US citizens should consider deleting all social media before entering US customs immigration at airports and land

[IrishBubbaLiberal]

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/4/5/2314816/-US-citizens-returning-to-the-US-risk-detention-a-social-media-check-by-CBP?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web



citizens should consider deleting social media applications such as TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter from their devices before an immigration officer inspects them.

Orwellian?


CPB has the legal right to stop the citizen and ask questions for as long as they damn well please — as long as it is for a 'reasonable' amount of time. Sadly, the definition of reasonable is in the eye of the beholder.

What is likely to trigger the CBP to detain a citizen? Who knows. However, being flagged in a government database or selected for advanced screening increases your odds. Sadly, what causes someone to be databased or flagged is anyone's guess. In 2004, Sen. Ted Kennedy discovered he had been flagged when he was stopped and questioned five times at airports because his name had appeared on a "no-fly" list. It took him and his staff three weeks to get off the list.

Us regular folks could count on being in endless aviation limbo at the best of times. And this is not the best of times.

Immigration officers can legally request to view your cell phone or other devices. If you refuse to give the agent your passwords, they can detain you or seize your devices and hold on to them for weeks or longer.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

1. They said for protestors to disable your fingerprint/face identification from your phone.

And to change it to a pass code. I’ve also heard “use a burner phone” when traveling.

[J_William_Ryan]

2. "Orwellian?"

Fascism.

[IrishBubbaLiberal]

3. And also INSIDE Trump's Totalitarian Regime for US domestic flights

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/4/5/2314816/-US-citizens-returning-to-the-US-risk-detention-a-social-media-check-by-CBP?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web

(……..skipped……….)

I do not find his words reassuring. Dictatorships often come to power by sounding reasonable. When the authorities step up surveillance on the grounds that they are just looking for bad apples, it does not take long for them to suspect an increasing number of people — citizens as well as foreigners — of being bad apples. And to cast an increasingly wider net to find them.

It gets worse.

It is not just returning from abroad that might put the citizen in the CBP frame. The 'border' agency is now questioning citizens on domestic flights landing nowhere near a border. Rolling Stone reported in February that soon after Trump announced his massive expulsion effort, passengers on a domestic Delta flight from San Francisco to New York were told to show their identity documents to uniformed agents of the CBP upon their arrival at JFK airport.


EDIT, ADD THIS….

Let's be honest. How many people faced with a uniformed federal agent carrying a gun asking to see their papers will refuse to do so? There is legal compulsion and situational compulsion. Hell, what if you are in a hurry and don't have time to claim your rights? The agent is on the clock. They are getting paid to harass you — while your wasted time is uncompensated.

Most people will just show their documents. That is how fascism spreads. The citizens get inured — like the frog in slowly heating water — to an ever-increasing assault on their civil liberties and privacy.

[lindysalsagal]

5. Attacking lgbtq is the start of prepping everyone for the loss of civil rights

Nibble away at the edges, then widen the target population.

[magicarpet]

4. Really,... Team trDUMP or their Gestapo - ICE,....

.... has no compulsion to recognize or follow privacy issues.

If you travel and need your passport,... might be best to use a pre-paid cell phone devise called cheap "Burner Phones". That way none of your personal or private info is on them for inspection by Customs/Immigration authorities.

Then switch back to your standard cell phone once you return state side.