Ditch the phone. The liability, tracking and mental health problems created due to modern phones has made owning one unsustainable. Email works, at worst, voip providers exist. Do you need a map? Print one. Do you need directions? Ask someone. Does the restaurant only offer app or qr, ask someone, or go somewhere else.
I have never encountered a phone-related problem that could not be solved with:
1. A print out.
2. Asking someone.
3. Using your web browser on your computer.
4. Using some kind of voip if audio communication is needed.
Yes, it is not as convenient as the surveillance and privacy nightmares of today, but if your life is only about convenience, then send your money to the government, and let them just decide for you how much money you need, and you don't even have to think about that.
A minor inconvenience is a price well paid for freedom from surveillance and excellent mental health.
The ones who complain about inconvenience don't really care about privacy, democracy and freedom, so should not complain when these things are attacked.
The usual fare: log out, disable biometrics, use long pins and passwords, power off. Prefer a burner device, or clean your device and restore when you arrive.
I remember how Google's internal guidelines for travel circa 2011 required to remove any material under NDA from your laptop when traveling to China or Russia; you had to restore it over the VPN after a safe arrival. Funny that now the same precautions apply to the US :((
Do you need to disable biometrics if you simply reboot? my Pixel 10 Pro XL wont let me in without pin after reboot. Biometrics wont work until that first unlock.
You have a working OS! But you're logged out, all sensitive data is removed (safely overwritten with random data first), and you don't have the means to connect to the VPN or anything corporate (it was before zero-trust architecture), even at gunpoint. You can check your flight status, or look up a cafe nearby to eat, etc. But you have to go to a Google office in the destination city, identity yourself, and get the trusted bits restored on your corp machine. This, together with an OTP device, finally allowed you to reconnect to the internal network (and go check fresh memegen).
I do understand why all these steps are required. And they are good. But how should zero-trust architecture solve that? You‘re still authenticated what the core problem is.
To be fair though, that horse bolted a couple of centuries ago. What other name would you call it by? There's another "united states" on the same continent. The country to the immediate south is formally known as the "United Mexican States".
But the whole hemisphere is not "Mexico". USA and Canada are not also "North Mexico". Their harmless little reminder is more correct than any of the attempted arguments against it.
The level of arrogance some western-hemisphere Spanish speakers have, trying to tell foreigners that the name they use for their own country in their own native language is wrong, demanding that they translate the Spanish name and use that instead, is so absurdly entitled that it's just... hilarious.
In your world, then, is it normal to complain about other people's names, and expect them to change what they call themselves to better suit your preference?
"Immigration and Customs Enforcement have already started targeting travelers, with agents in plain clothes forcefully detaining a mother in front of her young daughter at San Francisco International Airport on Sunday after a tip from the Transportation Security Administration."
I don't think the tsa is at sfo. They use a private contractor for tsa functions. Is the quote made-up?
> Ms. Lopez-Jimenez, 41, a native of Guatemala, and her daughter, Wendy Godinez-Lopez, were flagged by T.S.A. officials on Friday when they showed up on a passenger list for a Sunday flight from San Francisco to Miami. The agency then tipped off Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to the documents.
> Under the previously undisclosed program, the Transportation Security Administration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement of travelers are sharing names and birth dates of travelers believed to have been ordered out of the country by an immigration judge. ICE can then send agents to the airport to detain and quickly deport those people.
They don't have to be at the airport to do this; airlines have to send them the manifest.
> Except as provided in paragraph (c) of this section, an appropriate official of each commercial aircraft (carrier) departing from the United States en route to any port or place outside the United States must transmit to the Advance Passenger Information System (APIS; referred to in this section as the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) system), the electronic data interchange system approved by CBP for such transmissions, an electronic passenger departure manifest covering all passengers checked in for the flight.
Sounds like security flagged some undocumented Guatemalan people trying to fly and ICE was called in and they were detained at the SFO airport. SFO is not specifically on the list of airports where ICE is deployed at to fill in security roles for DHS personnel while funding is shut down. So they claim it's an isolated incident. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...
TSA does more than just the security checkpoints, even at airports with privatized screening TSA does all of the back-office work, including some on-site staff. The physical screening is the only thing that can be contracted out, not the whole rest of the process like maintenance of risk databases.
What might confuse things a bit is that this incident happened hours before ICE agents started reinforcing TSA at checkpoints and seems mostly unrelated, other than establishing the general principle that ICE will arrest people at airports based on tips from TSA's flight booking records.
It's an interesting state that you can force someone to unlock their phone with biometrics, but you can't force them to reveal a pin.
Anecdotally, I have been to the US a few times in the past year, and seen no change myself - where are you going and why? Thanks have a good trip. It was for short business trips, and I'm white with a number of documented entries/departures, so my experience might be very different from the next person though.
Airlines like Alaska Airlines make it very difficult to board a plane without a phone. It's still possible, but you need to prepare early and get your boarding pass printed at home, provided that you have a printer, apparently.
I treat all items on an international trip as disposable. Been robbed by thieves, police (Mexico lol), and brutalized by US CBP enough to know it's not worth it to try and take anything across borders besides the shirt on your back. Anything carried is a liability for them to claim you filled some customs form wrong or to fake a drug dog hit on it.
