Schneier on Security

JonKnowsNothing • September 20, 2022 10:38 PM

@Tatütata, @Aaron, All

re: Limbo Transit Corridors

The USA and other countries maintain a Limbo Transit Corridor where you are neither IN the country where you are standing and also no longer in the country your left.

• ex: You take a plane from Country A for a vacation in Country C. You also change planes in Country B. ‘A-> B-> C

If B or C is the USA, there is a Corridor 100 US Miles wide where you are NOT in the USA. In an airport, once you pass the initial security screen you are no longer in the USA. You do not re-enter the USA until you exit the secured area at the destination. Except, there is a 100 mile wide path where you are still considered outside the USA by US Border and Homeland Security, among others. So if you came to visit C City and are staying in a hotel in C City within 100 miles of the airport, you are technically not in the USA but in a Limbo Corridor.

The importance of understanding this, is that our US Laws do no apply to anyone in the Limbo Corridor. Not even if you are a US Citizen.

A common example as noted: You pass through the security screen at the airport. You are waiting patiently for your next plane to start boarding. At any time US Border Agents can detain you. They frequently do this when you are walking to the plane to board it or when exiting the plane after landing and heading to the terminal to collect your gear.

There are no rules, no phone calls, no rights, really there isn’t anything you can do unless or until you comply with what they want. Often the FBI is there to Make You An Offer You Can’t Refuse.

Tactics include: Very cold temps with no jacket or blanket. No toilet facilities. No food or water. No chairs. No windows, clocks or time of day indications. No contact with family, friends. No contacts for legal advice. Frequent interviews with repetitive questions, all promising that if you answer them THIS time you might be able to leave. Demands to unlock your electronic devices. Demands for passwords and login credentials to all social media. Demands for passwords to your personal information: email, banking etc. There isn’t anything they can’t ask you and there isn’t any limit to the duration of this Temporary Detention.

There are also Gotchas in play with laws that you might not be familiar with in your home country. Obscure laws even in the USA. Minor oversights in a form or from filling out the same questionnaire multiple times with a small difference in each version.

The USA isn’t the only country that does this. It’s risk every time you fly internally inside the USA like going from New York to Los Angeles or when you fly internationally like arriving in Los Angeles waiting for a plane flight to New York City and where you will take the final leg to Italy and visit Rome.

There is no 4th Amendment in the Limbo Corridor but everything you do or say or write Will Be Used Against You.

JonKnowsNothing • September 21, 2022 12:33 AM

@Lurker, @Tatütata, @Aaron, All

re:Limbo Transit Corridors Texas and Florida

There is a current scandal brewing in the USA, were Governors of several states including, Texas and Florida, have been sending immigrant and asylum seekers who have crossed the US Border entering those states and sending them onward to other states.

In function, the US maintains a treaty and law known as First Safe Haven-Country. The rules are different for people wishing to immigrate to the USA, and people fleeing specific situations in their home countries seeking safety. The processing and paperwork is different. There are rules about what procedures must be done and requirements for all the different groupings of people that wish to come to the USA.

It isn’t uncommon that once all the paperwork and conditions have been filed and researched that people are allowed to move to other areas where they may have family. Normally the local authorities in the destination are notified so that they can provide the needed followup and provide assistance as determined by the variations of rules applied to the different groups.

The scandal is on several issues:

• It is not clear if the groups of people being transferred, have had all their paperwork completed at point of entry.
• The destination locations have not received appropriate notice of transit-transfer. Such notification is needed by the local assistance services and legal status.
• It is not clear if the groups of people undergoing this unannounced transit, traveled with inaccurate information provided by the point of entry location. Enticements, promises of work, and costs of transfer are being checked.

There are laws about forcing people to travel or misleading people to get them to travel to a different location.

However, given the 100 Limbo Transit Corridor, it may also be that these groups of people were not inside the USA until the exited the transport: bus, plane past the 100 mile marker.

It isn’t that this doesn’t happen, it does, all the time. Our normal target in the USA are the homeless-houseless under-served members of our society. We have lots of laws now about where you can and cannot sleep or sit. We have scores of laws making all type of normal activities, like eating a sandwich, a criminal offense. Cities use these laws, to sweep up the homeless-houseless and incarcerate them for these violations. Then local judges made them an offer in our Courts of Law:

• We will clear your fines from eating a sandwich in the park, sitting on the curb under a shade tree and sleeping in an alcove that offers protection from weather conditions.

• You must agree to take a ticket on an approved bus, to our selected destination.

• You will transit immediately.

• You must agree NOT to return to this area for months-years. If you return you will go directly to jail.

These laws are enacted in nearly every US city. They target the most vulnerable members of our society. The destination varies. Since it is a common tactic, the various providers of services at the destination, keep watch for the banished.

It will be interesting to see how the application of tranfer-forced-transit laws, does or doesn’t fit into the Limbo Transit Corridor.