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Border Patrol Says It's Barred From Searching Cloud Data On Phones (nbcnews.com)
According to a letter obtained by NBC News, U.S. border officers aren't allowed to look at any data stored only in the "cloud" -- including social media data -- when they search U.S. travelers' phones. "The letter (PDF), sent in response to inquiries by Sen. Ron Wyden, (D-Ore.), and verified by Wyden's office, not only states that CBP doesn't search data stored only with remote cloud services, but also -- apparently for the first time -- declares that it doesn't have that authority in the first place." From the report: In April, Wyden and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., introduced legislation to make it illegal for border officers to search or seize cellphones without probable cause. Privacy advocates and former Homeland Security lawyers have said they are alarmed by how many phones are being searched. The CBP letter, which is attributed to Kevin McAleenan, the agency's acting commissioner, is dated June 20, four months after Wyden asked the Department of Homeland Security (PDF), CBP's parent agency, to clarify what he called the "deeply troubling" practice of border agents' pressuring Americans into providing passwords and access to their social media accounts. McAleenan's letter says officers can search a phone without consent and, except in very limited cases, without a warrant or even suspicion -- but only for content that is saved directly to the device, like call histories, text messages, contacts, photos and videos.
Obviously if your data is in the cloud, the government already has access to it if it needs. This just looks like a territorial dispute between different parts of the government...
Fuck Customs & Border Patrol. Let's get rid of these fucking shitheads who don't even remain on the goddamn border. What the fuck is with the goddamned immigration checkpoints that are tens of miles from the border? What the fuck is this police state that desperately wants to be Nazi fucking Germany. I'm drunk as fuck but CBP can go straight to fucking hell and take the goddamn moderators with them. Fuck CPB and especially fuck the stupid motherfucking moderators on this shithole site.
LUDDITE border patrol is too stupid to app apps, so now they're going to try forcing appers to use LUDDITE computers! Only apps can app apps!
Apps!
CBP: "That's right folks. Store your data in the cloud because that is where it is most secure." Well played but no thanks.
Now they can reject asylum seekers without even bothering to process them.
Soon they'll be free to deport anybody that simply isn't a loyal enough American, eh, Comrade?
And the border wall will be transparent as well as solar powered.
Somebody please tell me that he's sundowning.
Facebook didn't.
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But if they say you can't leave for 4 hours unless you show them your Facebook, and you yield. That's giving them permission to search your Facebook. So the "cloud" distinction mentioned doesn't apply.
Do. It. Now! Who's going to stop the Carnage? The bloodshed? The slaughter of Americans that happen everyday? All by immigrants. If only we could look at their social media and cloud data to know if they truly love us. It's the only way. I await the thousands of deaths at the hands of psycho immigrants tomorrow.
So are they just asking for phones or do they want tablets too? Other devices? SD cards?
Ohh, it's a look at the other hand story, a magic trick. Folks they are not searching you phones for data, they grab it search your identity and then decide whether or not they install software onto your phone. They do not want to search your phone once, they want to search it for as long as it lasts. If it was about searching your phone, they would do it too your face, to watch reaction as they searched each directory. Nope, they hide the search from you, don't let you see it because they are not taking off but adding on and they most definitely do not want you to see that.
You can store a lot on phones nowadays and creating a copy via a USB (searching is not copying everything for ever) and getting a 100mb off a phone takes quite some time, queues at airports would be many kilometres long and really they only take enough time to add software rather than copy data.
I think people are starting to realise and hence are becoming far more cautious and are not travelling through US espionage customs with zero digital devices. Cheaper to buy a burner phone at the new location than attempt to clean a spy ridden one. When travelling overseas leave your personal phone at home and buy a new one when you get there. When you want to bring your digital data back from over seas, encrypt it and send it back to your localised ISP storage or on a device you had hooked up to your home network. When they ask, do you have anything to declare, answer in a proud voice, I like me privacy and I have nothing for you to search or add spyware to.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
this BS has gone on long enough.
maybe loss of tourism will get some of this idiocy under control.