SFO has had repeated hilarious and/or high profile incidents involving the TSA / luggage handlers stealing people's stuff. They stole a pocket knife from my checked bag once.
Don't carry them with you. I'm old and I can tell you from experience... you can live life without holding a cellphone all the time. It's not as hard as you think.
> ... I'm old ... you can live life without holding a cellphone all the time. It's not as hard as you think.
I'm in my 50s and I don't know where this stance comes from. Sure, you physically can in the same sense that anywhere can be walked to if you're willing to walk long enough. But so many businesses and services have gone "mobile-first" or "mobile-only" to the point that if you're traveling for leisure you're doing extra work on your vacation, and if you're traveling for business you're wasting time that could be used doing your job. Just as a first order, the denizens of every airline subreddit will tell you that the most useful tool during a trip is the airline's mobile app and that's either tied with or just above or below the Flighty app if anything goes wrong.
Combine that with QR codes for everything from menus to parking, public transit tickets and fare cards that can be easily loaded into a phone instead of using a ticket machine made when we were kids, or paper maps increasingly hard to find if they're available at all, and you're looking at a real challenge. How are you going to talk to and plan with your travel partner or colleagues with payphones removed?
It's also not incumbent upon us to make the government's life easier by making our lives harder. "Just leave your phone at home" is ludicrous behavior to expect when it's the government being the intrusive jerks.
Sure it’s inconvenient sometimes, but on the whole I’d say my life is better than those I see glued to their phones.
This belief is reinforced whenever people ask for my number (dentist, doctor, whatever)
The gusto which they invariably reply “OMG I WISH I could get rid of my phone!”
Do you really recommend people travel internationally in 2026 without a cellphone? I’m kind of bewildered by this suggestion. As someone who has to go between LATAM and US frequently, I have no choice but to bring my cellphone.
I went to Thailand for three weeks in November. I didn’t bring a phone or a laptop. I printed my maps, reservations, and emergency numbers. It was awesome. Don’t lock yourself into imaginary prisons.
I don't bring phones either. I go straight to the nearest mall/bazaar/market and buy one. Anyplace developed enough that you need a phone has them for sale. Anyplace where you can't find a phone has enough other people without them you can still get around. The phone gets trashed before I go through the next international border.
IMHO today is difficult to do anything without a smartphone. I hate the state of affairs, but it is just so. Anything needs an app to work. Public services in some countries requiere it. Paying, etc.
But in traveling is almost essential. GPS to navigate, search for hotels, places to eat, take fotos… yes, you could carry many devices… but seriously?! Ah btw… what about being in touch with family?
I often wonder how I survived going for a random drive or even simply leaving the house from 1980 through to the advent of smart phones. Was I simply more brave and self-sufficient back then?
But then I note that there was some infrastructure and also some attitude differences back then that don't exist now.
When my car would break down in the 1980s or 1990s, typically there would be a pay phone nearby. One time in the early 90s, I just knocked on a random door and the resident let me use their land line to call a tow truck (I'm not sure anyone would let a random stranger into their home now, but maybe they still do). Breaking down in the boonies was no fun, but likely someone would come by eventually and help (or murder you, but probably help).
I was reminded recently of this when I went to park in the city in a garage that I frequently patronize only to find they had removed the payment terminal, which was replaced by a sign that said "use our app!". I have a low-data phone plan, so if I had to install their app, I would probably blow past my limit for the month. Also, there was no signal in the garage. So I just left and found another place to park (and was almost late for my appointment).
Also I don't like having to pay just to print my boarding pass at the check-in kiosk. Maybe I am not less brave but just more cheap.
International travel is infinitely more difficult without a cell phone.
When I was younger and international roaming was expensive I travelled internationally without a phone. It’s possible, but it’s so much easier to do it with a phone. Later when I finally stopped being a cheap student and bought a data plan my trips were so much more efficient because I wasn’t losing so much time trying to figure everything out without a phone.
For international business trips, devices are mandatory. This isn’t even an option.
The problem is that it actually gets harder. I was a holdout against cell phones when I was young. Eventually payphones started disappearing. Pre-cellphone they were everywhere. By the time I finally caved and got a cellphone I knew where there still were some in important spots around Chicago. Plus you ran into changing norms. Before cell phones people would schedule a meetup (let's meet at noon in this square then go do what we were going to do) but after cell phones it became, "just call me when you get close."
I then tried to resist smart phones and stick with my nokia. But then you start to get into things like, the kiosk where they would print your boarding pass doesn't do that anymore. You need a QR code on your phone. You can't call places anymore, you need to do it on their website, etc.
Now the government is starting to treat a lack of social media or technology as a reason for suspicion. In the not-too-distant future I imagine it will not be possible to go to an airport without a smart phone and a digital history known to Palentir.
I've done a fair bit of domestic (USA) flying over the last six months and when flights are spontaneously cancelled for weather/staffing/crew timeouts/random apocalyptic actions, a phone has been priceless in getting quickly rebooked and out of the trouble zone. Even if that means cancelling the flight and buying a ticket on a different airline (looking at you, AA)
You do not want to spend an hour in the customer service line to find out that all open seats on the next flight out were scooped up 59 minutes ago.
