By the way, Kevin Rothrock is the host of the podcast ‘The Naked Pravda’ from Meduza, which is one of the main independent news outlets in Russian now—created by former staff of Lenta.ru after that came under ownership of an oligarch and became pro-government. ‘The Naked Pravda’ is in English and serves the audience who would like to know about Russian affairs from people closer to the ground. In fact, it's quite worthy even for those who speak Russian and have other news sources.
As a gentle reminder: after being declared a ‘foreign agent’ and losing risk-averse advertisers, Meduza lives on direct contributions from readers. Given both the devaluation of the ruble and the financial sanctions (as Meduza is not incorporated in Russia), these contributions will likely shrink, and we might lose one of the last outlets with actual good journalism.
> By the way, Kevin Rothrock is the host of the podcast ‘The Naked Pravda’ from Meduza, which is one of the main independent news outlets in Russian now
That's ironic because Meduza is apparently based in Latvia:
Russia is a regime where reporting things that disagree with the official govt line is punishable by 15 years in prison[1]. It is not at all surprising that an independent news outlet reporting on and for Russia would choose to be based in a different, but nearby jurisdiction.
>Russia is a regime where reporting things that disagree with the official govt line is punishable by 15 years in prison.
Yes, sure, in a democratic country it's absolutely impossible that a person reporting things that disagree with the official govt line may spend even a single day in prison.
In the US plenty of news agencies have reported on leaked information that the government wasn’t fond of without being imprisoned. The case with Assange is a bit special as he sought out and helped people steal and release information that they were not permitted to release.
If he made an effort to truly remain separate from the sourcing of information, as most reputable reporting agencies do, then he’d likely not be in prison.
I'm not sure why you worded this in such a combative manner? It is undeniably true that any government comprised of humans will move to conceal or shut-up inconvenient sources of truth that make their actions look bad.
Sure. As well as Snowden and Manning. And anybody else who disagrees with the official govt line. They all are Russian actors. That's how democracy works.
>after being declared a ‘foreign agent’ and losing risk-averse advertisers, Meduza lives on direct contributions from readers.
A covert foreign agent, also known as a secret agent of a foreign government, may in some countries be presumed to be engaging in espionage. Some countries have formal procedures to legalize the activities of foreign agents acting overtly. An example is the 1938 United States law, the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), the governing statute of which contains a wide-ranging and detailed definition of "foreign agent."[1]
Looks like those stupid Russian barbarians are just silly copycats. They have simply stolen everything from their intelligent democratic predecessors.
We've banned this account for using HN primarily for political/ideological/nationalistic battle. That's not allowed here, and we ban accounts that do it, regardless of what they're battling for. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for.
Seems like a really slow, cumbersome technique to monitor people. The one officer was rapidly scrolling looking for who knows what. No one can read or even scan text that fast, so I guess looking for photos?
At the human level there are probably plenty of low-tech techniques to keep yourself safe like deleting messages or using coded language.
It’s sad to watch Russia descend into totalitarianism.
Seems like a really slow, cumbersome technique to monitor people.
On the contrary, this is evil genius. Once the rumour spread that happens, people stop communicating about the war.
At the human level there are probably plenty of low-tech techniques to keep yourself safe like deleting messages or using coded language.
99.9% of the population wont take any risks (e.g. even receiving text messages about the war). They will closely monitor their phone and block anybody who dont do the same.
I would add that multiple aspects of Putin's attack plan for Ukraine relied heavily on its ability to instill fear.
Putin's regime expected Zelenski to flee at the sight of Russia's military at the border, they expected border cities to promptly fold at the sight of Russia's army, they expected Ukraine's army to surrender once Russia's army gained some ground, they expected all NATO and neighboring countries to stay quiet and did nothing when threatened, implicitly or explicitly, by them.
But thankfully their bluff was called, and Putin's regime was exposed as the fascist paper tiger they are.
Russia might be poor, especially now, but most young people have seen using two or more phones. Burner bumdphone is not a difficult concept. Someone needs to drop a stock of old lineageos/android phones in there.
I think we're past the "support" department. He doesn't care any longer and he will probably start cutting off all western influences soon and go back to old Soviet techniques to scare the populace into compliance. He sees the west as "destroying" the superior Russian culture and he's trying to get back to that. You are going to start seeing a lot more people being disappeared in the Soviet Union in the coming months as the West's universal shutting off Russia from the world economy.
Nobody's saying the present US justice system is perfect, but if you seriously think it compares to Stalin's Gulags, or the psychological effects they've had even on people who weren't directly affected, you're unhinged.
Whether Putin can or will create anything comparable is open, but the historical precedent is there. And he has expressed his affection for the Soviet system on many occasions, calling its demise one of the 'greatest tragedies of the 20th century'.
I think the point they were making is, the effects policing (even in a police state) aren't felt uniformly by everyone. A society could throw "almost everyone in jail" and you might not feel it at all.
There has to be some sort of law of the internet that on a long enough timeline the political conversation will converge on modern American politics.
As a non-American that's probably my biggest irritation with the internet. Beyond the inane Facebook arguments, beyond the cesspool of comments on modern news websites, hell even beyond the Youtubers hawking stupid services, I have to say the single most irritating thing about the internet is that someone somewhere is waiting with bated breath to turn the conversation into some diatribe on the state of modern American society and the historical context in which it arose.
The article is about Moscow, not America. If you don't anything to say about Moscow don't feel nervous and start talking about America the one thing you can talk about. Don't sweat it, just sit this one out and let other people talk about the subject at hand. Listen and think about what people are saying about Russia and then the next time there's a conversation about Russia you will have something relevant to say about it.
> There has to be some sort of law of the internet that on a long enough timeline the political conversation will converge on modern American politics.
This does seem to happen a lot, but one might also read it as putting international developments into a local perspective. That's a sensible thing to do, wouldn't you agree?
You are missing the point of the comment entirely. They are trying to bring the statement "everyone being in prison" to a realistic context to better understand what it actually means and what it feels like to live in a place where "everyone is in prison".
They are assuming the commenter is American or at least has an idea of what America is like, which is not a bad assumption to make on an English-language website run by an American company.
This tactic is used by trolls to distract from the real issue. It puts people on the defensive rather than discussing the actual topic. “Whataboutism” at its best.
Sometimes it's not even a troll distracting, sometimes it's a stupid American who can't not talk about his unique experience - you see this often on Reddit, someone from a country will complain about something specific there, and an American will show up to say "that's nothing, here at Whatever, TX, it's even worse/better/bigger/cooler/etc."
It's not always whataboutism, sometimes it's just a comparison.
Americans have this strange habit of expecting their "enemy of the day" to operate under a different standard than they do. These comparisons put things in perspective for people temporarily blinded by jingoism.
The term “whataboutism” is a tell for intellectual laziness at best. Considering multiple particular cases to draw general conclusions is basic ratiocination. You might as well just call the person you’re talking to a “chud” instead and be done with it.
More often than not when I've seen "whataboutism" used here it means "You can't say that (about me), I said it (about you) first!" which is in my opinion, intellectually lazy. There are times when a bad faith whatabout-ist argument is made as a diversionary tactic and they are frustrating, but the original comment[0] we are discussing does not feel like that to me. In fact the comment they were replying to is making the lazy and intellectually lacking argument.
But I'm pretty sure we treat out prisoners better here in America. I seem to remember hearing about how they are actually commuting a lot of sentences to combat prison overcrowding. A land of laws requires some some sort of punishment for criminals.
