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The week's question
In December 2024, in the thread "Re: BRK: Why Not XOM?", BreckHutHigh asked the members: "What about the long road trips with kids?" This week it is put to everyone again. The button below opens the small thread re-asking it - read what others have said so far, then give your own answer as an ordinary reply.
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Halls of Shrewd'm / US Policy
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Author: SuisseBear ✶☼🐝🐝  😊 😞
Number: of 84350 
Subject: Five years for wiping your own phone
Date: 07/30/26 7:12 AM
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... may now carry a five year jail sentence in the US.

In early 2025, Atlanta resident Samuel Tunick was on his way home following a trip abroad. After landing in the US, customs agents demanded access to his Pixel phone, which was running an alternative version of Android called GrapheneOS. Rather than hand over his data, Tunick used a clever feature of the software to delete everything. Now, he’s facing federal charges.

The first hearing in this case happened last week, according to The Guardian, during which government attorneys and agents claimed that Tunick was subjected to a standard secondary interrogation at an international airport. During that encounter, agents were “looking for anything that’s prohibited.” However, Tunick’s legal team alleges he was targeted for his activism. ...

Tunick provided this code to an agent, who entered it on the phone, after which “the screen went blank, flashed several times and the phone appeared to restart.” All data on the phone was gone, but authorities confiscated it anyway. Tunick was allowed to leave, but the US Department of Justice opted to file criminal charges against him in late 2025, citing a little-used statute that makes it illegal to “knowingly destroy or damage property” to prevent it from being seized. ...

arstechnica.com - Activist charged with felony after giving border agent duress code that wiped his phone

In entirely unrelated news

Bloomberg: How Trump’s Policies Cost US Travel Industry $40 Billion

CNN: Staggering dip in US tourism is a troubling sign for the future

There’s no sugarcoating it. The complete 2025 data is in, and the message is clear: International visitors stayed away from the US in the first real year-over-year decline since the Covid-19 pandemic. The drop in visitors was larger than during the global recession of 2008. This time, it wasn’t a pandemic or a collapse of the market — it was human error. Travelers cite presidential rhetoric and policies manifesting in highly public wars — both figurative and literal — as some of the reasons for staying away. Four million fewer foreign visitors came to the US in 2025 compared to 2024, with total spending decreasing by more than $8 billion. ...

Yeah, surely it's some utterly clever 17D chess being played here.

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This community has written 84,309 posts about US Policy. The article-length ones it recommended most:
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