The last time I didn’t have a cell phone with me in my pocket was 1995.
But how in 2026 when I travel am I going to get directions? Get an Uber? I am in a Spanish speaking country right now and I speak some Spanish. But it really is convenient just to take my cell phone out and translate.
What is your next piece of wisdom? That I also don’t need a computer with 16GB RAM because my first computer had 128KB?
Oh and I also don’t need the web because back in my day Gopher and Usenet were good enough
Or, if you want to have one with you, leave your regular cell phone at home (or ship it ahead to your destination via parcel carrier) and carry a burner/travel-only phone instead. Don't put any personal data on that phone. Not even contact numbers. Carry those in printed form separately.
We really need some straightforward way to carry a mostly-wiped phone, and then download an app, input credentials [0] (stored in your head), and have everything [1] downloaded from a cloud server and ready to go.
[0] since I'm spelling this out, one of those credentials should be a passphrase such that the server doesn't have access to your data
[1] modulo data/apps you actually want on a phone in a foreign country, of course
Interesting idea. But, in your vision, what would be the main difference between this approach and actually wiping your device, install just some basic apps you need during the travel (e.g. airline's app for the boarding pass and flight info) and then restore from your cloud backup at the end of the flight? Main difference I see is that Apple/Google wouldn't have access to your data, but this only makes sense if you're not using their services to start with.
Does iCloud not blast you with a bunch of "2FA" hassles the way Google does? That passwords are no longer complete account credentials makes this approach a non-starter, unless you want to come up with some protocol with a trusted person who stays home (with access to your account) and can perform those verification steps for you.
Even so I would still be worried about the nonstandard behavior causing my Apple/Google account to get straight up locked by their arbitrary and capricious "security" systems.
Passkeys are stored in your Apple Keychain. I don’t think you have to go through 2FA if you use a Passkey with Google.
I can throw my iPhone in the ocean, go to the nearest cell phone store/Apple Store and log into my Apple account and you won’t be able to tell the difference between my old phone and new phone - all apps, data, icon positions, passwords, photos, settings, bookmarks, history, messages etc will be restored
So weird that railing against government overreach is now considered a leftist position when it was a fundamental right position for decades... You could not lick the boot harder if you tried.
You must be young. Many of us who are middle-aged or older clearly remember what the US was like before it created the present security apparatus, and "total collapse of the social safety net" is quite the opposite of what I would expect if we rolled it back.
Wouldn't it be nice if we could use the billions we waste on this repressive jackboot-theater for an actual safety net instead? We could live in a less brutal society.
Last year I flew out of Costa Rica and London. They have the same security requirements except the removal of shoes as does getting on the Chunnel between London and Paris.
Is there any country anywhere in the world that doesn’t have basically the same requirements?
You seem to be glossing over all of the hijackings that happen back in the day.
What do hijackings have to do with a social safety net?
> They have the same security requirements
Yes, the US has significant influence over international aviation security regulations.
There are two reasons that no US airliner has been successfully hijacked in a quarter of a century, and neither has anything to do with TSA screening: first, cockpit doors are now locked during flight, and second, passengers now know that there is nothing to be gained by cooperating with hijackers and nothing to be lost by fighting back.
> What do hijackings have to do with a social safety net?
Many of us who are middle-aged or older clearly remember what the US was like before it created the present security apparatus
> passengers now know that there is nothing to be gained by cooperating with hijackers and nothing to be lost by fighting back.
Yes passengers are going to rise up and fight people with guns? How do you fight back against a terrorist with a bomb on board?
Even trained SWAT teams basically know that if you try to take over a plane from terrorists, who ever goes in front is going to get shot at, aisles are the perfect kill zone.
Just from me flying on a plane as much as I do, the perfect way to take over a plane would be to book first class tickets in the front of the plane - less crowded, usually with people who are less willing to fight back and you’re not surrounded by people on both sides and sweep the aisle.
This reminds me of the yokels running around in the South playing militia in the woods thinking their cache of guns can take on the US military or even a well trained local SWAT force.
And guess how many guns the terrorists had? People are recommending getting rid of security at airports. It’s a lot easier to gang up and fight someone with knives than guns
It would probably cost less money and man-years of life to let every once in awhile some dumb terrorist blow up the plane while fruitlessly trying to access the locked cockpit to convince them to bring it to a juicier target, than it costs to put a gazillion people in long lines, tax the shit out of them for DHS (including the murderous ICE agency), and put them through security theater while also costs many many many man-lives of time by TSA agents.
------- re: below due to throttling ---------
Most people are not suggesting getting rid of security at airports. They are recommending getting rid of DHS and government employees performing security at the airport.
The airlines themselves will search for explosives if it is affecting their bottom line. Except with a guy who can't summarily legally steal your shit, put you in a concentration camp, and ship you off to CECOT.
I’m sure if we get rid of security, every other country in the world that basically has the same requirements for planes (and in my n=1 experience with with the Chunnel between London and Paris) trains will get right on that - especially countries like Isreal.
You do realize it only takes a couple of planes being blown up for people to lose all confidence in airline travel not to mention plate airlines will be sued out of existence like they would have been after 9/11 if the US hadn’t had a settlement fund?
