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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: June 18th, 2023

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  • compel” limits bit is limited to US citizens

    This is completely not true. The 4th and 5th amendments apply to everyone.

    that even then, they can confiscate your phone

    If they do this without getting a search warrant from a judge, you can sue for the return of your property. You can make them justify to a judge why there is probable cause that your property will yield evidence of a crime.

    they can refuse to let you fly

    This is a thing that can happen, but you can also sue the federal government to challenge your wrongful placement on the no fly list. People have sued and won and been awarded costs and attorneys’ fees

    confiscate your passport,

    This can happen if they think the passport is fraudulent, invalid, expired, stolen, or if you owe taxes, or are a sex offender that needs an annotated passport, or sadly if they think you are trans.

    For many of these causes, the simplest solution is to apply for a new passport. For the trans victims, the issue is currently in federal court, and I am hopeful for a positive outcome.

    deport you to the country of their choice.

    At this point I assume you are talking about non-citizens, non-LPRs. If such a person is refused admission they are preferentially deported back to wherever they came from. At land borders, that is cheap and easy. Air carriers are required to transport passengers back to origin at the air carrier’s expense when CBP so demands. (This is why airlines check your documents thoroughly before they let you go.)

    If for some reason the person’s travel origin refuses to accept them, then the next preference is a country where they have citizenship or strong residence ties.

    With the exception of the original set of CECOT flights, which were done in actual contempt of court, true third country removals are the last resort both in law and in actual (however fucked up) practice.

    The people who have been sent to the strange African countries have problems with no documents, no proof of citizenship, their true home country refuses to accept deportations from US because of bad relations, or they have withholding of removal because of a legitimate fear of torture or persecution in their home country. That’s not something that’s going to happen to the vast majority of people that show up at an airport with actual good documents.


  • Here’s an important point from the activist distress code case: CBP had a plan to target him for this treatment in advance before he showed up at the border checkpoint that day. The airlines send them passenger manifests 72 hours in advance.

    100% of the time, if they take you to the little room, start asking you questions, and want to look through your phone, they already believe you’re guilty of something specific.

    If that happens to you, you need to understand that you have already been the “target” of an investigation. There is nothing you can do or say in that room that will convince them otherwise. The best thing you can do is shut the hell up, do as little as possible, and don’t make their case for them.

    And don’t believe anything they’re telling you either. The cops can lie to you, but you can’t lie to the cops. It’s a crime.


  • I think I’m at low risk.

    I power my phone off prior to arriving in the US and keep it off until I leave the airport.

    Under US case law, you can be compelled to give up a thumb print or face ID with a search warrant. But you cannot be compelled to give an unlock code, because the code information is testimony, and you have the right to remain silent.

    If they insist on seizing my phone unless I unlock it, my plan is to ask for a lawyer, shut the fuck up, let them seize the phone or whatever, then sue them later to return it.

    This plan works for me because I’m a US citizen, and I have an absolute right to enter the country. If you are not a citizen or LPR the local CBP officer has the discretion to refuse admission even if you have a visa. So that’s a real consequence to non cooperation.

    Don’t lie to the feds about not having a phone if you really have one. That’s a separate crime all by itself.






  • I’ve seen these pictures attributed to USS Abraham Lincoln on some other sites.

    That ship recently suffered a major supply crisis while it was on station in the middle east. The reason is that Iran was able to deny the use of all of the nearby bases with their drones and medium range missiles. Thus the US Navy resorted to resupplying Abraham Lincoln from Diego Garcia, which is thousands of miles away.

    So it’s plausible to me that these are real images, and they represent a very serious problem for the navy: both in terms of total calories and in the loss of morale from low quality.

    In any case, Abraham Lincoln has since been relieved, and will make a liberty port call in Thailand after 245 days at sea.












  • Depends probably on the nature of what “forwarded the costs” means.

    If the business collected the costs from you and then forwarded them to CBP while acting as your agent, then you can demand a refund from them or sue them.

    If you agreed to purchase goods for one price while also agreeing to pay a separate “tariff reimbursement fee” in exchange for purchasing the goods, you’re probably shit out of luck.

    Various shades in between might be arguable or litigatable one way or another.