Travel phone setup: how to prepare a clean device before travel.
A clean travel device is not a factory-reset personal phone.
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A journalist was arrested in Kuwait for reposting a CNN video. The law used to charge him didn’t exist yet when he posted it.
Ahmed Shihab-Eldin was arrested in Kuwait for reposting CNN footage of a US fighter jet crash. The law used to charge him was enacted twelve days after his arrest.
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Border agents can search your laptop without a warrant.
At a US port of entry, a border agent can search the entire contents of your laptop, phone, and any other device with no warrant, no probable cause,.
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You lost your phone in a hostile country.
If your phone is gone and you cannot remotely wipe it before someone with real resources accesses it, assume everything on it is compromised.
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Encrypted messaging apps for travel into hostile regions.
End-to-end encrypted by default for all messages and calls.
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Security checklist before traveling to high-risk countries.
Assess the specific threat profile of your destination.
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Border agents seized a journalist’s laptop. It took 11 minutes to access everything.
In the United States, border agents can search electronic devices without a warrant, without probable cause, and without any articulable suspicion for both citizens and non-citizens at ports of entry.