None of those organizations do anything to help regular people. They're all just creeping tentacles of fascism. (Most of them either didn't exist in the 1990s, or are unrecognizable now.)
If they were defunded, we could spend the money on fire departments (how many cities has the US lost in the last few years to forest fires, and how many cities to immigrants?), local police (to prosecute property and white collar crimes, and even government / police corruption), and mental health care (to reduce or even eliminate mass shootings - this worked in the US in the past, and works in every other country on earth right now).
Also, "social safety net" refers to things like social security, disability, not illegal deportations of non-criminals or what ever those organizations are focused on these days. The actual social safety net is on teetering on the edge of collapse because it's funding was stolen from the organizations you are defending.
You basically can for WIC, but that's about it. Although the other big one is public schooling is also almost always entitled to everyone at quite high cost (despite poor performance per dollar).
Note that the performance / dollar is much worse for immigrants than for citizens.
You still have to pay for things like social security, etc, but you don't get to collect those benefits.
Before someone says "but illegal immigrants don't those taxes!", note that they actually do:
If not, then their employer is engaged in tax fraud, which is much easier to prove and prosecute than trying to track down and check the immigration statues of each of their employees.
The US government runs a huge profit on legal immigrants (above average job creation / economic growth), and on illegal immigrants (they pay for services they cannot utilize).
The lifetime public fiscal impact by some measures of an illegal immigrant is $-60k [].
You're overlooking a few things like the fact it's estimated over half of illegal immigrant households have a US citizen child and then they start drawing welfare in the child's name on account of the fact the parents did not obtain legal immigration levels of financial independence before immigrating. Also on account that some are legally able to claim EITC in tax filing, some other similar benefit factors, as well as the fact undocumented immigrant use hospital ERs and then have no documented solvent individual to bill to (their employers also less likely to provide health insurance so they end up in ER instead of regular doctor). When you put it all together the annual public benefit is close to break even but over the period of decades counts up in the tens of thousands in the negative.
I'm generally for open immigration but I'd agree that when you consider the totality things aren't set up yet to make sure enough benefits they get are shit-canned to make sure it's at least break even. Shit-canning all the benefits that pull them below zero is definitely a less orwellian way of breaking even than the ICE/CBP apparatus, I will give it that.
Slightly bonkers that we've reached the stage where both extremes of the political spectrum are like "let's go live in caves with no society again, those were good times"
Your assertion of age is way off. Most people are going to be well into adulthood by the time they've flown enough to perceive the "security" process as its own thing.
While heartily agreeing with the thrust of your comment, I think the answer has to do with whether they are "uppity" or if they have an aggrieved husband.
(of course the outgroup always morphs to fit the current needs of the regime. and by the time it's "good upstanding family men" being executed often enough that it's un-ignorable, it will be too late for most of them to suddenly develop morals)
Ditch the phone. The liability, tracking and mental health problems created due to modern phones has made owning one unsustainable. Email works, at worst, voip providers exist. Do you need a map? Print one. Do you need directions? Ask someone. Does the restaurant only offer app or qr, ask someone, or go somewhere else.
I have never encountered a phone-related problem that could not be solved with:
1. A print out. 2. Asking someone. 3. Using your web browser on your computer. 4. Using some kind of voip if audio communication is needed.
Yes, it is not as convenient as the surveillance and privacy nightmares of today, but if your life is only about convenience, then send your money to the government, and let them just decide for you how much money you need, and you don't even have to think about that.
A minor inconvenience is a price well paid for freedom from surveillance and excellent mental health.
The ones who complain about inconvenience don't really care about privacy, democracy and freedom, so should not complain when these things are attacked.
The usual fare: log out, disable biometrics, use long pins and passwords, power off. Prefer a burner device, or clean your device and restore when you arrive.
I remember how Google's internal guidelines for travel circa 2011 required to remove any material under NDA from your laptop when traveling to China or Russia; you had to restore it over the VPN after a safe arrival. Funny that now the same precautions apply to the US :((
Do you need to disable biometrics if you simply reboot? my Pixel 10 Pro XL wont let me in without pin after reboot. Biometrics wont work until that first unlock.
>you had to restore it over the VPN after a safe arrival
How do you restore it via VPN? Don't you first need a workable OS to connect to VPN first?
You have a working OS! But you're logged out, all sensitive data is removed (safely overwritten with random data first), and you don't have the means to connect to the VPN or anything corporate (it was before zero-trust architecture), even at gunpoint. You can check your flight status, or look up a cafe nearby to eat, etc. But you have to go to a Google office in the destination city, identity yourself, and get the trusted bits restored on your corp machine. This, together with an OTP device, finally allowed you to reconnect to the internal network (and go check fresh memegen).
I do understand why all these steps are required. And they are good. But how should zero-trust architecture solve that? You‘re still authenticated what the core problem is.
Zero-trust architecture just can work without a VPN, unless the network is blocked. Otherwise everything should be similar.
“Remove material under NDA” not format blank the computer.
Don't go to America is the best alternative.
Only go to good parts. Like Mexico and South America in general.
Canada's ok, but only in May and October. The rest of the year is ice and/or black fly season.
In English, "America" means the USA specifically.