Whataboutism is whataboutism. We aren't talking about the USA here. I've never been stopped by a cop and asked to look through my phone. I have no fear of that happening.
First, they were looking if the person is subscribed to specific Telegram channels. It is quite easy to quickly scan list of channels looking for specific logos.
Second, it is supposed to intimidate others and force the to unsubscribe from telegram channels that post alternative view on current events. Hence, effectively blocking people from getting info.
Now imagine that all this fear is just a cherry on the relocation cake for an average middle class Russian.
Purchasing two flight tickets out of Russia right now, using rubles that have now devalued 50%, will cost a monthly salary of a senior developer. Booking hotel for two weeks abroad will cost the same. Half of all the flights out were now shut down.
Those who are lucky to still keep their jobs (many people are not) — those are competing the clock as their chances to get out reduce every single minute. People who lost jobs and have no liquid money investments are totally f*d.
I closely know at least two people who have relatives in Ukrain and now have no resources to support them, and they get fear-mongered into submission by new criminal laws and these random border controls.
That's because it's not a technique to monitor people. What's conveniently omitted here is that this was done during the protests (hence the riot gear) that they are trying to stop. While illegal, there is certainly crazier shit you can watch from protests in other countries.
>Seems like a really slow, cumbersome technique to monitor people
I agree. I wonder how many times they found what they're looking for?
Maybe slow and clumsy is part of the goal. It's a deliberate interruption that signals someone is paying attention. They probably have all sorts of classified network capture whatever, but that's not visible. It's the difference between your boss monitoring your email, and your boss sitting down at your desk and scrolling through your email.
Thought the same. Can't they just do NSA-like bulk collection and search, like US does with Xkeyscore? Once you automate it, no need to search phones one by one.
I bet airport security could be sped up too. A stranger sticking their thumbs down your waistband sends very strong message. The more you automate, the less personal the experience becomes.
This is the fight against unauthorized rallies. The majority of Russians support the actions of the police. Russians don't want war, they want guns taken away from their borders.
I'm afraid when Putin is gone (he's not immortal), our "elites" will fall to their knees before the West, begging to get their seized assets back. And they will bring offerings in exchange for that: unilateral demilitarization and nuclear disarmament.
Also, I predict that Russia may be allowed to sell its oil and gas again, but the proceeds will not go to Russia: they will be directed towards rebuilding Ukraine.
I disagree on a technicality, just because I think words should mean something. They haven’t dropped pretensions. They are still pretending there is no war, pretending that everything is fine, pretending that fair elections will be held, …
The propaganda is strong and it’s not clear to me that the veil is becoming more transparent.
I’ve always been fascinated by the lengths authoritarians go to legitimize their actions. When no one is fooled, why do they do it? I would be interested to read a book analyzing the value of authoritarian propaganda.
You would be surprised at how often ridiculous arguments become valid arguments through continuous repetition as the insane arguments start to collect tiny bits and morsels of supporting anecdata over time.
In India, I recall laughing at the so called "love jihad" conspiracy theories that claimed that massive number of Muslim men are conspiring to wed hindu women to convert them to Islam. But now, this is a hot button election topic and anti-miscegenation laws are being passed and married couples are being harrassed and forcibly separated. The marital data contradicts this conspiracy but no one gives a shit.
It's worth noting that anti-semitism in nazi Germany emerged after 1920 on the basis of 2 separate absurd conspiracy theories. Jewish complicity with the allies and racial origin theory around the sunk island of Atlantis. It took only about 10-15 years for this theory to be bought by an entire nation.
People are fooled though. There are people in and outside of Russia who firmly believe the Russian narrative. (If you don't believe that, check the recent manifestations in Serbia)
Not the type of book you asked for, but i can recommend Propaganda by Edward L. Bernays. A hugely influential (series) of book(s).
Orwell talked about the receiving end of such propaganda (link found earlier today on HN):
> The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them. For quite six years the English admirers of Hitler contrived not to learn of the existence of Dachau and Buchenwald. And those who are loudest in denouncing the German concentration camps are often quite unaware, or only very dimly aware, that there are also concentration camps in Russia. Huge events like the Ukraine famine of 1933, involving the deaths of millions of people, have actually escaped the attention of the majority of English russophiles. Many English people have heard almost nothing about the extermination of German and Polish Jews during the present war. Their own antisemitism has caused this vast crime to bounce off their consciousness. In nationalist thought there are facts which are both true and untrue, known and unknown. A known fact may be so unbearable that it is habitually pushed aside and not allowed to enter into logical processes, or on the other hand it may enter into every calculation and yet never be admitted as a fact, even in one’s own mind.
I think the idea is that it strengthens over time and helps to build a sanitized history. When a new generation of people have internalized this national story, then that can then be leveraged by those in power to justify crackdowns and explain away periods of hardship.
In the case of a single party dictatorship, I think it also exists to show party members what the approved line is, which allows local authorities to operate with some degree of autonomy, as long as they can tie it back to the general narrative the leadership wants to promote. This can be used as a way of allowing some degree of variation in governance while still providing the party leadership with plausible deniability if a policy fails (or the ability to claim ownership if it succeeds).
When everybody knows, everybody knows. It doesn't mean anything has to happen or change.
Down here when children break something and the parents ask "Who did that?", they will often reply "It was already like that". With a bad excuse like that everybody knows the children broke it. Strangely enough, almost always the discussion comes to an immediate end with that, except the parents will have a certain smile like "I have been fooled here".
There are sometimes even court cases that are hopelessly lost and this happens. The lawyer is pressured to do anything he can, and comes up with such bizarre stories, that lawyers and judge will know how the situation is.
Some people I know are leaving (though panic is never a good thing). Some told bizarre stories of how they were questioned at the border. And yes, some were asked to unlock and hand over their phones.
Yeah I just read some interviews with Russians fleeing to surrounding countries and they were afraid Putin had lost it and was returning to Soviet era tactics and the complete police state.
Yes and no. If you get too popular or too annoying, a bullet one morning will greet you on your way to work, many cases like that. Or some fabricated case and 10 years of hardcore ural prison.
The borders are open all right, no reason to close them. People opposing the regime are going away, the best possible outcome for dictator. No need to waste a lot of time and manpower on finding dissent if it just disappears on their own. And so population becomes a bit more docile, ignorant or even cooperating.
This was happening in former communist countries too - not everybody who spoke up against the regime went to jail. Some were just thrown to western Europe and forbidden to come back.
You have a weird way to tell history. People behind the iron curtain had no way to go to the west, and everybody wanted to. That is why they closed the borders.
When all young ambitious people leave, your country goes even more to shit than the shit it's already in. Of course they block the borders!
> Totalitarianism is a form of government and political system that prohibits all opposition parties, outlaws individual opposition to the state and its claims, and exercises an extremely high degree of control and regulation over public and private life. It is regarded as the most extreme and complete form of authoritarianism. In totalitarian states, political power is often held by autocrats, such as dictators and absolute monarchs, who employ all-encompassing campaigns in which propaganda is broadcast by state-controlled mass media in order to control the citizenry.[2]
A country can be non-democratic without being totalitarian.
By not being totalitarian. Totalitarianism is the extreme end of the spectrum where the party or individual attempts to control the totality of social, economic and political life. You can have non-democratic forms of government which allow significant social, economic and even political freedom, as long as it's expressed within certain bounds. Modern day China being a good example. Mao's China however was avowedly totalitarian and probably the second most extreme expression of totalitarianism there's ever been, after Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. Is Putin's Russia totalitarian? Not yet, but it's certainly heading that way.
