Or leave my phone at home.
You want a phone with you. You want to be able to contact someone after you land and before you approach customs so your loved ones know where you are and can take appropriate action of you don’t energy promptly at the other end.
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I plan to travel outside the US this summer. And i will bring my phone. I’ll text my husband (who won’t be with me) after i land, and then I’ll turn off my phone. And hope they don’t decide to investigate me.
I have two transatlantic trips on the calendar.
While I’m paranoid enough that moving to a burner phone would be tempting, one of the trips is a work trip, where I’ll need apps on my phone to log in to various systems, and for both trips I’ll still need to be reachable by work email/teams. I’m not going through the rigmarole to move that to a burner phone.
However, I am paranoid enough that I will disable the ability to login with biometrics. While CBP is allowed to search your gadgets, they can’t compel you to unlock them. (The can, however, hold your gadget up to you for biometrics to work. And they can give you a hard time for not voluntarily unlocking them.) Shame Android removed the ability to auto-wipe your phone after excessive bad login attempts.
That reminds me…I need to double check to see whether my personal laptop’s hard drive is encrypted by default. I also probably ought to have instructions on how to trigger remote wipes of my devices and who to call in the “in case of emergency” documentation I keep in the safe.
Since I’m a citizen, have fair skin, and will be coming through the Global Entry line, I expect that I’m not going to have a problem with US Customs. Still…
Also, FWIW – For years, I’ve had Tasker automation that automatically texts my wife when the phone detects it’s at certain locations (e.g. airports). My wife likes to know that I’ve landed safely when traveling.
This.
Worst that can happen (insert Simpsons so far meme) if you are a US citizen returning home is that they take your device. If you are not a citizen, you could be sent home or detained.
I’m not worried yet about other countries reciprocating this conduct when I go abroad. The countries that might do this would generally be ones I wouldn’t be traveling to.
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IFYP.
Also, it is legal for them to delay a citizen’s entry, by taking forever to conduct their search and interviews, etc.
I don’t think we’ve reached a point where they would actually detain a citizen for, say, having said things the administration doesn’t like…but sadly, I don’t think that’s beyond the realm of possibility anymore. “Mistakes” can be made.
We travelled back from Europe today into SFO. Very quick entry for green card holders and citizens. It may be much slower for foreign passport holders though. I’ve stopped traveling with my personal laptop just in case.
I don’t think we will know when we have reached that point until well after it happens. The time to be freaking out about this stuff was about a year ago when they were telling us exactly what they were going to do.
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I thought Elon said, “Mistakes will be made.”
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In other news, a cryptocurrency exchange has just signed a deal involving distribution of Trump-branded crypto and NFTs.
Trump has placed a political appointee in charge of criminal tax investigations
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/04/02/trump-administration-irs-politicization/
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I was wondering if Laura Loomer was still a factor
I thought Trump had dropped that mistress? Why is she influencing federal policy again?
Wasn’t she dropped because she was considered bad optically for the campaign, rather than because Trump wanted her out? He’s no longer in campaign mode.
Reading the article it sounds like Loomer is the internal loyalty police, making sure those around The Donald are pure and true believers. Yes men on steroids. No surprise sloppy work product comes out of this group.
You’re correct, of course. It got to be a little too much for the campaign when Loomer kept saying things like “Yes, I am a proud racist”. Trump had to do the whole “I don’t know her that well, she says a lot of things, she fetched coffee or something, etc. etc.”
I guess he has no reason to pretend anymore. He’s not even play-acting his marriage.
Loomer claims Trump’s policies on Panama and seizing the canal were all her idea and Trump has taken her advice
a woman, a plan, a canal, panamowa
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