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U.S. border agents stopped journalist from entry and took his phones

U.S. border agents stopped journalist from entry and took his phones

Old Dec 1, 2016, 4:27 am
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U.S. border agents stopped journalist from entry and took his phones

Came across this article in the Washington Post.

Interview with the journalist at CBC.

One of the comments in the CBC link mentions that he could have walked away without turning over his phones as this was a pre-clearance area. Is that possible? What do you guys think?
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Old Dec 1, 2016, 4:48 am
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In other words: Another incentive for passengers to hide the data and for companies to move towards remote desktop solutions, where the mobile device is merely a client.
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Old Dec 1, 2016, 5:32 am
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I Found the Canadian Law About Preclearance

Originally Posted by pilot007
Came across this article in the Washington Post.

Interview with the journalist at CBC.

One of the comments in the CBC link mentions that he could have walked away without turning over his phones as this was a pre-clearance area. Is that possible? What do you guys think?
I'm assuming this is reasonably current. Yes, he could have simply withdrawn from preclearance unless the CBP agent suspected the traveler of an "offence." It sounds like the CBP guy was on a fishing expedition and couldn't detain him for a real reason.

Right of traveller to leave preclearance area

10 (1) Every traveller has the right, at any stage of the preclearance process, to leave a preclearance area without departing for the United States, unless a preclearance officer informs the traveller that the officer suspects on reasonable grounds that the traveller has committed an offence under section 33 or 34.
It doesn't say "Canadian citizen." It says "every traveler" which means that even a U.S. or third-party citizen could withdraw.

Section 33: Deceptive Statements.
Section 34: Obstruction.

There was a new international agreement signed in 2015, but I don't see a reference to a new Canadian law other than the 1999 Preclearance Act, which I posted above.

This presentation from April 2016 would suggest that the right of a traveler to withdraw is, thankfully, still intact (chart 7).
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Old Dec 1, 2016, 6:59 am
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Originally Posted by WorldLux
In other words: Another incentive for passengers to hide the data and for companies to move towards remote desktop solutions, where the mobile device is merely a client.
THIS!

Don't travel with data on your systems. Don't travel with automatic access to other systems. Put data on a private cloud and remotely access it, as needed, through a VPN. Don't trust DNS, use IPs for direct VPN access.

Use 2FA and if truly paranoid, don't bring the HW device with you or know the passphrase yourself without calling another person when traveling. You want to be able to tell border officials that you honestly do not know the passphrase.

Should go without saying, but whole disk encryption is required for all portable devices ... and beware of known bugs (there's an encryption bypass for certain versions of Win10 today) around whole disk encryption. Look up 'evil maid attack.'

Smartphones need full encryption, VPNs and 2FA as well, especially when crossing borders.
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Old Dec 1, 2016, 7:46 am
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If Ou had already been inside the U.S. border, law enforcement officers would have needed a warrant to search his smartphones to comply with a 2014 Supreme Court ruling. But the journalist learned the hard way that the same rules don't apply at the border, where the government claims the right to search electronic devices without a warrant or any suspicion of wrongdoing.
So it seems neither American laws nor the laws of the country, where they are based, apply to these preclearance officers. They can simply do what they want. Only more reason to object the expansion of these preclearance facilities to additional countries.
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Old Dec 1, 2016, 9:51 am
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Originally Posted by Alex71
So it seems neither American laws nor the laws of the country, where they are based, apply to these preclearance officers. They can simply do what they want. Only more reason to object the expansion of these preclearance facilities to additional countries.
Check out my upstream post where I found the Canadian Preclearance Act. It actually does a decent job preserving rights of people on Canadian soil being confronted with a U.S. CBP interrogation.
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Old Dec 1, 2016, 10:57 am
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With the exception of the outcome, this incident is not that different from the one discussed in this thread:
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Old Dec 2, 2016, 4:04 pm
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Originally Posted by dsdwe234sfd23
THIS!

Don't travel with data on your systems. Don't travel with automatic access to other systems. Put data on a private cloud and remotely access it, as needed, through a VPN. Don't trust DNS, use IPs for direct VPN access.

Use 2FA and if truly paranoid, don't bring the HW device with you or know the passphrase yourself without calling another person when traveling. You want to be able to tell border officials that you honestly do not know the passphrase.

Should go without saying, but whole disk encryption is required for all portable devices ... and beware of known bugs (there's an encryption bypass for certain versions of Win10 today) around whole disk encryption. Look up 'evil maid attack.'

Smartphones need full encryption, VPNs and 2FA as well, especially when crossing borders.
Not very practical, in this case. I don't think they have WiFi at the Standing Rock protest site. And this guy had a Nexus card!

http://www.cjr.org/first_person/ed_o...nding_rock.php
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Old Dec 3, 2016, 2:05 am
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Originally Posted by FliesWay2Much
Check out my upstream post where I found the Canadian Preclearance Act. It actually does a decent job preserving rights of people on Canadian soil being confronted with a U.S. CBP interrogation.
I'm not sure I see that in your link. Slide 7 states:

● New officer authorities include:
- Authority to question and seek identification from travelers wishing to withdraw from the preclearance area
To me this sounds like enhanced authority to question (and possibly temporarily detain, how else would they be able to further question?) travellers who wish to leave the pre-clearance area. In addition to being able to compel travellers to provide further identification. And everything else I've read sounds to me like the CBP are receiving more powers in the pre-clearance area than they've had in the past.
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Old Dec 5, 2016, 6:44 pm
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Originally Posted by chucko
Not very practical, in this case. I don't think they have WiFi at the Standing Rock protest site. And this guy had a Nexus card!

http://www.cjr.org/first_person/ed_o...nding_rock.php
No need to have confidential data on a system AT THE BORDER. Pull it down later, using a VPN, to your encrypted device. I've lived in ND (shortly) - they do have wifi there.

Thanks for the link. He wasn't going to be allowed in regardless of his answers. They were fishing for more data. ANYTHING can be searched at a US border. OTOH, it is easy to pick up a burner Android device at any grocery store once inside. I've done this in other countries rather than risk my normal device at a border.

Security is almost always a trade-off between convenience and security. The only tool I know that is both more convenient AND more secure than other alternatives is ssh. But most end-users have never heard of ssh, which is really too bad.

Then push the changed data back to the private cloud BEFORE going through a border again. Again, lots of tools for this - rsync (over ssh) is one. Just providing options. Oh, and don't use passwords, use key-based authentication. Using passwords and you've already lost the security game. I understand this could be a shock to most people.
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