[Noisebridge-discuss] Best strategy and currency for foreign travel..

[Jacob Appelbaum]

Sai Emrys wrote:
> Re. Israel vs Islamic countries - supposedly you used to be able to
> get a Israel to give you a separate piece of paper stamped with your
> visa (NOT a separate passport), so you could ditch it and avoid the
> assrape when subsequently visiting their enemies, because they wanted
> more tourists. According to Wikipedia though (which in turn is
> according to UK government travellers' advisory[1]), they don't do
> this any more. Anyone have recent experience?
> 

Israel will do the stamp on paper or not stamp at all, if you ask
nicely, and they're feeling friendly. This is current information as of
about three weeks ago for at least one Jordanian border crossing.

> Re. confirmation of location - don't be *too* hard on the banks for
> that. After all, you'd be hard on them also if suddenly someone used
> your card in what to you was an obviously irregular manner from a
> foreign country. They're trying to do a behavioral metric for fraud,
> which is a nontrivial problem. (After all, maybe you *did* just fly to
> Nigeria and decide you needed a lot of cash advances…) Perhaps you can
> come up with a better metric?
> 

Nah. The banks are just protecting their bottom line. Their entire
system is so full of holes, they're willing to put people into dangerous
situations to cover their ass. It's totally unacceptable.

If I can authorize myself over the phone for travel to Nigera, I should
be able to ensure that I can (for example) unlock my card after they
decide that it's being used for fraud. This is actually a lot harder
than most people would imagine.

They should also make sure that they don't automatically lock the card
without trying to contact you. Usually, the banks do this and it's
absolutely frustrating. The banks will often leave you out to dry. This
happened to me when I was living in Canada and it was absolutely
insanity to get a new card; they refused to ever unlock my original card.

I have told various banks about my travel plans repeatedly and still had
my card locked. I cut no slack to banks with incompetent algorithms for
fraud detection.

> Re. carrying 2 different passports - unless you hold multiple
> citizenships (which you probably don't, but in which case you get one
> per), this is illegal[2] and may subject you to major assrape at
> borders if you're caught. Your passport belongs to your government,
> not you, and they get very very pissy if they think you're forging /
> stockpiling / selling them, or if they discover one for a citizenship
> they didn't approve of. You'll have to prove you're not a spy /
> terrorist / illegal with forged documents / etc, and then deal with
> the law-breaking bit too. This is probably much worse than the hassle
> of getting interrogated about your judaic vs islamic political
> leanings.
> 

You're incorrect. The US issues second passports to US citizens upon
request. Usually these passports are temporary two year documents that
are valid for all travel, visa or other passport usage. The passport
agency generally requires a reason but the reasons can be as simple as
"I want to visit Israel and Qatar" or "I need to apply for a visa for
travel to India. I'm traveling to China this weekend and require two
passports to accommodate my travel requirements" or any other reasonable
reason. It's easy to request a second passport and I know many people
who have done just this in the US. It's not exceptional at all. Or at
least, not too much more exceptional than just having a passport in the
first place. Your local passport office also will issue you an official
 passport if you're traveling on Government business. That would make
for three passports in total just off of the top of my head.

It's also not illegal to be a dual, tri or more citizen. You should
probably present the most reasonable passport at the border. If you're a
US Citizen, it's a bad idea to present a German passport when you also
have a US passport. This is only because the US expects you to represent
yourself as an American at US borders. If you only had your German
passport, you could easily enter on that one as well. Especially because
you're a US citizen in this hypothetical situation.

Additionally, the burden of proof is on the state to prove that you're a
criminal and not the other way around.

Oh and remember kids, only a judge can force you to disclose passwords
for your encrypted drives. Don't listen to the customs agents who might
tell you otherwise. :-)

Best,
Jake

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