
International Travel Guide for Basecamp employees - slyall
https://github.com/basecamp/handbook/blob/master/international-travel-guide.md
======
8draco8
I live in Europe. From my perspective going to US looks like going to some
kind totalitarian country. First I have to got visa which is not automatically
approved because I'm Polish not British. Then I have to go trough a lot of,
mostly pointless, security checks, checking social accounts, interrogations,
scans and manual personal revisions. On any stage of that I can be handcuffed
and sent back to Europe for almost no reason. It's sad but from where I sits
US starts to look like all of those countries they was fighting with "for the
freedom".

~~~
danieldk
We had serious plans to go on holiday to the US this year. I have been in the
US at least a dozen of times, and absolutely love the desert states, Oregon,
and Washington.

Entering the US was already a large hassle, but with Trump's travel bans,
rumors of phone, laptop, and social media checks, we have decided to postpone
our travel plans until the political/security climate improves.

Semi-related: we were in the market for a new car. One of the factors we
decided to go for a European car this time (we had a Ford Focus before) is
that we'd like to support Trump America as little as possible.

Before you say that this is overreacting, hear me out: the US belongs to US
citizens. If you want this president, fine. But some of his policies, such as
denying climate change and undermining journalism is going te have a large
influence on the rest of us.

~~~
ItendToDisagree
The majority of US citizens did not vote for Trump. Just thought I'd point out
that most people DO NOT want this president.

~~~
danieldk
Thanks for bringing up, since it is a relevant point. However, it still does
not change the fact that he is now leading the most powerful nation, with all
its consequences.

I have always wondered how hard it would be to switch to direct voting rather
as opposed to the system with an electoral college. Is it impossible because
the current system is codified in the constitution, or does it 'only' require
an amendment. If so, was there ever a serious attempt to change this system?

~~~
watter
You would have an NYC-LosAngeles government nearly every time. Clintons for
life.

The system was designed to avoid the concentration of power you desire.

~~~
sgift
Why exactly would this be the case? As far as I can see most people don't live
in this two cities?

And saying the US system "was designed to avoid the concentration of power"
sounds like a sad joke from an European perspective (First-past-post-system,
extreme presidential powers etc.)

~~~
caseysoftware
Those "extreme presidential powers" were not in the system design.

They were submitted as (sometimes secret) change requests by every president
post WW2 and accelerated by presidents in the last ~20 years. Unfortunately,
the code review team didn't remove the changes and tacked on their own during
the process.

~~~
boomboomsubban
>They were submitted as (sometimes secret) change requests by every president
post WW2 and accelerated by presidents in the last ~20 years.

They started way sooner than that, the first major one was the Louisiana
Purchase. Basically non-Washington presidents have been trying to expand their
power.

------
SCdF
Just don't travel there.

I'm sure I'd be fine: I've been fine a dozen times before. That was before
they decided that it was OK to demand passwords and so on. Maybe now it would
be worse. Or maybe my skin colour lets me off the hook.

Regardless, I'd rather just not waste jet fuel on flying to a place that
treats anyone this way.

Your phone/tablet/laptop is, for better or worse, a gateway to your entire
life. It contains your photos, bank account credentials, messages between
friends, messages between you and your wife, photos between you and your wife…

Random border thugs absolutely should not have the right to rummage through it
in another room.

There are plenty of ways to do meetings remotely. There are plenty of places
in the world you can travel to for work meetups that aren't the US.

Just don't travel there.

~~~
StavrosK
People who have recently travelled to the US, what's the probability that you
will be asked to unlock your stuff and have random employees search through
it? Is it something that happens a lot?

~~~
baby
It hasn't happened to me, but when I go to the US embassy in France they take
my phone for the entire time I'm waiting there.

~~~
cr1895
The US Embassies in the Netherlands explicitely disallow you from bringing
most electronics* and they say they are unable to store things for you.

[https://nl.usembassy.gov/embassy-
consulates/amsterdam/access...](https://nl.usembassy.gov/embassy-
consulates/amsterdam/access-security-notice/)

*It used to be no electronics, but now you are apparently allowed to bring a mobile phone provided you turn off Bluetooth.

~~~
germanier
Now I'm curious. Does anyone know why they ask you to switch off Bluetooth
specifically (and nothing else)?

~~~
baby
in France you have to turn off your phone, then handle it to them. I couldn't
turn off mine (it was badly broken xD) so I just took the luminosity to the
lowest and they didn't see anything.

