.
Yes just like the US
[1] They prefer not to fuck with the armed ones.
How was your nap, Mr. Van Winkle? 2020 wasn't a great year in the US. You were better off spending it asleep, trust me.
I've seen the police publicly flog random people on the street in Vietnam just for being in their way. What a wonderfully just, equitable socialist paradise.
Go check out and live in a country where the police actually control people and get back to me.
Btw all you’ve said is something about degree of control or tactics. Not relevant
In fact, the US Department of State recommends that all US citizens have a photocopy of their passport with them, when traveling abroad.
I think it may be illegal, but I've heard from people who travel to places where it's sketchy for Americans to travel, that they report their passport as destroyed, get a second copy issued, then keep the first one.
The reasoning is that certain immigration departments see red flags if they see visa stamps from certain other countries, and you may get grief for having visited them. Cuba and the US used to be one, but cross-border rivalries are another. Knowing who hates who and presenting the right passport to receive the stamp would save you grief. Also if you encounter corruption/extortion you can schedule the next flight out and run.
With the electronic ones now I don't know how many places that still works.
1) you travel a lot and sometimes may need to mail your passport off to get a pre-travel visa from some consulate, while you are still outside the USA. This way you can send off one passport to get the visa for your next country, while keeping a valid passport with you while you’re abroad.
2) You need to travel between Israel and countries which have laws against visiting Israel (Historically, GCC countries). This way you can always present whichever passport doesn’t have Israel’s entry and exit stamps on it.
I’ve had two valid US passports at the same time, and I’m just a random nobody American.
https://www.touristisrael.com/the-israeli-passport-stamp/974...
It used to depend on where you were coming from. When travelling to Israel for work a few years back, my passport (irish citizen) was not stamped, but my colleague's (at the time, a Turkish citizen) was.
No idea why.
And to show how stupid things were--he also had a stamp he had made up to make forged entries on our yellow books. At that time your average joe certainly did not have an up-to-date smallpox shot--but at multiple border crossings they would hit you up for a bribe if you didn't have an up-to-date smallpox shot. Hence fake them. (Even around 2000 which was the last time I had occasion to have anything added to my yellow book there still was no anti-counterfeit protection.)
Part of this is simply because American passports are extremely valuable. Another part is that anyone who wants to fuck with you in some semi-official capacity now has to choose whether to go back to your hotel or arrest you on the spot, which puts them in a better mind to give up or take a bribe.
Happened to me at an airport in Thailand. Some airside police officer demanded to inspect my passport, then wouldn't give it back to me until I walked him to an ATM so I could pay him a "tax" in cash.
I never went back to Thailand.
It most certainly can be done--I wore mine basically 24/7 for a year. The only time it wasn't under my clothing was for border crossing or bathing--and in the latter case it almost always was under a traveling companion's clothing. No close calls--but someone else in the group wasn't so cautious and hers was snatched. Fortunately, the thief wasn't sophisticated, kept the cash and dumped everything else quickly.
In the end you'll have two passports but one of them is now useless and it will be flagged the moment you actually use it for traveling. It may not be pleasant when you're abroad and the authorities catch you using an invalid travel document.
I guess it makes more sense if you never intend to use the old passport again for crossing borders?
[1] https://www.interpol.int/en/How-we-work/Databases/SLTD-datab...
When I rented a furnished apartment in Saigon back in 2008, there was an ethernet cable on the table and a piece of paper in English that said "Do not visit websites of anti-government propaganda, or pornography, or news such as the New York Times."
Naturally, as the police held my passport for the entire year I was in Vietnam, I was cautious. But after a few days, I just went ahead and openly browsed the NYT for a few minutes. My internet was shut off for about 3 hours. The next time I did it, it was shut off for 24 hours, and then I knew it wasn't a glitch. It wasn't exactly immediate, either; it took a few minutes. I was pretty sure there was a semi-dedicated person assigned to watch my traffic.
That wasn't over a VPN. I wanted them to see my traffic. But I knew running over a VPN would just raise suspicion. When I opened up VPNs to check email after that, I did it from cafes, and I did it in short spurts.