GUWonder

Oh, this game again. The CBP and other government agency employees don't tell passengers everything. So for the "lack of transparency" in this regard look to the government well deserving of admonishment in many such circumstances.

Perhaps eventually hiring a lawyer to fight the matter may make sense, but first things that should be done are the "free" things which I mentioned above and don't cost money as much as time.

Indeed. I've been talking about this on here for years. And it can also be used by the government to cause Americans to face grief overseas.

Brighton Line

If police can use lying, trickery, and other types of non-coercive methods to obtain a confession from a suspect, why can't CBP do the same?

Boggie Dog

CBP are police.

GUWonder

There's not doubt that CBP don't tell passengers the truth all the time and that often enough they are lying, ignorant, or both lying and ignorant, when they say "random".

airplanegod

FA's and pilots don't tell us everthing either, should I go barging into the cockpit/galley during my next flight demanding every piece of info on the company/flight?

GUWonder

Since when are FAs and pilots of common carrier flights generally considered US government employees operating under color of governmental authority?

With perhaps rare exception, the American people should have a right to the information that the government keeps on them. Being subject to the modern day version of a star chamber operation is so North Korean. I'm not going to defend North Korea.

petaluma1

Didn't you post a link to a NPRM by the FBI wherein it was stated that citizens would no longer have a right to find out what the FBI was doing with the information it has on them?

GUWonder

Yes. The government seeks more and more power over the people, with its power being greater when there is less public accountability available -- and transparency matters for that -- than it would otherwise face.

It's why I try to keep an eagle's eye on the publicly-subsidized fish in our rich, privileged waters that are made more murky by design.

saizai

1. If you have the right to enter (e.g. US citizen), refuse to give your passwords. Only courts can require that, and even then only in certain situations.

2. CBP are cops. Border searches are basically one step less than normal cop searches: if cops require probable cause (for search), CBP requires reasonable suspicion; if cops require reasonable suspicion, CBP can do it for the giggles. (It's still probable cause for arrest, though.)

3. It sounds like the devices are not yours, but rather your employer's. If so, you mostly have no rights to them, the data on them, etc. It's your employer's problem to get them back.

4. You can FOIA the CBP & DHS for your travel records. You'll get a Glomar for some of it, and redactions for some of it, but you might get some useful info, especially in the notes and so forth — and noticing what they redact or withhold will probably give useful info too.

5. Given that many secondaries, let alone a meet-and-greet, you are without any doubt flagged in a system somewhere as suspicious. Short of FOIA or a CBP agent letting it slip, or some obvious reaction that triggers it (eg seeing some page in your passport, like a denied-entry stamp), it's pretty hard to know what the cause is. CBP uses a lot of databases, and takes "search this guy" requests from almost anyone (including foreign governments). So… FOIA.


ETA: Whenever you think "this information could not be used against me by the cops", you are almost certainly wrong. Damn near anything can be used against you.

This is why every defense lawyer in the country will give "shut the hell up other than explicitly invoking your right to counsel and to remain silent" as their first piece of advice for 99.9% of situations.

(BTW re silence used against you: you do have to explicitly invoke your rights. Otherwise, yes, refusal to answer can be used against you.)

Flaflyer

A local TV station airs reruns of the old “Cops” show several times a day. Mostly filmed in the 1990s, I can’t believe they air some of these segments, because 80% of the time the five cops on top have one skin tone while the guy under the pile has a darker skin tone.

I try to analyze the confrontations like the lawyer I am not. One thing stands out. I have never seen anyone “improve” their situation by talking. The guilty ones who try to lie their way out of trouble just dig a bigger hole for themselves. But innocent people who try to be helpful can also say too much. Civilians talking = advantage for the cops always. Silence is a great idea. ^

Sadly, anyone who will not talk gets the automatic “What have you got to hide” routine.

The cynic in me thinks the show producers made a deal with the police to be allowed to film them. They promised to never air footage of civilians who knew their rights or used the right phrases at a roadside stop, because the last thing the police want is a public educated about the constitutionally correct things to say to resist their a-tho-ri-tah.

OT: fun betting game. Watch “Cops” when there is a bar fight or front yard brawl and guess which person is going to end up in handcuffs in back of the patrol car.
Spoiler alert: 99% of the time it is the guy not wearing a shirt.

FliesWay2Much

I remember John Madden saying the exact same thing during an NFL game that must have been a blow-out for him to start talking about Cops.

But, you're right. Cops is a great example of how cops lie, intimidate, and manipulate people in order to get a confession or a consent to search. ("Tell me what you did and I'll tell the judge to go easy on you.) If only people would gosh darn shut up!

flyerCO

Do I think that there's no bad apples that would try and get someone's GE revoked just to get back? Of course not, and it's part of the reason there's an appeal process.

However in general the vast majority of agents do their job. Also to lose GE a report is filed by an agent and someone higher up reads and decides. An agent doesn't just have the ability to revoke GE on their own.

To be met multiple times with 2ndry, to be met at the plane, at every airport he Flys into means there's more to this then what is being described.

Loren Pechtel

Second this. There's more going on here than we are being told. Either he knows the problem and doesn't want to admit it, or this is a case of mistaken identity.

chollie

In spite of 'the vast majority' of agents doing their job, Al Gore, Ted Kennedy, a CNN photographer and a Malaysian professor all ended up on the NFL, a list that you would think would be even more carefully handled than GE memberships. That's four high profile examples; how many more are there who aren't famous enough or connected enough to make the news?

I think it's pretty apparent that, as unlikely as it seems, the first three folks were deliberately and maliciously put on the NFL - with the apparent involvement of at least two folks, the agent who put them on the NFL and the manager responsible for signing off on the ban. The official story regarding the professor is that a single agent ticked one box on a form in error, an error apparently compounded by an incompetent manager who signed off the error that the government spent years and $$$ trying to cover-up. That's the 'official' story.

Imagine the OP's experiences start happening to you. You ask government agencies for help and no one has answers. You go to an IBB to ask and promptly get two responses:

1) 'you must be lying to us and holding back the real reason'. Anyone care to suggest why someone might do this?

2) if the OP posts his entire life history, photos and documentation, someone will immediately advise him to delete all the information and get an attorney.

I, personally, can see no reason for the OP to come here and withhold information that he KNOWS is relevant. That's hardly likely to produce helpful information with regard to his situation. It doesn't really matter if he can 'fool' us - we are not the folks hassling him every time he flies.

nrr

(1)If one arrives from an overseas trip, which is usually MANY hours (in a sardine can), that experience alone might prevent a pax from invoking the rights (as a citizen) he is entitled to--especially if (in the OPs case) he seemed to have been "ganged-up on by CBP agents".
(2)Why would any traveler keep (possibly) confidential/proprietary data DIRECTLY on their computers; that data should be kept in the CLOUD.
There are lots of CLOUD servers, so you might give your password to the one with NO important data.