But you knew that already and decided to just post bait.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humour
Seems too subjective. I don't think it'll take off.
or, perhaps, they are wryly pushing back against the USA capturing a generic geographic term for themselves
To be fair though, that horse bolted a couple of centuries ago. What other name would you call it by? There's another "united states" on the same continent. The country to the immediate south is formally known as the "United Mexican States".
But the whole hemisphere is not "Mexico". USA and Canada are not also "North Mexico". Their harmless little reminder is more correct than any of the attempted arguments against it.
The level of arrogance some western-hemisphere Spanish speakers have, trying to tell foreigners that the name they use for their own country in their own native language is wrong, demanding that they translate the Spanish name and use that instead, is so absurdly entitled that it's just... hilarious.
It's so wierd to perceive that as arrogance. Actually "wierd" is being too nice.
In your world, then, is it normal to complain about other people's names, and expect them to change what they call themselves to better suit your preference?
> The level of arrogance some western-hemisphere Spanish speakers have
It’s almost exclusively Western Europeans doing this IME
"Immigration and Customs Enforcement have already started targeting travelers, with agents in plain clothes forcefully detaining a mother in front of her young daughter at San Francisco International Airport on Sunday after a tip from the Transportation Security Administration."
I don't think the tsa is at sfo. They use a private contractor for tsa functions. Is the quote made-up?
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/24/us/tsa-data-ice-deportati...
> Ms. Lopez-Jimenez, 41, a native of Guatemala, and her daughter, Wendy Godinez-Lopez, were flagged by T.S.A. officials on Friday when they showed up on a passenger list for a Sunday flight from San Francisco to Miami. The agency then tipped off Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to the documents.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/12/us/politics/immigration-t...
> Under the previously undisclosed program, the Transportation Security Administration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement of travelers are sharing names and birth dates of travelers believed to have been ordered out of the country by an immigration judge. ICE can then send agents to the airport to detain and quickly deport those people.
They don't have to be at the airport to do this; airlines have to send them the manifest.
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-19/chapter-I/part-122/sub...
> Except as provided in paragraph (c) of this section, an appropriate official of each commercial aircraft (carrier) departing from the United States en route to any port or place outside the United States must transmit to the Advance Passenger Information System (APIS; referred to in this section as the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) system), the electronic data interchange system approved by CBP for such transmissions, an electronic passenger departure manifest covering all passengers checked in for the flight.
Sounds like security flagged some undocumented Guatemalan people trying to fly and ICE was called in and they were detained at the SFO airport. SFO is not specifically on the list of airports where ICE is deployed at to fill in security roles for DHS personnel while funding is shut down. So they claim it's an isolated incident. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...
TSA does more than just the security checkpoints, even at airports with privatized screening TSA does all of the back-office work, including some on-site staff. The physical screening is the only thing that can be contracted out, not the whole rest of the process like maintenance of risk databases.
What might confuse things a bit is that this incident happened hours before ICE agents started reinforcing TSA at checkpoints and seems mostly unrelated, other than establishing the general principle that ICE will arrest people at airports based on tips from TSA's flight booking records.
No, the quote is not made up, which you can confirm yourself by doing a google search.
https://www.ktvu.com/news/ice-agents-arrest-crying-woman-sfo
The part you quoted isn’t about TSA. TSA and ICE are not the same.
The quote literally contains the string "Transportation Security Administration" in it.
But the actor in the quote - the people who had to be at the airport to do the detaining - is ICE.
The TSA tip didn't have to come from someone physically sitting in the airport.
It's an interesting state that you can force someone to unlock their phone with biometrics, but you can't force them to reveal a pin.
Anecdotally, I have been to the US a few times in the past year, and seen no change myself - where are you going and why? Thanks have a good trip. It was for short business trips, and I'm white with a number of documented entries/departures, so my experience might be very different from the next person though.
Airlines like Alaska Airlines make it very difficult to board a plane without a phone. It's still possible, but you need to prepare early and get your boarding pass printed at home, provided that you have a printer, apparently.
I remember when Alaska Airlines wasn't terrible.
Any idea what happened? New CEO? Acquisition?
A lot of otherwise good companies have found that "Can't use phone" is almost equivalent to "Annoying non-profitable Customer"
You can also print them at the numerous Alaska Airlines kiosks at most airports
> Alaska Airlines kiosks
Those don't exist. I guess you haven't traveled with Alaska for a while.
https://worldaviationfestival.com/blog/airlines/alaska-airli...
Apple devices allow biometrics to be disabled for unlocking the phone.
They are still active for accessing anything in the wallet, however.
https://archive.ph/4U0YX
For Linux users, you could try disabling the desktop environment when going through the airport (or using termux-launcher on your phone).
It'd be fun to see how they'd handle a CLI. Might result in getting detained, though.
You're an hacker, detained.
insert "wrench" xkcd here
Additionally: If you have adb access turned on, turn it off before travelling!
I treat all items on an international trip as disposable. Been robbed by thieves, police (Mexico lol), and brutalized by US CBP enough to know it's not worth it to try and take anything across borders besides the shirt on your back. Anything carried is a liability for them to claim you filled some customs form wrong or to fake a drug dog hit on it.
