Just like the Chinese government's Integrated Joint Operations Platform surveillance software. "Not using a smartphone" is one of the 36 data points which mark you out as having "suspicious behaviour":
That used to be true. Poor people can often afford a smartphone now, even in really poor countries like Ethiopia, not just the US. It may be a crappy old or limited model, but it doesn't have to be a feature phone.
You can trivially make a partition so that it shows some data when you enter one password and some other data when using another password, next. i did it when i travelled to the US in 2018 but they didn't bother checking att
I used veracrypt btw, no way to tell that there is a hidden nested partition without in depth crypto analysis of the harddrive(in which case you're probably screwed anyways)
Were there a perception by someone that you were possibly giving a false statement or violating some other rule (or just disrespecting them), consider how much misery and expenses you might incur, long before lawyers finished debating the question.
Minimize travel through problematic places, minimize sensitive data and access that you expose when traveling through problematic places, minimize being clever.
what perception? most interactions go thusly-
"Please unlock your phone/laptop and submit it for processing->i enter the -clean- password/log into my carefully normal looking user on my android phone by using the -clean- pattern" <they do something, mostly just look it over themselves> "ok fine you're free to go"
there is LITERALLY no way for them to tell that i've done anything to the data without carefully analyzing the partition(which they wouldn't know existed because i'm using boot level encryption). obviously if i had REALLY sensitive data i wouldn't carry it with me and just get it from "cloud of choice" but this is just a case of privacy(i don't want them looking at my private texts/photos/notes/media collection). And they won't.
It's difficult to talk responsibly about some kinds of security practices. One reason is that you don't want to tip off bad people who don't already know. Another reason is that you don't want to inadvertently give mistaken advice to good people.
The problem is that us here on HN can probably take the gamble on it and bypass it either by using burner devices, bringing devices which have been wiped and then restoring them from the cloud, or using plausible deniability encryption like you have. But 99.9999% of travellers to the US don't have the knowledge or access to these methods, so it's completely insignificant in standing up to the surveillance state that US is enforcing. It feels good to say "yeah but I know a way around it" - but the problem still exists.
Well the war is already lost imo, customs gets to run roughshod over every right in the name of "national security". all we can do is protect ourselves at this point.
The tech big companies don't care to make an issue out of it and the issue is too complex(seemingly) for the every man so no progress is going to be made in the short term(5-10 years) until more tech literate people get elected. All we can do is campaign and mitigate
Is there any basis in the Immigration and Nationality Act for deporting you for refusing to provide you password? From what I understand, it could make it practically impossible to ever return. I’m wondering if not giving your password is a basis for something as serious as this. Does this have any lawful basis?
I'm not convinced lawful basis matters in the average persons situation where they're being detained for questioning without access to legal representation, then sent back.
That sounds like a way to get things fixed best sadly. Do it to big business clients who in face of millions to billions of liability go and tell them to fuck off and let their clients know why they couldn't show up. They aren't doing anything wrong following security policies if the policies weren't already a work around.
If it causes an international incident all the better to humiliate them. Sad that the system is so oligarchic but bullies learn only through force.
Wouldn't "big business clients" be TSA pre-checked, have global-entry and all the magic keys "big business clients" use to not have to suffer through the same awful things regular peons have to stomach?
International incident with whom exactly? What was the fallout of the "incident" when the world found out that the US was spying on NATO allies and heads of state?