The first amendment is a good thing overall, but I have honestly never heard of a story of someone attempting to enter the US, someone with no criminal record and from an ally country, just to be forcibly strip-searched at the border.
They just tell you that you they are denying you entry and putting you on the next plane back.
That being said, we are clearly only getting one side of the story and I'd love to know what _exactly_ that found on his phone, but given how consistent the stories have been (pulled into secondary, forced to unlock personal media under threats of imprisonment, strip search, disappearance for a few days or weeks) I am inclined to move this from the "anecdotes" to "anecdata" to something-very-close-to-data category.
If you chose to rebutt this with the "millions of people come in to the US every year with absolutely no problem" I'd like to say that only 0.02 people die by train per 100,000,000 miles travelled. Does that mean I don't want the NTSB to investigate train crashes or that these peoples deaths (and injuries) don't matter because they comprise such a low percentage?*
I am extremely sympathetic to his position of his phone automatically downloading media he is sent. My phone's WhatsApp settings came with "auto-download any images people send you to your (local, on-device) gallery" set as default. I also had Google Photos installed, which had the option of "auto back-up any images/videos you store on your phone to your Google Photos account" which I turned on because I break my phones often. The result was that several relatives with questionable (and opposite) political tastes have their memes (think [pollitician x] next to a [hate symbol]" (got it? Good. It's not the one you're thinking of!) automatically stored on my phone and backed up to my Google Photos account, not even accounting for the automatic WhatsApp backup that is stored on my Google Drive account.
From previous reporting, the agents plug in the device into a forensic analyzer which dumps out a list of images/videos that were saved (note the distinction between "that you saved" and "that were saved") and use it against you.
I can't imagine what it must feel like to arrive here from Norway to go camping and be subject to a strip-search and interrogation because someone you may not even consider a friend sent you some shitty memes a few years ago. Or, in this case, because they found a "anti-JD-vance" meme that even JD vance seems to think is fine?
They just tell you that you they are denying you entry and putting you on the next plane back.
That being said, we are clearly only getting one side of the story and I'd love to know what _exactly_ that found on his phone, but given how consistent the stories have been (pulled into secondary, forced to unlock personal media under threats of imprisonment, strip search, disappearance for a few days or weeks) I am inclined to move this from the "anecdotes" to "anecdata" to something-very-close-to-data category.
If you chose to rebutt this with the "millions of people come in to the US every year with absolutely no problem" I'd like to say that only 0.02 people die by train per 100,000,000 miles travelled. Does that mean I don't want the NTSB to investigate train crashes or that these peoples deaths (and injuries) don't matter because they comprise such a low percentage?*
I am extremely sympathetic to his position of his phone automatically downloading media he is sent. My phone's WhatsApp settings came with "auto-download any images people send you to your (local, on-device) gallery" set as default. I also had Google Photos installed, which had the option of "auto back-up any images/videos you store on your phone to your Google Photos account" which I turned on because I break my phones often. The result was that several relatives with questionable (and opposite) political tastes have their memes (think [pollitician x] next to a [hate symbol]" (got it? Good. It's not the one you're thinking of!) automatically stored on my phone and backed up to my Google Photos account, not even accounting for the automatic WhatsApp backup that is stored on my Google Drive account.
From previous reporting, the agents plug in the device into a forensic analyzer which dumps out a list of images/videos that were saved (note the distinction between "that you saved" and "that were saved") and use it against you.
I can't imagine what it must feel like to arrive here from Norway to go camping and be subject to a strip-search and interrogation because someone you may not even consider a friend sent you some shitty memes a few years ago. Or, in this case, because they found a "anti-JD-vance" meme that even JD vance seems to think is fine?
[0] https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/home-and-community/safety-topics...