Sucks to be american. Sucks to live in america.
Why would anyone?
This is a dumb question. Almost 50 million people live in Sudan where there’s an ongoing famine. 70 million people live in UK where mass surveillance is roughly state supported. Asking why 300 million people don’t just move is … stupid
The difference is that people from the US and UK are generally welcommed in other countries. People from Sudan have a much harder time being let into other countries
As tourists, sure. But getting a work visa/residence permit is not as easy as you think.
And second of all, what do you expect? An entire country to up an leave? That’s stupid beyond measure. Won’t that entire country elect the same government wherever else they end up in?
I live in the UK. A judge can compel you under Section 49 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 to hand over any passwords for any devices or services they reasonably believe you have possession of the passwords for.
If you don’t then you can be imprisoned for up to 2 years for normal crime or 5 years for crimes relating to national security or the production, possession or dissemination of CSAM
Maybe don’t live in a fucking dystopia. The US is a police state and you have no freedom left.
While I buy you’re general cynicism, it’s wrongly applied here …
It seems like we have both more and less protections than other places, for this instance.
- while it’s not entirely settled case law, you can NOT be compelled to give up your passwords. Different states differ and they’re constantly trying
- however biometrics are counted as public knowledge, so you have no protections
This is more of a scenario where legal contortions turn into huge inconsistencies, plus our legislature has refused to clarify so it’s all on the court system
I really think this depends largely on who you are and what you do with your phone. I have face recognition and fingerprint recognition both enabled on my phone. It’s good enough to prevent a thief from gaining access to my device, and if law enforcement asked, there’s nothing on my phone that could possibly be incriminating. Realistically, I’d have no issue just unlocking my phone and giving it to a police officer, although I do know well enough to always get a lawyer first. Biometrics add an extra layer of convenience; it’s nice to just look at my phone and it unlocks. My concern personally is more about someone stealing my phone and accessing my accounts than self-incrimination.
If I ever was going to put myself in a situation where I’d run afoul of the authorities, I’d leave my phone at home anyway.
Further advice regarding civil disobedience:
LEAVE YOUR PHONES AT HOME. Write down some numbers in case you get arrested—or better yet, memorize them. There are journalists there for documenting. And there will be plenty of other people that don’t follow this advice. Leave anything they could use as leverage over you and your cohorts away. Don’t bring ID. Don’t bring anything except what you need for the action. It’s not worth the risk.
ETA: also, any of you with a new car? DONT DRIVE THAT SHIT TO ANY MEETING OR PROTEST. They’re spying on you. Don’t post about it. Don’t use any unencrypted messaging service to coordinate it—WhatsApp is not safe. Signal and probably some other less common ones are the only ones safe enough. Ride a bike there, stash it in a conveniently hidden spot. Bring a change of clothes, plan escape routes, plant the change of clothes either hidden on your escape route or wear them under your plain clothes. Cover tattoos. Leftist activists are not safe. And literally the rest of your life could depend upon how well protected you have made yourself.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/10/felony-charges-pipeline-protesters-line-3
So many states have pretty quietly passed laws to make you a felon for protesting. Even peacefully. And to make you a fuckin corpse. In the south especially, a few states were writing “go ahead, run over any protester in the road” laws.
Be smart. Be safe. Have a plan. Have a contingency plan. This isn’t “fuck around with the blunt end of the justice system and find out” territory, in 2024 US, it’s time to be as safe as you can while doing what’s right. Because doing what’s right is criminalized. Heavily.
If you’re going somewhere where you think you might be at risk, IMHO, it’s probably just easier to turn your phone off. Android and iOS both require a non-biometric passcode after boot.
Or, if you want to keep your phone on, enable lockdown mode on Android, or tap power 5 times on iOS to require a non-biometric password at the next unlock.
It’s never a good idea to bring your phone with you. It can be used, even while powered off, to track and surveil you. The BLM protests were just the tip of the iceberg. The apps you have on your phone track you. The government is buying that tracking data. Your phone is a massive privacy weak point. It’s basically a bug you carry on you willingly. It’s not safe. Period.
https://www.vox.com/recode/22565926/police-law-enforcement-data-warrant
Leave your phone at home. It’s not worth it. It may not bite you in the ass the day of, but could very easily come back to haunt you after they investigate, in case anything goes “wrong” in their eyes. It’s just not worth it.
IMHO, as someone that works in security / privacy, I tend not to view it as a binary thing. It depends on where you live, what you’re protesting, what you look like, who you are, etc.