SFO has had repeated hilarious and/or high profile incidents involving the TSA / luggage handlers stealing people's stuff. They stole a pocket knife from my checked bag once.
https://abc7ny.com/archive/9192371/
This one's my favorite: If you want the police to keep ignoring complaints then don't steal service revolvers!
https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/3rd-sfo-baggage-handler...
Don't carry them with you. I'm old and I can tell you from experience... you can live life without holding a cellphone all the time. It's not as hard as you think.
> ... I'm old ... you can live life without holding a cellphone all the time. It's not as hard as you think.
I'm in my 50s and I don't know where this stance comes from. Sure, you physically can in the same sense that anywhere can be walked to if you're willing to walk long enough. But so many businesses and services have gone "mobile-first" or "mobile-only" to the point that if you're traveling for leisure you're doing extra work on your vacation, and if you're traveling for business you're wasting time that could be used doing your job. Just as a first order, the denizens of every airline subreddit will tell you that the most useful tool during a trip is the airline's mobile app and that's either tied with or just above or below the Flighty app if anything goes wrong.
Combine that with QR codes for everything from menus to parking, public transit tickets and fare cards that can be easily loaded into a phone instead of using a ticket machine made when we were kids, or paper maps increasingly hard to find if they're available at all, and you're looking at a real challenge. How are you going to talk to and plan with your travel partner or colleagues with payphones removed?
It's also not incumbent upon us to make the government's life easier by making our lives harder. "Just leave your phone at home" is ludicrous behavior to expect when it's the government being the intrusive jerks.
And google translate or google maps if you are traveling are very nice to have.
Sure, you can do without them, but it will be much more difficult.
I don’t have a phone
Sure it’s inconvenient sometimes, but on the whole I’d say my life is better than those I see glued to their phones.
This belief is reinforced whenever people ask for my number (dentist, doctor, whatever) The gusto which they invariably reply “OMG I WISH I could get rid of my phone!”
Because only those two extremes exist: you either don't have a phone, or your are glued to it?
So do you give to your doctor your landline's nuber, and this is why they're surprised, or you don't even have that?
They're probably being nice and think you're a weirdo.
I don't btw. I admire you sticking to your principles.
How often do you travel outside of the country or even outside of your state?
What kind of phone does your grownup have?
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Do you really recommend people travel internationally in 2026 without a cellphone? I’m kind of bewildered by this suggestion. As someone who has to go between LATAM and US frequently, I have no choice but to bring my cellphone.
I went to Thailand for three weeks in November. I didn’t bring a phone or a laptop. I printed my maps, reservations, and emergency numbers. It was awesome. Don’t lock yourself into imaginary prisons.
I don't bring phones either. I go straight to the nearest mall/bazaar/market and buy one. Anyplace developed enough that you need a phone has them for sale. Anyplace where you can't find a phone has enough other people without them you can still get around. The phone gets trashed before I go through the next international border.
IMHO today is difficult to do anything without a smartphone. I hate the state of affairs, but it is just so. Anything needs an app to work. Public services in some countries requiere it. Paying, etc.
But in traveling is almost essential. GPS to navigate, search for hotels, places to eat, take fotos… yes, you could carry many devices… but seriously?! Ah btw… what about being in touch with family?
>It's not as hard as you think.
You're probably right, still...
I often wonder how I survived going for a random drive or even simply leaving the house from 1980 through to the advent of smart phones. Was I simply more brave and self-sufficient back then?
But then I note that there was some infrastructure and also some attitude differences back then that don't exist now.
When my car would break down in the 1980s or 1990s, typically there would be a pay phone nearby. One time in the early 90s, I just knocked on a random door and the resident let me use their land line to call a tow truck (I'm not sure anyone would let a random stranger into their home now, but maybe they still do). Breaking down in the boonies was no fun, but likely someone would come by eventually and help (or murder you, but probably help).
I was reminded recently of this when I went to park in the city in a garage that I frequently patronize only to find they had removed the payment terminal, which was replaced by a sign that said "use our app!". I have a low-data phone plan, so if I had to install their app, I would probably blow past my limit for the month. Also, there was no signal in the garage. So I just left and found another place to park (and was almost late for my appointment).
Also I don't like having to pay just to print my boarding pass at the check-in kiosk. Maybe I am not less brave but just more cheap.
> It's not as hard as you think.
International travel is infinitely more difficult without a cell phone.
When I was younger and international roaming was expensive I travelled internationally without a phone. It’s possible, but it’s so much easier to do it with a phone. Later when I finally stopped being a cheap student and bought a data plan my trips were so much more efficient because I wasn’t losing so much time trying to figure everything out without a phone.
For international business trips, devices are mandatory. This isn’t even an option.
The problem is that it actually gets harder. I was a holdout against cell phones when I was young. Eventually payphones started disappearing. Pre-cellphone they were everywhere. By the time I finally caved and got a cellphone I knew where there still were some in important spots around Chicago. Plus you ran into changing norms. Before cell phones people would schedule a meetup (let's meet at noon in this square then go do what we were going to do) but after cell phones it became, "just call me when you get close."
I then tried to resist smart phones and stick with my nokia. But then you start to get into things like, the kiosk where they would print your boarding pass doesn't do that anymore. You need a QR code on your phone. You can't call places anymore, you need to do it on their website, etc.