------
tremon
Besides the obvious "don't cross the border with work data", I found this
recommendation much more interesting:

 _[ask] for someone to remove you from the Basecamp team for 1Password so you
no longer have access to Basecamp logins and passwords._

Maybe we should temporarily suspend our employee's accounts too when they
travel to the US.

~~~
Markoff
maybe just stop traveling to US would be easier and cheaper solution, why one
need to be physically present anywhere in 2017?

i find it odd, i can understand it for my father that when some of his
agricultural company partners has training, people from neighboring countries
must travel there for hours to stay there for few hours and go back, but IT
company in 2017?

reminds me of Huawei which is still organizing teleconferences (!) for
trainings, because why not let people call across half planet in horrible
quality instead of providing cheap full HD video stream work live chat, it's
not like there are hundreds of us, max 100 people present

~~~
raftaa
Because the costumer wants some of the developers on site to see that they are
actually working on his problems.

~~~
cryptarch
Which is great, because now the developers can do their side jobs while their
customers provide them with coffee.

------
bloomca
So, many comments here target US or Trump in particular. But in fact, as many
noted, there is not real connection – it started long time ago. Also, I bet,
there are quotas (e.g. number of people) to be detained, so they have to
fulfil it.

Also, US is just an example here (because many conferences are held in the
US), but also there are stories from the UK, for instance. From my point of
view, the problem is that with social networks it is extremely easy to get
access to your whole life – it is already pretty easy to identify person on
the facebook, for instance (right now there is no way to prove that it is
_exactly_ you, but I am pretty sure they will be soon). So, with restrictions
on such monopoly media (and I've heard it is already harder to register on the
Facebook), it is very easy to end up in a situation where we will get "human
score" (similar to credit score, but in the digital world), which will be used
in such situation.

And even the bigger problem is that it might be needed for a work, for a loan
application, etc, so you wouldn't be able to do all this without it (or even
"to apply for a visa your score should be higher than 3.0". My predictions are
that governments will try to work more closely with popular platforms trying
to emerge such (there were few stories than people were detained because of
tweets) metrics, and to broad access not only from your phone, but from their
device, just your user profile.

~~~
ibejoeb
The UK border is far worse. Surprisingly, the easiest border I've ever crossed
on an American passport was Russia's. No questions, not hassles, neither in
nor out.

------
emeidi
I've traveled from Zürich to Los Angeles on Good Friday (April 14, 2017) for
leisure - my first visit since February 2016 and thus my first trip to Trump's
'murrica.

I was joined with my dad who recently retired and never has left the continent
- his first long haul flight and first time to the US.

I feared and prepared for the worst and I even was debating about leaving my
iPhone, iPad and MacBook Air at home to avoid any searches.

It turned out to become the smoothest immigration ever: We stood at the curb
waiting for the car rental bus within 45 minutes after we stepped out of the
plane.

Short lines, smoothly working self-service kiosks, a friendly immigration
officer, not one single intimidating or aggressive question.

Way to go!

~~~
pcurve
" a friendly immigration officer"

I've never seen this one in the U.S. or anywhere else.

I think they are trained to be neutral or even aloof.

~~~
ajdlinux
I've usually found Australian customs to be fairly friendly whenever I've been
returning home - though these days they make me use the automated passport
gates so I don't talk to them at all...

------
omarqureshi
I'm a British Muslim who flew to the US on Sunday. Honestly I had assumed it
would be hell. In actual fact it was only a little more painful than before.

I'm used to being randomly selected for an additional search every time in the
UK premiere flight. My colleague (another British Muslim) was also selected
which we found quite amusing.

On the other side it wasn't bad, just answered truthfully, only snag was my
colleague who accidentally had both a 10 year business visa and an ESTA at the
same time who then had to go down to immigration to have it removed.

After immigration I was asked to speak to a customs officer and that was it, I
continued on my journey.

Little more painful but not overly.

Personally I think this guide is a little extreme and I'm sure in the worst
case it probably does apply.

~~~
Markoff
your are not selected randomly, they use profiling and they search Muslims
because majority of terrorists are Muslims, i can't comprehend why even smart
people always come with this random check nonsense, do they really claim it's
random and try to hide it instead of telling truth?