Are you in Russia or China and are protesting the government? Yeah, I might leave that thing at home. Are you a white lady in San Francisco marching with a pink knit cat hat during brunch hours, then you’re probably well on the other side of the risk spectrum. You might actually be introducing more risk by having less immediate access to communication or a camera.
IMHO, it’s nuanced.
It can be used, even while powered off, to track and surveil you.
How? The only legit thing I can think of is if they are tracking you anyway, and then they see your phone is turned off, they might try to claim that you must be up to something. But they won’t be able to track it while it’s off.
I think the fact that we are able to record everything that happens and automatically upload it seriously outweighs what you are saying.
The only reason cops get in trouble is only because people are filming. If it’s not caught on camera, it didn’t happen in the eyes of the law if it’s just our word against a cops.
The concern with bringing your phone is that police have subpoenaed cell providers to force them to turn over cell tower records. The police then used the lists of cell phones connected to those towers to track down protestors.
You shouldn’t bring your phone to a protest because it could end with police kicking your front door in three weeks after the protest has wrapped up.
Maybe get a dumb burner phone with no personal data on it. You could potentially keep your main phone in a secret/secure pocket.
No. Several Jan 6 participants tried burners and they still got caught because the burners were still linked to their movements and activities and their personal phones were unusually unused/off/immobile for the amount of time the burners were used. You would have to expend a lot of effort to make sure your burner was completely disconnected from yours and your phone’s location, as well as making sure your phone showed signs of appropriate activity in your absence.
Not so easy.
Just having a burner phone works against dragnet surveillance if one is not doing really stupid shit like logging in to one’s personal social media accounts from one.
If however it’s an actual crime which actually gets investigated by actual criminal investigators, they’re going to be coming at it individually and using much more specific techniques than just “use a surveillance warrant to get a list of all mobile phones that connected to certain cell towers at certain points in time and plonk them all on a database to cross-check with similar data from other demonstrations”.
You can’t just treat a burner phone as a second phone that you have active anywhere near your home, place of work or places you normally frequent and you can’t just keep it and keep on using it for a long period of time: the longer one holds on to that burner phone the more data points there will be that can be bulk checked with other, identifyable, data from other sources (say, car tracking data) to find out a more than normal overlap.
I wouldn’t at all be surprised if those people with the burner phones had them with them active whilst ridding their personal vehicles which had something like OnStar or were dumb enough to log-in to their Facebook account from them.
And completely cover any tattoos. Even more identifiable than your face, honestly.
you can always modify your tattoos, you can’t modify your face once it’s identified. I saw a man literally draw a face on his face before attending a protest. He looked ridiculous but perfectly “defaced”.
I’ve also read about some blackBlocs getting identified, where i live, through their shoes. Police photographed people before and after the movement and their shoes are used as identifying information.
There is always the oldBloc who put their faces and names behind their words and proudly struggle through unions.
it’s already may 1st here. They will be out in about 10 hours. May the force be with them.
On pixel, if you ever need to - press and hold the power button, select “lockdown”.
(It might apply to other androids too, I don’t know.)
You will now need a pin to unlock the phone. This disables the lock screen shortcut (camera, light, etc) as well.
Why disable your convence features for an scenerio that is not likely and can be quickly and easily be prevented.
Universal: You could also just the tap the sensor with a “wrong” finger a few time, and the pin will be required.
Maybe don’t do this one in front the cops…if you find your self in a postion where they are trying to unlock your phone, you probably don’t want to piss them off. .
Edit: I’m surprised no one called me out on “if you’re ever need to”. The sentence was going to be “if you’re even in a situation that needs…”, but that was getting too long. Forgot to change you’re to you.
The Pixel fingerprint scanner is so bad, you could end up locking it entirely by accident.
Behind-the-screen fingerprint scanners are an abomination.
Not my experience. They are usually instant, but you need a flagship device, of course. Otherwise it’s comparing apples and oranges.
The $1000 price tag on the Pixel tells me it’s a flagship device and yet the scanner is still trash.
But optical scanners just suck in general. I wish they’d bring back the rear sensor, it was so convenient both for unlocking and for having a shortcut to pulling down the notification shade.
On my pixel 6 it is power + Volume Up to access the power menu with lockdown.
I also have a pixel 6 and holding down power also works, though you have to wait a second. Power and volume up is instant.
My power button long press only activates Google assistant, it never pops the power menu. Maybe it’s a setting somewhere.
