I read that Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) now wants to demand everyone entering the U.S., citizen or not, to reveal their cellphone and internet passwords.
The utter vacuity of this “idea” from the Trump administration is testament to their collective IQ, which I’d estimate to be somewhere between 20 and 30…and I’m trying to be generous.
- Giving up passwords is of negligible value, for once I’m out of Customs’ clutches, I’m free to change my passwords and install new encryption keys. Or, do they intend to impound me for several days while government workers (or contractors) go try to read everything I’ve ever posted? If they don’t, this is merely the act of a desperate bully. The very people they would ostensibly seek to identify will be driven to even more sophisticated protection methods for their information.
- How many employees would they have to hire to engage…and train…and monitor…in searching through the on-line litter of every adult entering the country? It would be massive, expensive “security theater” providing no security improvement of discernible value.
- Such programs would severely suppress trade and tourism, and businesses outside the USA would simply stop coming to here to negotiate, and Americans would not visit foreign shores because of re-entry restrictions. New international trade negotiations with the U.S. would simply cease. Tourism revenues would evaporate. Economic depression would follow.
- The utter and towering ignorance behind this proposal would spend hundreds of millions of dollars to eventually halt international travel to and from the United States, solely to benefit a government bent on control of anyone of whom they might disapprove. Airlines would see dramatic loss of revenues as international travel declines. That is Fascism, which secretly they clearly seek to impose.
Finally, this program is already apparently in place among Customs and Border Control (CBP) employees with respect to cellphones. And, the utter ignorance behind that program, coupled with the “police state” behaviors, is unleashing the fascist dreams of some of those uniformed personnel who are, ostensibly, employees of the U.S. government. I simply make a backup of my cellphone, stored offline, and erase the device before boarding. Then, in the security of my home, I restore my cellphone from that backup. It is a primitive precaution that destroys their capacity to surveil.
I fear not for our security, but for the very survival of our Nation under the aegis of the people directing and/or executing these programs that are, at core, clearly aimed at destroying citizens’ and visitors’ sense of security and trust in democratic government. Such are the ways of Fascists: Make us feel insecure and violated...then offer us their “protection,” but only if we concede to them the abject obeisance and deference they covet.