~~~
omarqureshi
Yes. I understand this

------
AngeloAnolin
Kind of disheartening to read that (most) of the comments here diverted away
from the topic of Basecamp's travel guide, which shows a lot of character from
this company.

A company composed of a lot of remote workers outside US that definitely goes
out of their way to have their employees come into the US for their business
meetings is a keeper.

On a side note, I am a bit confused on a questionnaire asked at the Customs:

 _Here to do work? Nope! Here on business, meeting with Basecamp._

Wouldn't this be under the discretion of the customs officer to determine
whether business meeting qualifies as work? I suppose that being on a business
meeting with your company still predisposes the fact that you are technically
still paid on those days that you are meeting with your company?

~~~
talklittle
The work vs. business question is simpler than that. Business = working in US
for a foreign company. Work = working in US for a US company.

Presumably Basecamp has set up business entities abroad.

[https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/2272/about-
differ...](https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/2272/about-different-
types-of-visas-for-business-vs-work-in-the-u-s)

------
bnt
I'm from Eastern Europe and I (literally) just flew back from a 2 week work
trip from the US (California):

\- Getting a visa was a painless process. I just applied and I got a business
visa.

\- Entering the States required me to show my passport. Nothing else. Nobody
asked me why I was going there, nobody asked me to show my phone or laptop (I
had both). There was no separation, pat downs etc.

~~~
1337biz
Maybe because Eastern Europeans are rarely shooting or bombing innocent
people? Just a wild, wild guess...

~~~
foldr
In the US you mean? Eastern Europe isn't entirely free of terrorist activity,
assuming that you include Chechnya.

~~~
1337biz
Last time I checked these were local military conflicts and not about
murdering innocent civilians around the world.

~~~
mcrae
You might remember that the perpetrators of the Boston Marathon Bombing were
Chechen.

I say this not because I think we should screen Chechens more thoroughly now,
but because your original appeal to profiling at the border is provably
ineffective and, frankly, ignorant.

------
edanm
I really can't believe all the negativity here towards traveling to the US.
You're taking a few admittedly awful anecdotes, and turning them into giant
statistics about the country.

You know that thought experiment where you have scientists debating global
warming, but to make it clear just how much consensus there is, instead of
having 1 scientist against and 1 pro, you have 1 against and a whole crowd
pro?

I run this thought experiment every time I enter the states. I can usually see
around me many thousands of people in the airport, getting along just fine. I
can imagine the many tens of thousands who go through those airports every
day, and the probably millions all across the country who go through the
airports without trouble.

These millions are what you should be stacking up against the dozens of
anecdotes you get on the web.

(For what it's worth, I have had very easy experiences with immigration, with
mostly people being very nice to me, but a few times someone was rude/mean to
me. Nothing more than that.)

~~~
robteix
But from the company's perspective, all that matters is that it _can_ and
_does_ happen.

I don't believe anyone is saying every single person coming into the US will
get searched. We _know_ they are not. But searches _do_ happen and _are_
legal, and that alone justifies preparing for the eventuality.

My employer has always had rules about how to take care of data on your
devices. They tell you to enable encryption and to never leave your company
laptop alone and stuff like that. The vast majority of employees will never
have their devices stolen, but the fact that some might is enough
justification to make sure everyone does their best to protect their data.
It's the same thing.

That you always had very easy experiences with immigration _is_ the anecdote
here, because it does nothing to change the fact that _some_ people will get
their devices searched (and data potentially copied) by Immigration agents.

------
celticninja
So what happens when they ask for my Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat logins and I
do not have accounts with these companies? If a simple "I don't have social
media accounts" is acceptable then I'm not sure why they even ask for
passwords. Proving a negative is very hard.

~~~
paulajohnson
Lying to them is a serious criminal offense carrying (IIRC) up to 5 years in
prison. Even a harmless fib counts.

~~~
martinko
Jesus. I will seriously try to avoid ever having to travel to the US in this
climate.

~~~
dx034
That lying at the border is a serious offence is neither new nor US specific.

------
staticelf
I recently visited the US and I thought the process was going to be hell after
reading a lot of these threads on HN. Turns out it was pretty chill, got some
questions before boarding and was selected for extra security check. Then upon
landing I got like 3 questions from the officer, how long I would stay, where
my friends were and what the purpose of my trip was.

Sure they didn't seem very friendly but it wasn't a big of a hassle. I didn't
bring my laptop though because I don't want it searched.

It seems like you run on luck mostly. You only need to give up passwords and
such if you are unlucky.