It seems like a valid distinction, but I do not agree with it.
If what you are doing does not bother the government you may be able to say "see, it is not that bad, they are not telling me what to do in the totality of social, economic and political life"; if, on the other side, you do something they disagree with, the distinction between totalitarism and non-democracy disappears.
In other words, to me the difference between being able to control and attempt to control are not that different. If it is possible, eventually somebody will attempt it. This is where checks and controls, division of power, etc. are useful.
They still have some personal freedom to do things. I think that will start changing soon as Russia (well Putin) has decided to become and International pariah and return to Soviet era tactics and politics. I'm not sure Putin even cares how much of the population supports him any longer. I think he is rather fond of fear tactics and the old Soviet police state where neighbors spied on and reported on neighbors.
Does China have a law against mentioning Tiananmen? Ah yes, there is no need for it, because no one knows and those who know do not dare speak. That's what totalitarianism is.
Besides, focusing on the word 'war' is a straw man. You want the discussion to refocus on it without considering whether my point would stand had the word not been used. Here it is, slightly expanded: there is independent and oppositional media that honestly criticizes the government, tirelessly points out that elections are invalid, etc. It legally operates offline and online. Is that possible with your definition of totalitarianism?
The use of “war” to describe the situation in Ukraine is not a straw man. Words mean things. How we discuss things informs our overall thoughts on the matter, this guiding our action or inaction.
What's your point? That because Russia has allowed various freedoms and the severe stifling of them over the past two weeks has a lot farther it could potentially go? And therefore "totalitarian" is an unfair judgment as long as a government hasn't yet stifled all the freedoms that they could?
If focusing on the word "war" is a straw-man (which it isn't), then what's with you spending this whole thread being concerned with the word "totalitarianism"?
If (I assume this is a big if) we accept the reporting of many international reports over the past week or so, then your claim about independent and oppositional media operating freely/fairly/online/offline and legally is basically bullshit. The story as I understand it is that Putin long ago decided that allowing some space (with some influencing and limitations) for oppositional media was a good thing that supported his claims about the system being fair. But it was always a choice of his to allow it, a politically strategic decision. And he had ways of keeping its influence constrained. But he doesn't now feel that it's okay with the current war, so that's that.
My point is that Russia is not a totalitarian country, unless you stretch the definition of the word to accommodate your personal belief not founded in reality.
You say 'allowing freedoms' as if it is not exactly what makes a difference between totalitarianism and not.
You can take it for what you will and call me a liar but I know what I am talking about. Equipment seizures and office searches are a threat but then they were happening for years already, the editor in chief was jailed at least once and is basically on the run -- but the newspaper still has the license, operates and is popular in the region (well, among those who read newspapers) and its site is alive and well (hosted outside Russia, probably). I know people who work there officially and saw photos of the latest issue.
I have seen democratic countries, I have seen totalitarian countries, I have seen Russia. I have no emotional attachment to Russia and it is at the very bottom of the list of where I might choose to live, but it is not totalitarian yet. Economist's Democracy Index concurs, Wikipedia's definition of totalitarianism concurs. You may be living in your own world (or a world created by the propaganda in the media you consume, which is probably weaker than Russian propaganda but still, sorry to break it to you, exists).
I agree that Russia isn't a quintessential example of "totalitarian". At some level, this can be just about clarifying semantics. But when I pointed out the new law criminalizing journalism that criticizes the current war, you pushed back on that. You gave an emphasis toward the other direction. So, that seemed more arguing about the nature of the situation and not just semantics.
I'm not calling you a liar.
I also myself wasn't the one who brought up "totalitarian" but instead was just pushing back on the dismissal of it.
My impression is that there's a new fuzzy authoritarianism that Putin has developed where a government with few reliable checks on totalitarianism chooses to have a lot of democratic-theater that includes real stuff. Like a Reality TV show, it's not actually all scripted, it's not all actors, and they allow real sincere opposition to do and say things, but it's all within the directors of the show deciding how much natural stuff to allow or even encourage in order to keep up the public view of the legitimacy of their government. It's like an intentional non-totalitarianism out of an understanding of the brittleness of actual totalitarianism, and they just take care that things are controlled and limited just enough that it actually maximizes the power of the non-totalitarian government.
So, it ends up being a question of "totalitarian" for real versus "might as well be totalitarian where it counts", and I'm NOT asserting even that I'm sure Russia is even the latter, but I'm rejecting the strength of the assertions about freedom of the press and other things used as evidence of non-totalitarianism.
And anyway, I agree completely about the propaganda in the rest of the world. I have no illusions about any of that, and I don't think the U.S. or EU are really democratic. We can see quite blatantly that policies have very little correlation to overall public support but instead correlate only to the support of the wealthy.
"Might as well be totalitarian where it counts" may be an OK description. I was objecting specifically to blanket statements which make a disservice to democracy through black-and-white thinking, ignoring semantic distinctions and applying double standards.
My impression from within the country was not that it is totalitarian and scripted to maintain appearances of freedom, but rather that it is somewhere between not nearly well organized enough on one hand and trying to maintain popularity among citizenry that is to large degree independently thinking and with fresh memories of repressions of USSR on the other -- with the result being a regime that is meaningfully not totalitarian.
The recent laws may be pushing it towards the definition of totalitarianism; however, I also resist the notion that a few days are enough to radically change this type of taxonomy, absent a revolution taking place. We are yet to see how these laws are applied, whether they continue to exist for a period of time, etc. If the officially registered and licensed
independent newspaper that I know of will legally cease to exist, for example, I may review my position. If we have (heavens forbid) a Tiananmen, I may review my position. If we experience the feared Internet shutdown at the initiative of Russian government, I may review my position.
That all makes sense and is a thoughtful response, thanks.
Now, I had the impression that the lack of such laws before was effectively at the whim of Putin in practice. Like, the moment he felt such more-totalitarian laws were in his interest, he could have them. There's no effective checks-and-balances that would stop him. So, press freedoms and so on were at his pleasure so to speak, even though I acknowledge that they are real to a degree.
> Disinformation and propaganda works differently in Putin’s Russia than it did during the Soviet Union. Instead of tamping down the opposition, the Russian government works to control the opposition.
Focus on Vladislav Surkov
> instead of tamping down the opposition like the old days, Surkov built a new system where there was opposition, but he dictated what the opposition stood for. You do not allow political parties to create their own agendas. You just write these agendas for them. … He also decided that he cannot allow any grassroot activities which would not be vetted by Kremlin. So he decided that he will create also youth movements and write agenda for them. … In 2004, Vladimir Putin decided that governors shouldn't be elected anymore. They should be appointed by him. It's a long story. But at first, every other political party besides Putin's was against the idea, genuinely against it. But then Surkov manipulated them over to his side. It helped that he controlled their funding and the number of seats they got in the Duma.… And then the parties went through this whole drawn-out public drama, which had all the trappings of democracy. The bill was submitted. There were arguments for and against it, protests around the country. People announce they've changed their minds. There were several votes. And finally, after three months, it passes. All of this, Vasily says, was scripted by Surkov's people.
So I don't independently know this to be true, but this looks to me like effective pseudo- totalitarianism-light. A government that finds they can have power by avoiding looking or acting totalitarian but which reliably can make the situation be whatever they want it to be. I don't know what to call this, but it's not the opposite of totalitarian, it's not non-totalitarian. And it seems like it can just switch to regular totalitarianism if those in power so choose it.
