I'm struggling to understand all the comments here, but it feels like I'm living in an alternate universe. All of these questions like "but do the customs agents search for hidden partitions", etc...
Who is it that is running into all these scenarios with border control? I've gone on international flights, including to the us, dozens of times, and have seen around me thousands upon thousands of travelers, and I've never seen anyone asked to open their laptop, no to mention being grilled on hidden partitions.
Not that I'm doubting this ever happens. But from these comments, someone would get the feeling that this is routine, rather than a 1-in-an-X occurence for a probably very high X.
According to a CBP press release from April, "in the first six months of FY17, CBP searched the electronic devices of 14,993 arriving international travelers, affecting 0.008 percent of the approximately 189.6 million travelers arriving to the United States."
The release goes on to show that this is nearly twice as frequent as the equivalent period last year.
Who is it that is running into all these scenarios with border control? I've gone on international flights, including to the us, dozens of times, and have seen around me thousands upon thousands of travelers, and I've never seen anyone asked to open their laptop, no to mention being grilled on hidden partitions.
Not that I'm doubting this ever happens. But from these comments, someone would get the feeling that this is routine, rather than a 1-in-an-X occurence for a probably very high X.