~~~
js8
> You only need to give up passwords and such if you are unlucky.

Very comforting, isn't it? Especially when this is said about a legal process.

~~~
kidmenot
Frankly, I find the thought of having to give my passwords away to be baffling
to say the least. No chance I will ever visit the US under these conditions,
because I tend to dislike totalitarian countries.

~~~
plandis
I think you misunderstand the definition of a totalitarian country.

------
benevol
> "Don't Travel With Work Data"

Why would I value my _personal data_ any less than my _work data_?

So what this rally means is: "Don't Travel With _Any_ Data".

And knowing that they only need to plug an infected USB device into your
PC/phone/tablet to infect the latter irrevocably, the situation can now be
summed up as:

"Don't Travel With _Any Data_ Or _Any Hardware_ ".

Now what does that say about the sate of a country?

~~~
mstade
Recall that these are instructions to employees – the company's first
obligation is to protect the company, not the employees. Wiping work data is
simply a means of limiting liability. Should sensitive data leak out due to a
laptop getting seized at the border that's a lot more serious _to the company_
than if your nudes were stolen.

~~~
cmrdporcupine
Contrast this with my employer's advice: cooperate fully with the authorities,
our lawyers can and will defend the company, we are more concerned about your
safety.

Telling people to work travel and then telling them to not bring work data
seems like you should have told them not to travel at all?

~~~
rapind
Retracted. Misread the article. Apologies.

~~~
cmrdporcupine
I think you're being deliberately obtuse and argumentative. I never mentioned
personal time travel. The context is an article telling people not to bring
work data with them when traveling for work/professional functions.

If you're traveling for work, and your company can't guarantee your safe and
reasonably comfortable travel to that destination in a work capacity -- they
should recommend you not go.

~~~
rapind
Agreed, they shouldn't be asking them to go in a work capacity. I
misunderstood your objection as them not having a right to ask their employees
to remove data before _personal_ travel.

~~~
cmrdporcupine
Sorry I'd delete and edit my comment but it's too late now.

------
kidmenot
This only reinforces my intention to postpone my first visit to the US until
after this presidency and its associated madness have ended.

EDIT: _at least_ until after this presidency.

~~~
imron
Don't expect it to get any better once Trump leaves office.

This madness didn't begin with him and it won't end with him either.

~~~
rurban
And don't forget: Many people voted for Trump to restore the legal and
democratic system in the US. As the lesser evil. Same as with Obama. He
promised the same.

It didn't happen. Both went 180 degree immediately after the election.

For the reality check: The big airports in the South and North are well known
as extremely racist and strict with their "work vs business" checks for
decades. What's new are the unconstitutional passport rules from the outgoing
Obama administration. The constitution doesn't apply at the border and not to
foreigners.

Hence all the new travel warnings in this year.

------
sidchilling
Woah... this definitely seems over the board! If all of this is required, it's
a recent thing, I guess.

I have been to the US multiple times with a B1-Business Visa and didn't do any
of this stuff. I just showed up and the customs officer asked a bunch of
questions about my purpose of visit and that's about it. I didn't need any
invitation letter or hotel bookings, etc.

Hotel bookings and a LOT of other documentation is required when applying for
a tourist / business visa for Europe or UK, but traveling to the US has always
been fairly straightforward (except that you need to make two visits the US
embassy or consulate twice for the visa formalities).

At all times, I had my company laptop with all the data + source code.

Is this something that has recently begun?

~~~
Fzzr
Yes. Recent (this administration) policies allow for demanding passwords etc.
at the border. There was an incident where a NASA engineer lost control of
sensitive data as a result
[https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/02/a-nas...](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/02/a-nasa-
engineer-is-required-to-unlock-his-phone-at-the-border/516489/)

It's not paranoia. Welcome to 2017.

Edit: It's not like they're scanning every cell phone that enters the
country... but they reserve the right to.