But following this line we might find ourselves in a precarious position where we must admit that any democracy liable to being peacefully, insidiously manipulated by a minority through various means may fit this description.
We open ourselves to an argument by an anti-west person who would say that capitalism is a pseudo-totalitarianism by that measure because the Bezoses and the top .001% lobby lawmakers and manipulate mass media (that they own) to make people believe whatever furthers .001%'s personal agenda.
I disagree with that position, thus I apply a different criteria. Whether people can think freely, whether people can protest, access free media (yes, there is no longer Twitter, but many others left), disagree with the government, etc.
Have I not been in China somewhat recently, I might not have objected. But I saw how on Beijing airport transit rail there is a social advert basically showing a caricature of the rotten, corrupt West against the goodness of communism. A screen in every car playing it on a loop. This type of blatant conditioning is simply unimaginable in Russia.
So in my eyes there is a gradient, and observing the gradient is important to the cause. Not observing it is giving in to such black-and-white unthinking that is precisely the bread and butter of totalitarianism.
---
I accept that there may be a communication objective where you want to hit a person with a strong statement to make them think. "You are living in a totalitarian country." Maybe they would be taken aback and reevaluate their life through this new lens. But I don't have the intuition that this is an effective approach. Hopefully they don't have China or North Korea to compare to.
Well, I happen to believe that capitalism at its worst does veer on pseudo-totalitarianism. I think the anti-West critics are mostly correct in their criticism even while they are typically wrong in their defenses/apologies for situations in Russia or China. They play a biased game where they focus on the failings elsewhere and the successes on their side instead of giving a fair critique all around.
Freedoms to think freely, protest, have free media, these things are deeply and profoundly important. But so is real economic democracy. China has neither, the U.S. has the former freedoms but a very crappy practically-absent economic democracy. By economic democracy, I don't mean dogmatic libertarian laissez-faire free markets (though that would be better than corrupt markets with regulatory capture dictated by monopolists). I mean where regular citizens have the whole combo of informed power to set economic policy rather than have it dictated to them by the elite. Stuff like participatory-budgeting.
Anyway, I'm just saying that my critique and concerns about Russia have NO connection to any defense of the West, though I will readily give credit wherever it is due for the things that are good and fair, which the West has some of.
And yes, I agree completely that just giving blunt labels is not a helpful way to discuss things with anyone. The tact we need is to be interested in people's views enough that we can describe them and have people say "that's right, that's my view" and only from there can we start discussing where and why our views differ.
With the caveats that I can’t make a good judgment about a foreign country just from the news, that I have no training in political science or law, and that linguistic treadmills make it easy to lose track of how strong a word is from one year to the next…
One can have greater and lesser forms of a thing, and “totalitarianism” does not need to be a boolean — worse forms of it don’t need to be rendered termless by lesser forms.
> You can publish news and analysis that denounce the government and call for it to stop the war. You can go on the streets and protest your own government without fear of being flattened by tanks.
Except you can’t. If you call it a war, you risk 15 years prison sentence. Protests must be previously approved by the government, which isn’t happening and thus why they’re arresting people.
They are heading straight to totalitarianism, yes. But up until few days ago they were not there yet. They were (may be still technically are) authoritarian to a various degree.
then there came various confirmations lately by IT people that they could not buy tickets (eg to Dubai or Egypt) anymore, and had to leave via Georgia on the landline.
You can safely assume that those that are leaving right now are abandoning their lives behind them and will try to rebuild somewhere else. These are not holiday goers.
It is likely to be a significant number, and recent events will heighten a problem that has been in motion since the breakup of the Soviet union and, leter, EU and NATO expansion. A lot of Russians want to be European.
I’d say this signals intent, but reeks of incompetence, a lack of preparation, a lack of capability, and desperation. I’d say overall this is a good sign. They aren’t able to effectively engage in mass surveillance and round up dissidents en masse.
This is also the finest example of the shortcomings of biometric security I’ve seen: all they need is part of your body, and it’s a password you can never change.
This video itself is likely meant for Russian consumption. The Russian government doesn't need it to be 100% effective, it's far easier if people get scared and self censor, refraining from mentioning anything about the war, knowing in the back of their heads that this could happen to them at anytime.
While them not being able to just use your face or fingerprint makes it harder for them to just unlock your phone, when you consider that what they're doing is already illegal, are you really willing to suffer the potentially highly unpleasant consequences for not unlocking the phone for them?
So unless you're someone prepared to suffer potential consequences for making a stand on principle, using a password instead of biometric access is probably not going to change the outcome here.
For those prepared to make such sacrifices, yes, pay attention to operational security such as not using biometrics.
It's kind of sad how unpopular this feature is, because it's great for those "lend me your phone real quick" scenarios. You can add a "guest mode" button to your lock screen on many (most?) Android phones to create a throwaway user account.
That said, the cops will probably not take a smartphone without contents at face value. You've got to add some realistic enough (fake?) texts at least, or be careful to only communicate about protests, homosexuality and other banned subjects through your alternative user account.
Unless you have something to hide, trying to mislead armed officers of an authoritarian regime this way may not be advisable. They'd probably be fooled by simply carrying around a second phone, though, because most people only carry around a single phone. Do your revolutionary talk through an old banged-up second hand device, and talk about other stuff using your fancy phone.
to people asking how police chooses to arrest / inspect people:
police arrests you if you try to be a "leader" - shouting, organizing others, or if you have a poster, or stand out in some other way. If there are no such people they arrest at random to keep everyone scared.
They also do this in airports, to people flying out of the country (e.g. to Armenia, which is an extremely popular destination among IT people right now).
Their approach is working. We've configured our "watercooler" chat to auto-delete messages after 24 hours, and deleted all history.
I didn't comb through my private messages yet, but that increasingly seems like a good idea.
In a complete different tangent. In Bangalore and Hyderbad, two metros in India. Traffic police stop people on bikes, pedestrians, cars and harass the people to unlock their phone and see their whatsapp chat and search in weed, ganja so that anything related to it shows up and they can impose a hefty fine. Acab.
They are also checking phones of people leaving Russia. Even as of four days ago my friend had her phone taken for almost 90 minutes. She did get through eventually and wasn't stopped. She cleared most of her messages and browser history, deleted VPN apps, and general stuff, but didn't fully reset the phone.
This was via flight, I'm not even sure there are international flights still available as of today though. Is it still possible to fly out of Russia right now?
That’s examination when crossing the border and you’ve given them cause to suspect you’re breaking the law; and is done with wifi turned off so that they aren’t reading your social media, email, etc. They are typically looking for evidence of child sexual abuse, money laundering, undeclared goods, and false identification. About 1 out of 10000 travellers have their device examined and of those, about a third turn up evidence of illegal activity. So bottom line, not at all comparable to what’s going down in Russia.
It is not unreasonable search and seizure. It is bog-standard border control no different than having your suitcase searched when a sniffer detects contraband, or when your nervousness alerts the border officer that you’re lying to them about something.
No government will just let you waltz on through when they have even the slightest suspicion that you’re doing something illegal. It’s daft to expect otherwise, just plain dumbassery to even suggest it.
I wonder when our Operating systems get some kind of „dual boot“ mode which can be used up hide private info, while being undetectable by even more than cursory examination.
Android phones can implement multiple user profiles at OS level, and these can at least provide security against cursory visual inspection.
