alt Hacker NewsYeah, people are unfortunately not informed on just how much power border agents wield. Not only in the US, but in many (most I'd believe) other countries, too. I've worked on cases (intel side) where the law-enforcement side would just wait for the surveillance objects to cross the border, as that's where they could do most data collection with the least hassle.
If for whatever reason you think you're being investigated or surveilled (who knows for what these days, could be enough to just associate with the various protest groups / orgs), you can just assume that the border will be where they'll try to clone / download your data (phones, laptops, whatever)
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I dream of a future where the disk image in my laptop both functions as an operating system, but can also be decrypted into secret files. We'll keep the extra entropy in a pile of AI slop next to the other piles of AI slop. That way, under scrutiny, it just looks like an OS full of AI slop.
UK is crazy for this. Border police can detain anyone they like for literally no reason and if they do you have no right to lawyer or no right to silence. Your devices can also be taken and you must hand over any passwords.
I know the UK is an authoritarian state and not really comparable to the US, but as a Brit it's kinda weird hearing Americans complain about flock cameras and arbitrary border searches – these are common place things in the UK and no one cares (well, apart from me and maybe one or two others).
> Yeah, people are unfortunately not informed on just how much power border agents wield.
The question is how the fuck did everybody devolve into invertebrates and let it become that way
If you're not pissed at all the laws that treat you like a bitch, you should at least be pissed at how the ruling class is immune to those laws.
I'm lucky to live in a country (Poland) where border agents can either let you in, arrest you if there is an arrest warrant, or detain but only with a lawful basis for detention (as in, you are posing a threat to others) and detention may be used only when other measures have proved pointless or ineffective.
This makes returning to the country nice and pleasant. The border agents never ask you creepy questions like: Where are you going? Where will you be staying? What do you intend to do? (it's what US border agents ask their citizens). They just say hi and let you in.