~~~
tomp
Please stop spreading lies. This happened long before this administration.
E.g. articles from 2016:

[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/28/us-
custom...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/28/us-customs-
border-protection-social-media-accounts-facebook-twitter)

[https://www.theverge.com/2016/12/22/14066082/us-customs-
bord...](https://www.theverge.com/2016/12/22/14066082/us-customs-border-
patrol-social-media-account-facebook-twitter)

~~~
HelloNurse
So it's even worse, because excessive border checks are an established trend
rather than a new measure from the rather voluble Trump administration:
returning USA airport to civilization is going to be a long and difficult
process.

------
throw2016
This is just ugly. We have become a mirror image of what we claim to be
against. No one in human history has woken up one day suddenly to
totalitarianism but the process in undeniably well under way here.

The posturing and denial may continue for now but it is only a matter of time
before the edifice of pretension falls on the weight of its own
contradictions.

The soft power and moral credibility is gone. No one can take any US position
on human rights seriously. What's left is force and brazen hypocrisy as we
become more brazen building totalitarian infrastructure, go about destroying
entire countries and putting millions of lives in disarray to pursue
'strategic objectives' or to put it simply make more money.

Internally it seems citizens don't care about privacy, spying, human rights or
the destruction of other countries as long as the money is flowing. It keeps
on becoming more and more egregious as more boundaries are crossed yet there
is no citizen response. If there is a value system its certainly not visible.
The government can do whatever it wants.

In the end we seem to have succeeded in building a commercial hub, not a
country. Humanity and all that makes it wonderful beyond the practicality of
making money will rest elsewhere.

------
oblio
I know we would only have anecdotal evidence here, but I'd like to hear from
other HackerNews readers. My guess is that based on where you're from and how
you look, your experience with the CBP can vary wildly.

Edit: s/TSA/CBP.

~~~
cr1895
FYI: TSA and CBP are not the same. You first interact with CBP when you enter
the US, and then you interact with TSA for security while flying within the
US.

------
secfirstmd
For those interested in more information and security guides to travelling
through borders, we have some in our Android mobile app Umbrella

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.secfirst.u...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.secfirst.umbrella)

or raw content here:
[https://github.com/securityfirst/Umbrella_content](https://github.com/securityfirst/Umbrella_content)

------
jlg23
> Put Andrea and our attorney on speed dial.

If _that_ is advice you have to give to your employees, either stop working
for the US army in war zones or hold meetings in a free country.

------
jbb67
Most of the posts on here are ridiculous. People saying they are not going on
holiday to the USA because it's too much of a pain.

Seriously.

We applied online for the visa thing. It took under 5 minutes. Then at the
airport we queued up at immigration for around 10 minutes. We showed our
passport and answered one question about purpose of visit, and they waved us
though.

This is the experience of 99.9% of those who visit.

~~~
GFischer
What country are you from? That is not the experience for people from my
country (Uruguay, Latin America), nor for any of the high population
countries, and it is highlighted in this article.

I applied for (and was granted) an U.S. visitor (B-1) visa last month, it was
very expensive, I had to fill out a form that took significantly more than 5
minutes (several hours because I had to contact family members for details),
and I had to schedule an in-person interview where they (very politely) cross
checked most of what I wrote in the visa form, and were very detailed in the
questions.

That's why the article says _" If your country does not participate in the
Visa Waiver Program or you are not eligible for an ESTA, you'll need to apply
for a B-1 business visitor visa… the long way."_

 _" We'll work with you through this process. Start early, as soon as we have
dates for a meetup or conference. Visa appointments and processing can take
weeks to months."_

That directly contradicts your claim (and matches my experience).

I still haven't flown to the U.S., but those in my family who have,
experienced multi-hour delays (my mother lost her flight in Boston only last
month due to 2 hours in the immigration queue), most of my family members have
been set aside for in-depth questioning at least once, etc.

I do know some Europeans have a very different experience (those under ESTA),
but I'm not certain your saying "the experience of 99.9% of those who visit"
is correct.

You might notice that none of the highly populated countries (China, India,
Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Russia and Mexico) are in
this list:

[http://www.esta.us/visa_waiver_countries.html](http://www.esta.us/visa_waiver_countries.html)

------
futurix
I feel like posting something positive here - I travelled to the US last week
for tourist-y purposes and the border control was fast, efficient, nobody
looked at my devices (even though I had 3 phones with me), and the only gripe
was with tourists of certain nations constantly trying to jump the queues.

------
djhworld
I visited the US last year for a conference (from the UK)

Border Guard was very angry at me for some reason, very cold, didn't smile.
Quite curt with his responses. Which was strange because he was laughing and
joking with the couple before me in the queue.

He took particular umbrage with the fact that I'd ticked "Business" on my
customs form, as I wasn't sure what else to tick - I was attending the
conference on behalf of my employer who had paid for my trip.

------
ksjjf
>At Customs:

>Here to do work? Nope! Here on business, meeting with Basecamp

I never understood this. What's the difference? In both instances, money is
being earned.