Ideally you'd use credential derived encryption for each user's storage area on the device, and avoid leaking the number of profiles on the device. The UX for that is "hard" - even a single login screen that (with a naive implementation) accepts 1 of N PINs would be vulnerable to a timing attack as the PIN is tested against each "profile".
There's a few gotchas around carrier services like SMS and voice calls (do these go only to the main user account?), but maybe in future you could see an eSIM per profile... Doesn't protect you against a colluding mobile operator though - ultimately it all comes down to your threat model.
Not even dual boot.
Just depending on the password/pattern entered, log in as a different user. It's possible to do in Android as an app. I've been meaning to write one, but it seems like lots of work and upkeep.
What you describe might be almost achievable using Android work mode, and an open source tool like Island - you can have a second instance of apps (like WhatsApp or signal or telegram) independent of the first instance, and you can turn work mode off if needed.
If your adversary knows about work mode though and checks if it's available, this won't help you much.
I've been daily driving the Pinephone Pro and other then super sort battery life because no support for suspend yet (~3 hours) its been great! Actually usable and quite a bit of fun. Not recommended to anyone who's not fully confortable installing their own linux distros and using workarounds, though. The future you dream of is coming!
If you can get one! I preordered in 2018 and haven't gotten mine yet, while for approximately the same amount of money and less time I have also ordered, received, and used 3 different Pinephone editions.
Apps that may have sensitive information could have a dual-mode: if you open the app, you only see your "public" content, and if you do some gesture that you configured (like drawing some shape on the screen but without a "lock screen"), you see the full contents.
Doubtful it will ever come as a standard. Mainstream operating systems are developed in US and things aren't that bad there. And when they start to become that bad there will be legislation to prevent such features.
Androids support multiple users and encrypted storage. Or you can reset your phone and restore it from cloud storage. Or use your second finger for biometric unlock, and lock up the phone on failing with your index finger.
I would dare to say this can backfire because it means they're losing control and are forced to exercise repression in sunlight, which will further fuel discontent among Russian people.
This is not surprising. What is more worrying are all of the people in the US(and a large part of the west) who seem to think that communism and the Russian revolution are great things while actively supporting the eroding of our rights. For example, no due process, Mob justice etc. etc. etc.. This is a glimpse into our own future in the west if we don't actively push against totalitarianism in all forms, not just when it benefits us. (edited to correct spelling)
We now need Apple and Google to add a feature to their respective mobile operating systems that allows two different passcodes to open two different profiles on the same phone.
That way you can give nice Officer Dibble here your sanitized passcode and he can see all the messages to your Grandma, photos of that cute puppy you downloaded from Unsplash, and your latest Candy Crush high score, and not the Signal and Telegram apps you have open to your friends in Ukraine.
> We now need Apple and Google to add a feature to their respective mobile operating systems that allows two different passcodes to open two different profiles on the same phone.
This seems like the inverse of the Doomsday machine - once anyone knows about it, it's useless.
If I know I'm going to leave the country, I'll back up my phone to Google Drive (or wherever), factory reset my phone, and leave nothing for the investigators. If they'd kept this surveillance under wraps, they might have found something. Now, everyone knows to clear their phone before crossing the border (and the ones who don't know probably don't have anything worth finding on their phones).
Of course, this could just be a tactic to increase queue times at the border.
Then you could email the data to a foreign friend. Hell, you could encrypt it and post it on a file sharing website. It’s pretty trivial to store smallish data like this these days.
The military is away.
The cops will be tired of doing this kind of silly and obviously pointless job very soon.
Seems like a good time for the Green revolution? Would it have the same tangible support from the West as the Orange revolution had, or will the West be afraid of angering CCP with what Xi might consider a coup in his newest satellite state?
Well thats one easy way to alienate the police - they will have most knowledge about actual events in ukraine and i bet many have family and friends there. This might backfire on putinists.
Isn't there some sort of tooling that can be used in these situations? Like a "public search mode" app that encrypts your data but makes the phone look clean otherwise?
I guess you've never bought touch-screen-compatible gloves… they are the norm now, even cheap gloves from a dollar-store as well as higher end ones. It needs to have material that is conductive.
"Furiously" probably because the touch input is not as reliable, but it does work. Modern touchscreens are quite good, I was surprised at how well the work through various fabric.
> AFAICS non-circumventable ephemeral messages is incompatible with user-controlled system.
Unless the ephemeral part refers to the user's own side of the conversation, i.e., delete messages from my history some time after I read them. Together with a secure storage that prevents messages from being easily recovered from memory dumps, this protects the user in scenarios of devices being captured by the adversary, exactly like this one.
AFAIK is what Signal advertises for it's timed messages; Telegram, OTOH, advertises its self-destructing messages as something magical that works even for the other side.
While I’m super opposed to this, people from the West and especially Americans shouldn’t forget that the NYPD has for years used programs like Stop and Frisk [0] and subway bag searches [1] that were seen as valid crime/terrorism fighting policies. The idea that the state shouldn’t randomly stop people to search them has been and still is strongly supported by a decent chunk of the population.
You cannot compare these two levels of violence. Or if you compare them you should add a [fractal] distance between them.
There are a lot of issues in USA (and many other countries around the world!) But here you can see that the world doesn't know how to respond to one country attacking a neighbour in another continent in XXI. Which is very concerning taking into account we are in a world with very advanced (and expensive) weaponry and bureaucrats who just warm their seats.
It is obviously not enough to tweet or TikTok... all the respect to HN where we learn, and have great and deep discussions oriented to action, even if they are oriented mainly to startups. Startups are just an example of confronting and transforming realities.
> You cannot compare these two levels of violence. Or if you compare them you should add a [fractal] distance between them.
> There are a lot of issues in USA
Why can't you compare? A number of people in minority communities are concerned that US stop-and-frisk stops are used to incarcerate them, kill them, or rob from them. What is the difference?
> You cannot compare these two levels of violence.
The comparison is between two things, the police forcing you to give them access your phone for no explicit reason, or the police forcing you to allow them to physically and invasively search your whole body for no explicit reason. You are conflating that comparison with a bunch of other things happening external to the specific actions the police are allowed to do.
The reasons why both are happening doesn't mean you can't objectively compare whether what the police are doing is acceptable outside of the larger situation that is causing them to do it. The question is if one seems unacceptable, shouldn't the other be too? If you want to talk about levels of violence between these two, stop and frisk certainly seems to be something closer to approaching physical violence, or at least the greater potential for it, then searching your phone.
Your argument is completely valid except there is a missing [postmodern?] point at a meta level: you are changing the focus of a terrible event that should be solved at a global scale to an event that could be handled at a local scale, AND in US it should be much simpler than in Russia.
In US you have a lot of ways you can do that and I am always amazed that the US democracy is failing at a basic level when I compare with righteous US people who achieved amazing stuff in the US past. If you don't show your mobile founds you can protect you by the law.
In Russia there are much fewer options and civilians are risking their life at an amazing level. Law does not exist.
So how can the people who are targeted - mostly minorities - use “Democracy” when the majority either doesn’t care about the mistreatment of minorities or even cheerlead it? Not to mention that politicians are afraid of blowback from police unions and the majority who support them since people don’t get stopped for “driving while White”.
I don't have the answer but I think there are enough creative people in US to find it and advance the state of the art in politics. Event if it is not in US it can happen anywhere.
I also think that the statement "software is eating the world" have not touch politics enough but will happen. Not talking about FB and social media in general.
