Comment by itake
12 hours ago
can you share the link? This?
https://www.eff.org/document/eff-border-search-pocket-guide
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Seems the better strategy (for iOS) is come in with a plan to say yes to agents without pissing them off (like handing them an empty phone).
better to local back up, encrypt, upload to your home server etc.
Then login to a fresh iCloud account, selectively install apps, photos, and mail accounts. So it doesn't look like you're walking in suspicious.
This seems like an insane thing to have to do for visiting a supposed first world country. If phones had been around during USSR times I imagine you would have had to do the same. Personally I will rather just avoid any travel to the US, and I hope others do the same.
Security concerns you need to think about when visiting the US are absolutely no less than those when visiting China these days. Treat it like a totalitarian dictatorship with more technological means.
Honestly, I personally would be less nervous visiting China.
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Nobody in China cares about your phone/laptop.*
*Unless you are (well) known dissident/journalisy/politician.
US is much more totalitarian than China. Lived in China for years, had multiple times various visa/residence permit issues with police and guess what, nobody cared about my electronics or was sending me to any detention, all I've got were quie helpful officers trying to find workarounds for me to deal with the situation.
Same thing on my last trin in summer 2025, we didn't stay in hotel, didn't go to register to police as you are supposed to and when crossing province border checkpoint guess what happened - they let us go to our tourist sight and told us to just register after weekend and as usual officers in police station couldn't care less, they just registered us without any issues.
You can complain about plenty things in China, there sure is a lot of bureaucracy but when you actually have to deal with them, they are pretty laidback and trying to be helpful usually.
By these standards and my experiences with registration in police stations in other two EU countries I can tell you China was the friendliest most laidback and convenient experience.
People who claim China is totalitarian dictatorship clearly never been to China and should get off their high horse, China nowadays make less trouble for their own citizens than EU hating them trying to make lives of EU citizens as inconvenient and expensive as possible.
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I wouldn't say you are overreacting at all. I know someone who was detained for months on US soil after a phone search where the only "evidence" against him they found is illegal content sent by someone else to him on a group chat he doesn't even check. Had to get a lawyer and spend time in prison just waiting to be deported back.
What is illegal content in this context?
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WhatsApp was especially sketchy considering they used to automatically auto-save images to your photo album.
My dad's eighty+ years old, he was born in the States, though he did give up his citizenship. He brings a "fake" phone when visiting family, he's been doing so for years.
Me; I just change all my tabs and recent history to slightly kinky porn and truth social. They do look hard, but they don't look hard.
The older guys cannot look too hard but the young guys can certainly look quite hard while browsing through your kinky porn.
(Laughs expected here)
The US is first world on a technicality: the first world is defined as countries that were allied with the US during the cold war. If not for that, it'd be classified as developing.
It's common to mix up developing/developed and third/first world because they were largely aligned during the cold war. But there is one first-world developing country.
The biggest economy in the world and the richest country to have ever existed is not a developing country, although it is quite unequal. What you've stated is political rhetoric that you want others to accept as fact.
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The US is not so allied with its long-time allies as it used to be. Allies tend not to threaten to invade and take over other allies.
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This is not true. However, because of the massive inequality, I often found it easy to use a sentence I saw somewhere: "the US is a South American country that happened to become successful".
Why do yo think the US should be classified as a developing nation?
There’s a definition independent from 1st/2nd/3rd world [0] and the US’ income seems to clearly make it developed.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developing_country
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The UK, per capita, is poorer than every single state in the US. https://finance.yahoo.com/economy/articles/gdp-alert-united-...
As much as the current situation in the US upsets me, anyone who has spent considerable time within the US and outside of the US cannot believe what you've stated as anything other than a trite delusion. The US isn't just the richest country in the world, it has the second highest purchasing power parity per capita in 2026 and historically the highest. The average person in Mississippi is economically better off than the average person in England.
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The American poors (10th percentile income in America) are 67th percentile income globally, when calculated via Purchasing Power Parity. [1]
Your description of it as a "developing country" is completely inaccurate.
[1] https://www.foreignaffairs.com/world/great-convergence-equal...
I used to love visiting the US. I have many friends there, and I really enjoy staying in places like Seattle and SF. But I haven't gone there since Trump 1.
That said, I think protecting your privacy is a good idea in general.
Yes, I will probably never go back to the US. But I find it sad that my kids for example, will have to think twice before visiting, if they do.
> for visiting a supposed first world country.
... which by now is a banana republic of the worst kind. Can you interact sanely with an insane counterpart? Avoiding to visit would be my recommendation too.
Just out of curiosity, like what country would you not have to worry about this in?
The US is quite transparent about these rules, and certainly other countries are not necessarily searching peoples phones as publicly
But anytime I transit a country USA or any thing I fully expect to have zero rights
European citizens can travel in the EU without even noticing that they are crossing borders most of the time. I once got lost on my bike and accidentally ended up in France for example.
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>But anytime I transit a country USA or any thing I fully expect to have zero rights
That is so sad, man. How is this normal for you?
Schengen, Nordics, Japan, Canada, in that order.
Trump’s America: when confronted with negative traits of your country, always assume your country is the lesser of all evils.
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Xiaomi phones have/had a feature where depending on which finger you unlock the phone with, it can hide certain applications/folders on the filesystem.
who believes an empty phone?
You need it to look set up enough to do critical communication / tourist activities. It should look like you had to reinstall your OS right before your trip, and only had time to get the basics on there. Most people will prioritize communications, maps, and payments over anything else, with video/music/books/podcasts following that, and signing into the vast universe of social apps later if ever.
You're right for non-citizens.
For citizens, no one needs to believe it. You give them your empty phone and they can't download your phone contents and contacts.
Generally, within 100 miles of a border (which includes international airports) there is not a warrant required for a search.
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The point is not what they believe, but how to avoid both breaking the law and not giving up your data, isn't it?
As long as that's legal, what they believe doesn't matter.
You are not legally obliged to keep your data on your devices all the time.
What do you mean?
I guess you could just bring a flip phone. But then that could be seen as suspicious these days.
When a government is paranoid, everything is suspicious.
Maybe just don't do anything on your phone but normal capitalist business sht.