~~~
betaby
Important things are a) which entity is going to pay b) where is added value
created. In terms of business meeting both are mostly other seas. I had that
info about meetings in my travel guide at least for 10 yeas.

------
lucaspiller
Re the purpose of visit, have the rules of what is defined as work changed
recently? I traveled a couple of years ago to LA to work on-site with my
employer for a couple of weeks - I told the customs official this, and they
let me through without issue. I'm from the UK so just got ESTA.

~~~
osullivj
When they ask if it's work or vacations I always say "meetings". Worked for me
so far...

------
bladecatcher
It's not clear to me whether the US Border control can ask you to login on
their desktop even if you're not carrying any devices. In such a case, there's
no way to avoid being subject to search.

------
TuringNYC
So what happens if you have 2FA via SMS, but obviously you are traveling and
cannot get an international SMS? Should one turn off 2FA before traveling to
the US?

------
grecy
Does anyone know how homeland security will react when I say I don't have a
cell phone?

(I genuinely, honestly don't)

------
shifte
Has anyone created a tool to automate the removal and restore of work and
secrets for this purpose?

------
elorant
Why can't US adopt Israel's border control practices? Going in and out of
Israel is a breeze. Sure, it's strict, as it should be, but you never feel
harassed or worse. And surely their problem with terrorism is equal if not
larger than that of US.

~~~
reirob
I don't know if it changed in the meantime, but I was flying to Israel in 99
and it was an experience I will not forget my whole life. It included the
security officers making a call to my parents pretending to be my friend and
asking where I am - I guess it was a trick. My mother was very scared, because
she didn't know this guy's voice.

I found this very mean. Hopefully it changed in a positive way.

------
binarray2000
Are there other US companies which have same/similar policy?

------
marknote
Welcome to come to China to make business meetings :)

~~~
Markoff
no need to worry someone will go through your Facebook, Gmail and other
accounts even if they wanted, they will force you to sign up for WeChat and
buy Alibaba share on top of it

------
rocqua
Would it be accepted to give a wipe code rather than a password to customs?

~~~
DanBC
They would deny you entry if you did that.

~~~
HappyTypist
YMMV. I refused a month ago and sat in secondary for 3 hours, but they
eventually let me in. On ESTA.

------
memiux
What is SIP?

~~~
memiux
Security, Infrastructure & Performance (SIP)

SIP is a instant-response team.

[https://github.com/basecamp/handbook/blob/master/orgchart.md...](https://github.com/basecamp/handbook/blob/master/orgchart.md#security-
infrastructure--performance-sip)

------
faragon
Please, stop bigotry and nationalist hatred. That's for both the US, and the
ones willing to do the same as revenge against the US people. Let's stop the
nationalist madness together.

------
Mhodesty
It really is a shitty feeling for me. I grew up in New York, and was too young
to really understand what was going on during the Bush days, so for me the
Trump era is a new feeling.

This is the first time in my life I am embarrassed to be an American.

------
shpx
This is a political statement highlighting the current legal uncertainty of
refusing to unlock your devices at the US border[0].

By default iphones and macs are encrypted when you completely power them down,
so the right way (assuming you have a good password) is to shut down your
computers at the airport and only turn them back on when you've passed the
border.

Nothing interesting here tech-wise, effectively just a checklist of files to
manually delete or encrypt. I'm not a lawyer, but to me this seems like just
plugging holes until someone puts up the money and time to rule the whole
thing unconstitutional.

[0] [https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/02/what-could-
happe...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/02/what-could-happen-if-
you-refuse-to-unlock-your-phone-at-the-us-border/)

~~~
rurban
They closed this loophole a couple of years ago, by explicitly demanding that
your devices need to be powered on and have enough battery power when entring
the country.

So powering off your device, putting out the battery or encrypting it is all
forbidden.

~~~
zeveb
Do you have any source for your assertion that one is required to have a
powered battery when entering the country? On the face of it, that seems
absurd.

~~~
doubleunplussed
I've heard announcements to this effect during takeoff on-route to the US:
"Ensure you don't use your devices too much during flight if you can't charge
them—they are required to be powered on during entry to the United States".