You can legally refuse a subway bag search, leave and enter the subway through another entrance. I've done so a few times, and the officers just roll their eyes and act like you're being unreasonable.
Stop and Frisk was a TERRIBLE rights violation though and we should never bring it back.
I'm not acting like anything. Stop and Frisk as a policy of NYC was ended by the last mayor. I believe I describe it as "a TERRIBLE rights violation". Why would you think I'm minimizing anything similar?
I'm pretty familiar with those numbers, I'm not sure what you're getting at here.
In so far as that arrest disparity is above and beyond the difference in 911 call volume, it needs serious scrutiny. We absolutely need to keep reforming the way we do policing here. We have a serious problem of simultaneously over and under policing some neighborhoods. I don't have much faith in Adams on this, but I think public sentiment has shifted a lot in the last 3 years, so hopefully some progress can be made.
They have though. The NYT article points out that stops and arrests are WAY down, and we’ve done away with cash bail for a lot of offenses. Those are. If material differences, real progress.
What does the reason the police are doing it for matter? Isn't either action an egregious violation of privacy? Sometimes society has allowed these things for emergency reasons, but stop and frisk was a program that was instituted for many many years. I can't understand how you can view the forced cell phone search as a clear violation of rights but defend stop and frisk, other than one is happening in evil Russia and the other happened in the US.
People talk about stop and frisk in such an abstract sense, because it happened in poor minority neighborhoods, so most people talking about didn't have to go through. Imagine strangers being able to legally frisk your whole body for no apparent reason. It is such a huge violation of personal space and privacy and it's so demeaning, especially when you know it's being specifically targeted at your community.
Stop and frisking for guns is not getting into a thought crime type situation where what you say, are writing matters.
Asking to reviews your phone is.
One is a much more serious invasion of privacy in my view.
This is clear generally. We ALREADY walk through metal detectors at airports. We walk through body scanners. We do NOT expect to have to turn over our phones (unless going through a country border perhaps and if I expected it I'd just have a blank phone for that).
So we have already made the distinction here and it's not unreasonable (even if you don't agree that removing an assault weapon from a felon with a restraining order is different from going through someone's phone messages).
Are you claiming that when the Russian cop asks if he can see your phone, he says "Excuse me, this is to reduce dissent over an invasion of a foreign country?"
The difference I see is that for the US case you accept the stated purpose ('reduce gun crime') and ignore the outcome as felt by the person on the receiving end, and for Russia, you reverse these.
These are different levels of privacy invasion, at least in the US.
Going through a phone to check what you are thinking / saying is seen as more intrusive. So even in a stop and frisk, going through someone's phone would not generally be justified.
The rules here are very clear. In particular, even in a terry stop police generally are not authorized to seize / search your cell phone. But they can pat down your outer clothing for weapons.
That's how it works with most things. If you ride somewhere with a tank and shoot at something, it makes a difference if you're "defending your country" vs "invading".
If you shoot at someone, it makes a difference if your goal is to stop him from shooting you, or if you're trying to kill him to steal his car.
Ends justify means. Though ends need to be justified, too.
Stop and frisk was so controversial it was ended by popular demand. One upside of America is that privacy invading policies have a way of correcting themselves if the electorate is sufficiently outraged. The proposed changes to Section 230 being shut down are another example of the powers that be not ruling absolutely.
This kind of behavior shouldn’t be surprising in places and situations where freedoms and rights either don’t exist or aren’t respected by the authorities.
Just a few months ago, the police in the city of Hyderabad, India (where companies like Google and Microsoft have a large presence) were stopping and searching people’s phones to check for messages related to drugs on WhatsApp. This was their way of addressing drug trades, and even one of the top officials said that it’s not illegal when people cooperate and hand over their phones. [1]
If you’re on the streets and the police stop you in such places, you’d be better off unlocking and handing over your phone. People spoiled by western TV shows may talk about probably cause, privacy, rights etc. (which may exist on paper in these places too), but you’d be in a lot of trouble if you’re not very rich and know powerful people. These checks can also take an ethnic or other angle where only certain people are stopped.
I’m not saying that everybody should turn over their phones and that it’s futile to fight, but there are no instant solutions for such issues for many people.
I was asked this in London in 2016 outside Embankment tube. I declined and impolitely suggested that the officer should piss off or arrest me. He didn’t take the matter any further after eyeing up the probability that I’d sue them.
The point is really that a lot of people are intimidated and compliant and will hand a device over when requested. This is never a good thing. Even if you’re legitimately a victim, you shouldn’t even let them at your stuff.
>The point is really that a lot of people are intimidated and compliant and will hand a device over when requested. This is never a good thing. Even if you’re legitimately a victim, you shouldn’t even let them at your stuff.
That's addressed by the OP
>People spoiled by western TV shows may talk about probably cause, privacy, rights etc. (which may exist on paper in these places too), but you’d be in a lot of trouble if you’re not very rich and know powerful people. These checks can also take an ethnic or other angle where only certain people are stopped.
There's a strong legal system (eg. due process, habeas corpus) that protects you in uk. No such system exists in Russia. Similarly, if you tried pulling this in china, and you're a Uyghur, that's just going to end up with you in a reeducation camp.
> There's a strong legal system (eg. due process, habeas corpus) that protects you in uk
Sometimes the authorities appear to have the law on their side, examples included people detained under the Terrorism Act(s)[0] and those who are singled out by the police under "stop and search" powers[1]
> The point is really that a lot of people are intimidated and compliant and will hand a device over when requested. This is never a good thing. Even if you’re legitimately a victim, you shouldn’t even let them at your stuff.
Did you read the parents comment? Resistance might work in the UK but in places like India, unless you’re well connected the police can make your life miserable.
The U.K. isn’t “such places”. There are plenty of places where the cops are so indemnified and corrupt that it’d make your head spin. You have little choice but to go with the shakedown (it’s often a bribe they want), unless you are prepared to go to jail and face unknown consequences on a point of principle.
I’ve been there, I’ve done that, I keep a €50 in my passport when travelling in those parts, it’s acceptable identification if it’s what they’re after, if it isn’t, it was in there accidentally.
yeah bribes are very common and still quite dangerous, if they think you have more to offer you may find yourself with an after-hours follow-up visit… after one bad experience I try to have a decoy answer available to the “where are you staying” question.
I would only do that if I had something on my phone that carries heavier punishment than bribing an officer.
I think it’s a mistake to think that as a foreigner you can just do as the locals do when it comes to bribery. It could end very badly. Doing it to avoid some inconvenience is a bad idea.
What you have on your phone is likely immaterial in the equation - the mindset is one of sunk costs - once they’ve stopped you for a search, they’ll want to have something to show for their time - either to bring you in, or a bribe. You absolutely have to read the situation, and gauge how it’s likely to go down. I can tell you that in Russia, 95% of the time a bribe is wanted. The other 5%, usually greenhorns, you just work up their chain of command until you find the guy who will take the bribe. I’ve been frogmarched to a cop shop in Bishkek by an excited rookie who caught a foreigner smoking a cigarette, only to end up being given a name to drop for future occasions by his commandant after giving him €100 for a birthday gift for his daughter. Whole thing was ridiculous.
It’s also worth noting that if you are an obvious foreigner, you will be a bribe magnet, and will be accosted only in the hope of a bribe.
It’s not so much about avoiding inconvenience, it’s about moving freely in a police state.