That's the NSA's job. No need to duplicate the effort...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
If you entering the USA again anything you have done to support banned groups is open to question.
Very important political funding and membership questions are asked.
Why should a person be able to hide their support during a holiday using a cloud product? Re enter the USA and remain undetected due to the cloud loophole?
That is why social media access is so vital. The accounts often show funding of, support for and membership in banned organisations and groups.
That a person of interest traveled into a third nation outside their holiday visa to support and fund a banned group.
Images of the person with banners and party slogans and party members might exist on social media.
Would any normal gov accept a request by a citizen to not open a bag when entering to their own nation?
Not to look digital images on a camera card?
Why would the "cloud" now get to hide support for banned groups and funding of banned groups?
Or get to hide gps in images on a cloud service that showed a persons travel into nations that would allow for further questions?
Or contacts with or emails from a banned groups and individuals of interest?
Supporting, been a member of banned groups or funding banned groups is not legal and any information on such efforts should be open to investigation on any digital product.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Loyal to America? No.
Trump does "loyal to Trump" not "loyal to America". Foreign spies are fine, dictators flagged as enemies of the US are fine... as long as they help *Trump*.
1) It should be clear from the emails that Trump knew about his Russian help.
2) If you look at the data Russia hacked, it was ELECTORAL ROLLS mostly.
3) This is the same data that Trump is trying to get now as his role of Whitehouse squatter.
4) So if you follow the data that will have gone to someone to help Trump 'win' an election.
5) And the new data, being obtained on demand from Trump, will be cloned and make its way to the same group for the next election.
6) The group in 5. won't be the usual lot, like Mercer.
Many if not most illegal aliens are gaming the system. They are deported and they sneak back next week. How should the border patrol deal with the illegal aliens they capture?
One way to deal with the illegals is to mark them, i.e. brand them when captured. Tattoos are out--too easily removed. Burning a mark in with a hot branding iron is a little to complicated to do in the field. My suggestion is to amputate fingers and other body parts. Then when an illegal alien is captured the first thing the border patrol should do is inspect the illegal alien's hands. One missing thumb means he violated our border once. Two missing thumbs mean the illegal violated our border twice. A little hatchet or a kitchen knife would do the trick anywhere.
After the criminal has had a body part amputated, he is then dumped back across the border. When someone shows up with more than two missing fingers, then something more drastic is called for. For men I suggest their penis. For women, I suggest their nose. Then dump then back across the border where then came from.
If they try it a fourth time, then it would be best to shoot the illegal while they are escaping. Again, dump the body across the border. Or if near the Rio Grande, just dump the corpse in the river.
Another lazy guy who uses "Border Patrol" when they mean U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Office of Field Operations. The guys in green don't interface with travelers unless you're jumping the fence. The guys in blue have the authority to examine ANYTHING that crosses the border. But they aren't the Border Patrol. The OP probably thinks that CBP stands for "Customs and Border Patrol" because he's too lazy to learn the structure of a government agency that has been around for more than a decade. Shoddy writeup. Lazy. Sad.
Backup your data to cloud
Factory reset
cross border
download data
continue on your way.
Those assholes should not be able to search phones in general.
Hoping that even more is taken from them to restore our rights once more.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Do they mean American citizens crossing the border into the US? Do they mean foreigners crossing the border into the US? Both? Neither?
-Place phone in plastic bag.
-Duct-tape phone to $400 drone.
-Place drone near border crossing maybe a few miles away.
-Cross border.
-Drive a few miles.
-Fly drone with phone across border.
-Proceed on merry way.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Your status as a Traveller means nothing to me! I am not legally allowed to "search" your cloud data, but if you show it to me, there's really nothing I can do to stop you is there?
Therefore you will willingly and voluntarily show me your cloud data, effective immediately. I will "invite" you to sit in a crappy chair, in a windowless and airless room, for as long as it takes for you to willingly and voluntarily show me your cloud data. This is solely to allow you to come to the uncoerced decision to show Border Security your cloud data. For your own peace of mind.
We thank you for your cooperation and willingness to comply! Your quiet time begins immediately.