Now the government is starting to treat a lack of social media or technology as a reason for suspicion. In the not-too-distant future I imagine it will not be possible to go to an airport without a smart phone and a digital history known to Palentir.
I've done a fair bit of domestic (USA) flying over the last six months and when flights are spontaneously cancelled for weather/staffing/crew timeouts/random apocalyptic actions, a phone has been priceless in getting quickly rebooked and out of the trouble zone. Even if that means cancelling the flight and buying a ticket on a different airline (looking at you, AA)
You do not want to spend an hour in the customer service line to find out that all open seats on the next flight out were scooped up 59 minutes ago.
The last time I didn’t have a cell phone with me in my pocket was 1995.
But how in 2026 when I travel am I going to get directions? Get an Uber? I am in a Spanish speaking country right now and I speak some Spanish. But it really is convenient just to take my cell phone out and translate.
What is your next piece of wisdom? That I also don’t need a computer with 16GB RAM because my first computer had 128KB?
Oh and I also don’t need the web because back in my day Gopher and Usenet were good enough
Or, if you want to have one with you, leave your regular cell phone at home (or ship it ahead to your destination via parcel carrier) and carry a burner/travel-only phone instead. Don't put any personal data on that phone. Not even contact numbers. Carry those in printed form separately.
We really need some straightforward way to carry a mostly-wiped phone, and then download an app, input credentials [0] (stored in your head), and have everything [1] downloaded from a cloud server and ready to go.
[0] since I'm spelling this out, one of those credentials should be a passphrase such that the server doesn't have access to your data
[1] modulo data/apps you actually want on a phone in a foreign country, of course
Interesting idea. But, in your vision, what would be the main difference between this approach and actually wiping your device, install just some basic apps you need during the travel (e.g. airline's app for the boarding pass and flight info) and then restore from your cloud backup at the end of the flight? Main difference I see is that Apple/Google wouldn't have access to your data, but this only makes sense if you're not using their services to start with.
You just reinvented iCloud - welcome to 2011.
Does iCloud not blast you with a bunch of "2FA" hassles the way Google does? That passwords are no longer complete account credentials makes this approach a non-starter, unless you want to come up with some protocol with a trusted person who stays home (with access to your account) and can perform those verification steps for you.
Even so I would still be worried about the nonstandard behavior causing my Apple/Google account to get straight up locked by their arbitrary and capricious "security" systems.
Passkeys are stored in your Apple Keychain. I don’t think you have to go through 2FA if you use a Passkey with Google.
I can throw my iPhone in the ocean, go to the nearest cell phone store/Apple Store and log into my Apple account and you won’t be able to tell the difference between my old phone and new phone - all apps, data, icon positions, passwords, photos, settings, bookmarks, history, messages etc will be restored
Maybe the world needs a virtual phone in the cloud which you access with a browser from a dumb device.
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This is where boomer stereotypes come from.
> the government is overreaching
> "well back in my day we used to walk uphill both ways!"
Another method many don't know is to have 2 synchronized phones while traveling, so if one is out of you, you still have full control.
Enable self-destruction mode caused by a special unlock PIN on each of them.
Burner phones for all! Defund, disband, destroy DHS, ICE, CBP, TSA.
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So weird that railing against government overreach is now considered a leftist position when it was a fundamental right position for decades... You could not lick the boot harder if you tried.
Do you understand that this would lead to a total collapse of the social safety net?
You must be young. Many of us who are middle-aged or older clearly remember what the US was like before it created the present security apparatus, and "total collapse of the social safety net" is quite the opposite of what I would expect if we rolled it back.
Wouldn't it be nice if we could use the billions we waste on this repressive jackboot-theater for an actual safety net instead? We could live in a less brutal society.
Last year I flew out of Costa Rica and London. They have the same security requirements except the removal of shoes as does getting on the Chunnel between London and Paris.
Is there any country anywhere in the world that doesn’t have basically the same requirements?
You seem to be glossing over all of the hijackings that happen back in the day.
What do hijackings have to do with a social safety net?
> They have the same security requirements
Yes, the US has significant influence over international aviation security regulations.
There are two reasons that no US airliner has been successfully hijacked in a quarter of a century, and neither has anything to do with TSA screening: first, cockpit doors are now locked during flight, and second, passengers now know that there is nothing to be gained by cooperating with hijackers and nothing to be lost by fighting back.
> What do hijackings have to do with a social safety net?
Many of us who are middle-aged or older clearly remember what the US was like before it created the present security apparatus
> passengers now know that there is nothing to be gained by cooperating with hijackers and nothing to be lost by fighting back.
Yes passengers are going to rise up and fight people with guns? How do you fight back against a terrorist with a bomb on board?
Even trained SWAT teams basically know that if you try to take over a plane from terrorists, who ever goes in front is going to get shot at, aisles are the perfect kill zone.
Just from me flying on a plane as much as I do, the perfect way to take over a plane would be to book first class tickets in the front of the plane - less crowded, usually with people who are less willing to fight back and you’re not surrounded by people on both sides and sweep the aisle.
This reminds me of the yokels running around in the South playing militia in the woods thinking their cache of guns can take on the US military or even a well trained local SWAT force.
Everyone thinks they are Rambo
You might find it interesting to read up about UA flight 93, on 9/11/2001, which was the last US commercial jet hijacking.