I recently had a passport check within Schengen that wasn't on list of temporary exceptions [1]. I did not have it in me to say no even when I knew it was very likely illegal. I might not have gotten officially arrested, but they would have likely taken me off the train and thus having to buy a new ticket and lose 2 hours of my day.
In many European continental law countries - notably France but many others, you can be asked to present a national identification card (or passport, if foreign) by police/government security at any time and are expected to be able to comply. This is independent of Schengen or border control - it also applies to residents of the country going about their normal business.
This was Germany, where the same is true. However it's not allowed to use that as a stand-in for a border control. European Regulation is quite explicit on internal Schengen borders:
> 23(a) the exercise of police powers by the competent authorities of the Member States under national law, insofar as the exercise of those powers does not have an effect equivalent to border checks; that shall also apply in border areas. Within the meaning of the first sentence, the exercise of police powers may not, in particular, be considered equivalent to the exercise of border checks when the police measures:
> (i) do not have border control as an objective;
> (ii) are based on general police information and experience regarding possible threats to public security and aim, in particular, to combat cross-border crime;
> (iii) are devised and executed in a manner clearly distinct from systematic checks on persons at the external borders;
> (iv) are carried out on the basis of spot-checks;
This check likely broke both 23(a)(i) and 23(a)(iii), as at the first train stop past the border everyone was asked to present ID.
[1] Regulation (EU) 2016/399 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 March 2016 on a Union Code on the rules governing the movement of persons across borders (Schengen Borders Code)
What you've described may not necessarily be the "equivalent to the exercise of border checks".
That depends on what would have happened had you not complied. In France if you are unable to produce an acceptable ID, you're taken to a police station where you're held until your identity is established. Once established, you'd have been allowed to go your way.
It would only constitute "the exercise of border checks" if the response to your non-compliance was to escort you back to the country where you boarded the train.
I'd be surprised if that's what generally happens. One instance I observed on a train going through Switzerland involved an English-speaking student. It took a while but after some discussion and the police making a few phone calls seemingly to their satisfaction, warning her to carry appropriate ID in future.
>It would only constitute "the exercise of border checks" if the response to your non-compliance was to escort you back to the country where you boarded the train.
Not true according to the regulation:
> ‘border control’ means the activity carried out at a border, in accordance with and for the purposes of this Regulation, in response exclusively to an intention to cross or the act of crossing that border, regardless of any other consideration, consisting of border checks and border surveillance;
Note, it covers "response to crossing a border" and includes "border surveillance".
edit:
For full context:
> ‘border checks’ means the checks carried out at border crossing points, to ensure that persons, including their means of transport and the objects in their possession, may be authorised to enter the territory of the Member States or authorised to leave it;
> ‘border surveillance’ means the surveillance of borders between border crossing points and the surveillance of border crossing points outside the fixed opening hours, in order to prevent persons from circumventing border checks;
The implication isn't that you personally don't deserve them, but rather that any rights you think you deserve if you're not willing to stand up for them will likely be taken from you in time.
Happened to my wife’s close friend as she crossed the border. They found years-old texts between her and her ex-bf joking about marrying for a green card and she was denied entry into the US and given a 10 year ban for immigration fraud even tho she had been living there under H1B (which was close to expiring) and had to fly back to her home country with just the clothes in her suitcase. Her sister who was a citizen had to sell all her things for her. It was a disaster.
To be clear this is about going through customs as you enter the country through an airport, not domestic flights. I’m not sure if that organization falls under tsa or not.
Given that the only TSA reference in that article also mentions the Bush administration, I would hope there is more up to date information now. I wonder why EFF has not updated a top level issue page in so long.
The article may not mention the TSA by names but if you were in doubt about the entities that you could encounter at the US border then probably the article wasn't meant for you anyway.
Maybe the parent poster means US Customs and Border protection? That’s different from the TSA which could potentially search you leaving the country, or on internal flights.
Fair enough, for travelers the distinction is useful so let's spell it out: TSA: the guys that mess around in your luggage, make you throw away your water so you can buy new bottles at 5x the price as well as your nailclippers. CBP: the guys that check your passport and possibly your fingerprint, take your picture and invade your privacy as much as they feel like.
Both of these can be found at US airports with international flights(and most countries have equivalents). Going on an international trip you will encounter both, for a domestic flight you will only deal with the TSA.
The EFF article is aimed exclusively at people crossing the border so it about the CBP, not about the TSA. If you never leave the USA or never travel to it then you will encounter none of this.
Went to secondary to get more information on my trip, then just routinely searched my bags and electric devices. I was allowed into the country after they got more information.
Nah, he’s a US citizen that understands the TSA is the entity that handles security for flight boarding, and has no relationship with ICE handling security at the border. Some other people in this thread seem to be okay conflating the two, but I’m not sure that’s very helpful —- everyone knows that border controls for all countries are massively more strict that controls for domestic travel.
Isn't that a step that has to take place on the paired laptop?
Earlier the article says
> This setting controls when someone can remove the profile from within the phone itself. If it’s left as the default value of “Always” then anyone with access to your unlocked phone could remove the pair lock (which would defeat the entire purpose). You can either set it to Never to never allow removing the profile, or With Authorization and set a password to allow removing the profile with the given password (this might be useful to remove the pairing restriction if you do lose access to your laptop).
Maybe this is different from country to country but when I open the ESA Website it says that this is an optional question that might become mandatory in the future.
I think at the moment there is the soft problem of delays in results or potential rejection for unknown reasons. You also don't have to tell them who you're staying with either but a rejection can be pretty devastating so there is a strong incentive to give more than what is explicitly required. It was clear such encroachments on civil liberates were coming so I've never done anything on my social accounts that would upset the establishment, so even in my own case it has had a chilling effect.
If my memory serves me right, it was mandatory to mention the first address I went to, but social media was clearly marked as optional. I put GitHub, it worked fine.
Throwaway account, but this is very much like the "member of the Nazi party" question: of no practical value (border guards don't know the entire Nazi membership archive by heart, of course) unless they need to throw the book at you for some other perceived slight (i.e. involved in some political protest that is not an actual crime? HE LIED ON ENTRY FORM, IMMEDIATE EXPULSION!).
So if you don't plan to commit crimes or otherwise confront the authorities, you can leave that blank, or use throwaways. Just don't give your real info, because they will use it to analyse you for real.
A few years ago I ordered some items from a small online shop located in an east-of-central European country. A few days before I received the package I noticed that one of the recent searches on my linkedin account was from someone in that country's customs office. Not sure if they were bored and curious or working through their customs protocol.
The fact that you asked rather than shared a link or something, combined with the fact that most of the replies seem to not even comprehend the differences between the TSA and CBP/ICE makes me suspect this is a bunch of bs.
I'm not American and haven't been there in 38 years and I'm not a cyborg plugged into the internet with infinite, instant recall, but a cursory Google informs me that I'm not entirely delusional (/or a foreign agent spreading misinformation), as this was indeed a cause of concern about 8 years ago:
War torn Russia, India?! In 2021 I was stopped by criminal police in Germany and they demanded to unlock all my smartphones, then dedicated personnel arriving in separate car browsed each of them. Once they discovered that I have multiple smartphones on me they went nuts and were certain I'm their target. Apparently transiting through Germany by car and stopping during the night in center of one major city associated me with some criminal group active nearby. I knew that had I refused, they'd virtually confiscate all devices. After all they refused to identify themselves. Screw you Kriminalpolizei Dummkopfs, you wasted your useless time and resources on me.
you simply cannot refuse. i have tried that and have marks on my back to prove it. you hold your head down while a dumb illiterate Sepoy goes through your phone and there is absolutely nothing you can do. don't try to act smart because they will see that as a sign that your are their enemy and by that point, your goose is cooked. they label you a terrorist and jail you sans recourse.
there are 12 year olds who are in jail for "waging war against india" and the circumstances are not much different. there is a concept of "preventive detention" whereby the police and the security aparatus is authorised to arrest and hold you behind bars BEFORE you commit a crime or even if they think you might or had but they have no evidence of it and they can still get you. no habeas corpus, no hearings, no chargesheets, no trial. you are condemned unheard and the judiciary can all but cheer for the police.
Are you just living in the "second OS"? Meaning you don't actually use your phone while you are outside? Or are you going to just casually reboot your phone and boot into the "second OS" while the officer is standing there demanding your phone?
I believe there are some setups where one password unlocks your normal OS and user accounts and another password unlocks your phone under a second user with no indication of a second available.
My ex-girlfriend is Canadian and made a hop in the US on her way to visit Mexico. US agent in the airport insinuated that she was a prostitute or being sex trafficked and made her unlock her phone to prove otherwise. He read messages on Tinder and various messenger apps and made ridiculous comments about the content of some messages. "Ok, ok. It looks like you're a good girl."
Since checking phones is legal, when you try to complain about it, it's like trying to find someone who cares that a cop made rude remarks when he pulled you over.
Are they pulling over passing Bentleys the peruse the phones of those inside? If one of these cops sees another cop passing, do they check their phone? Do they go into the senate and check senator's phones? Do they go to the financial district and look at trader's phones for signs of insider trading?
This is at least profiling or a discriminatory style of policing. They go to areas that have "those people" (whatever that means for this context) and do their policing there, avoiding the rich & powerful.
It's also a digital strip search in the street. If this is a valid style of policing, why not just digitally search everyone's phones NSA-style? Could it be that NSA-style wouldn't be discriminatory enough (a rich person might get caught)? Could it be that the psychological effects on the policed population are one of the motivations?
I hope that you're trolling, but since that's pretty uncharacteristic on this site, I'll answer you seriously.
Individual privacy, to start. The concept of probable cause to search someone is a concept found in most modern governments. Your communications to other parties privately are none of the government's business. It's an authoritarian measure that assumes guilt without suspicion. As others say, it will often have a racial or cultural component too, and at the very least a class one. People that look and act like the police would tend to be less subject to searches.
Apart from violating privacy, instilling a culture of fear thereby impacting people's right to free speech and free organization, which is a cornerstone of democracy, making people fearful of saying anything against the government or the police even in private conversation, nothing whatsoever.
"you’d be better off unlocking and handing over your phone"
You would in the short term, if you're a coward and unable to stand up to this kind of abuse. In the long term, if everyone stood up to this abhorrent behavior, it would stop.
You sound just like the people who are telling others to stop doing their jobs in the name of ethics.
Yeah in a better world we could all just not be "cowards" and stand up against unjust searches, but most of us don't want to spend couple nights in lock up over this kind of shit.
I don’t think your comment makes any sense. Yes gulags imprisoned a lot of people, actually a lot of heavily educated individuals but still it was not the majority of the population.
What Russia in that case would do they would probably either implement some spam detection or just flat out disable SMS messaging in the country.
Vaguely reminds me when US offered a bounty for turning people in in Iraq so people would turn in their neighbors they didn't like despite them not actually being guilty of anything.
Whole lotta people ended up in gitmo that were actually innocent that way.
This is obviously going to be a very dark decade for Ukraine but less obvious is how bad things are going to get in Russia if they can pull the curtain over it like this.
Worst thing US did to Iraq invasion protestors domestically was put them on the "no fly" list which is abusive but trivial in comparison.
I wonder who is waiting in the wings after Putin and if they are going to be better or worse.
You could call this the Address Unknown[1] approach. An excellent and quick (<30 minutes) read, but probably not an appropriate tactic to use against a random Russian citizen.
To the best of my knowledge, there is no section of the PATRIOT Act that includes a backdoor on every cellphone for every domestic message. That would go even beyond the wildest accusations of domestic dragnet surveillance.
I think "back door and they read every message covertly" that the parent post was referring to SMS messages only. In that respect I think he's correct. I do agree that the wording is a bit strange/misleading, because it kind of suggests that your Signal messages could be read as well.
> In late 2001, the NSA was authorized to monitor, without obtaining a FISA warrant, the phone calls, Internet activity, text messages and other communication involving any party believed by the NSA to be outside the U.S., even if the other end of the communication lay within the U.S.
The NSA program in question was terminated in 2007, when that part of the PATRIOT Act expired and wasn’t reapproved.
To be clear: law or not, the NSA’s program was an unacceptable breach of civil liberties. But it is not comparable in domain or in historical context to Russia’s domestic surveillance.
you seem quite sure … about US-based businesses not being free to publicly protest against war in form of denial of services: Google is littered with many corporations doing exactly that and issuing press releases to that effect.
> "there is no section of the PATRIOT Act that includes..."
DHS often flouts the law. (You aren't wrong, but I'm just saying.)
> That would go even beyond the wildest accusations of domestic dragnet surveillance
I definitely would not agree with that.
They might not quite have this level of surveillance, but they're probably not too far away, either. And there will be actors within the bureaucracy pushing to increase surveillance as far as they possibly can.
The US Federal bureaucracy is grossly out of control and serves its own interests, which aren't those of the citizens or the states.
When you look at tax policy in particular, you see that the states are effectively colonies of the Federal government and bureaucracy.
> If they don't want to be shot down then.. don't fly!
There would be no gentleman's agreement to stick to dogfighting in the skies over Kiev. If the Russians can't effectively win against NATO air power in the air, they'll try to blow it up when still on the ground. The risk of spiraling escalation there is great.
Enjoy wasting your time and wellbeing by being incarcerated, having to find a lawyer, testify and then being released because that chat was actually legal.
This shows a complete lack of insight into how the phone company interacts with your phone, what they can and what they can't do. The reason the guards target the phones is precisely because the phone company doesn't have access to this data. They can at best read SMS, but not whatsapp, telegram and a ton of other popular messaging apps which use strong crypto and bypass the telco in case of WiFi connectivity.
Telco's see plenty, but your phone sees a whole lot more.
It is not unreasonable to assume whatever the US is doing abroad, they are doing domestically - and that such activity just has not come to light as of now.
Probably? The founders didn't even give American women the vote. Let's not go pretending they had some expansive notion of what the word "human" means.
FWIW I agree with your basic point--rights are rights, no matter who you are--but if you try to find that idea in anything "the founders" did, you're going to be extremely disappointed.
He wants to pass Bill C36 and Bill C11 that would further monitor the internet and censor information. This is a western country not Russia.
I think people need to get back to fighting this Authoritarian bend.
https://meduza.io/en/podcasts/the-naked-pravda or https://meduza.global.ssl.fastly.net/en/podcasts/the-naked-p...
Also perhaps https://meduza.io/en and https://meduza.global.ssl.fastly.net/en for text—though that has much less material than in Russian, and I can't personally vouch for it.
As a gentle reminder: after being declared a ‘foreign agent’ and losing risk-averse advertisers, Meduza lives on direct contributions from readers. Given both the devaluation of the ruble and the financial sanctions (as Meduza is not incorporated in Russia), these contributions will likely shrink, and we might lose one of the last outlets with actual good journalism.