And guess how many guns the terrorists had? People are recommending getting rid of security at airports. It’s a lot easier to gang up and fight someone with knives than guns
Who, other than you, said anything about getting rid of airport security?
The airport security apparatus we had prior to 9/11 would still suffice today, with the simple addition of locking cockpit doors.
It would probably cost less money and man-years of life to let every once in awhile some dumb terrorist blow up the plane while fruitlessly trying to access the locked cockpit to convince them to bring it to a juicier target, than it costs to put a gazillion people in long lines, tax the shit out of them for DHS (including the murderous ICE agency), and put them through security theater while also costs many many many man-lives of time by TSA agents.
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Most people are not suggesting getting rid of security at airports. They are recommending getting rid of DHS and government employees performing security at the airport.
The airlines themselves will search for explosives if it is affecting their bottom line. Except with a guy who can't summarily legally steal your shit, put you in a concentration camp, and ship you off to CECOT.
I’m sure if we get rid of security, every other country in the world that basically has the same requirements for planes (and in my n=1 experience with with the Chunnel between London and Paris) trains will get right on that - especially countries like Isreal.
You do realize it only takes a couple of planes being blown up for people to lose all confidence in airline travel not to mention plate airlines will be sued out of existence like they would have been after 9/11 if the US hadn’t had a settlement fund?
ICE is a relatively new creation and DHS itself is a massive organizational Frankenstein's monster. Both can and should be dissolved.
None of those organizations do anything to help regular people. They're all just creeping tentacles of fascism. (Most of them either didn't exist in the 1990s, or are unrecognizable now.)
If they were defunded, we could spend the money on fire departments (how many cities has the US lost in the last few years to forest fires, and how many cities to immigrants?), local police (to prosecute property and white collar crimes, and even government / police corruption), and mental health care (to reduce or even eliminate mass shootings - this worked in the US in the past, and works in every other country on earth right now).
Also, "social safety net" refers to things like social security, disability, not illegal deportations of non-criminals or what ever those organizations are focused on these days. The actual social safety net is on teetering on the edge of collapse because it's funding was stolen from the organizations you are defending.
Do you know what the words "social safety net" mean? Hint: it's not whatever you think the police are handling.
What social safety net? Is there some office that I can just show up without any papers and get free money?
You basically can for WIC, but that's about it. Although the other big one is public schooling is also almost always entitled to everyone at quite high cost (despite poor performance per dollar).
Note that the performance / dollar is much worse for immigrants than for citizens.
You still have to pay for things like social security, etc, but you don't get to collect those benefits.
Before someone says "but illegal immigrants don't those taxes!", note that they actually do:
If not, then their employer is engaged in tax fraud, which is much easier to prove and prosecute than trying to track down and check the immigration statues of each of their employees.
The US government runs a huge profit on legal immigrants (above average job creation / economic growth), and on illegal immigrants (they pay for services they cannot utilize).
If they are employing people who are not eligible to work , they are already committing fraud
The lifetime public fiscal impact by some measures of an illegal immigrant is $-60k [].
You're overlooking a few things like the fact it's estimated over half of illegal immigrant households have a US citizen child and then they start drawing welfare in the child's name on account of the fact the parents did not obtain legal immigration levels of financial independence before immigrating. Also on account that some are legally able to claim EITC in tax filing, some other similar benefit factors, as well as the fact undocumented immigrant use hospital ERs and then have no documented solvent individual to bill to (their employers also less likely to provide health insurance so they end up in ER instead of regular doctor). When you put it all together the annual public benefit is close to break even but over the period of decades counts up in the tens of thousands in the negative.
I'm generally for open immigration but I'd agree that when you consider the totality things aren't set up yet to make sure enough benefits they get are shit-canned to make sure it's at least break even. Shit-canning all the benefits that pull them below zero is definitely a less orwellian way of breaking even than the ICE/CBP apparatus, I will give it that.
[] https://budget.house.gov/imo/media/doc/the_cost_of_illegal_i...
Slightly bonkers that we've reached the stage where both extremes of the political spectrum are like "let's go live in caves with no society again, those were good times"
Do you not remember life before ICE and TSA or are you not old enough to legally rent a car?
“Life” was the same before the TSA, airport security just wasn’t controlled by the government.
Your assertion of age is way off. Most people are going to be well into adulthood by the time they've flown enough to perceive the "security" process as its own thing.
DHS was created after 9/11. Most car rental places won't rent to people under the age of 25.
There's maybe a few month period between the birth day cutoff and the founding of the DHS.
We lived in caves with no society before ICE?
Disbanding draconion intelligence apparatus that didn't exist before 2001 would not mean we're back to living in caves.
It would mean we'd have the right to live in caves without presenting papers though.
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how many citizen women need to be shot in the face until you goons have enough shame to shut up?
While heartily agreeing with the thrust of your comment, I think the answer has to do with whether they are "uppity" or if they have an aggrieved husband.
(of course the outgroup always morphs to fit the current needs of the regime. and by the time it's "good upstanding family men" being executed often enough that it's un-ignorable, it will be too late for most of them to suddenly develop morals)
Ah yes sneaking in via extremely secure international airport checkpoints. Classic