Yes, but if you want to keep plausible deniability of having access to these books…
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You mean after they raid you and pull them off of your hard drive or some other time?
What’s your threat model? What actor in what situation are you actually protecting yourself against? “Who bought books x and y on Amazon?” If so, buy them in ePub from one of the bookstores that supports Kobo with cash.
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Dude, ‘nerd and furry’ is one step above ‘active y’all-Qaeda agent’ in the Naughty List.
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My phone runs an obscure operating system from Finland. I’m pretty sure random border patrol agents don’t know how to root it, and since I don’t use it to shop for terrorist paraphernalia or read iffy books or websites it isn’t likely that there is any suspicious stuff on it in the first place.
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You can rent phones at most international airports that include data plans.
I call bullshit.
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Why are you tampering with evidence, citizen?
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They don’t need to. They image it and send it back to Lubyank… sorry Langley for analysis.
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I, for one, have never seen an airport that included a data plan.
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That’s just “nerd who hides their furry porn.” You’re probably still good.
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They probably don’t know how to image it, either (and/or don’t have the right tools to hand). Which is too bad because that in turn means that if they feel like it they’ll just confiscate it outright 
I haven’t been to the USA since 9/11 and have no intention of going there for the time being. There are so many beautiful and hospitable places on this Earth where people are actually pleased to welcome you as a visitor. There’s no need to seek out those places where they think you’re a terrorist.
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Inner cities are dangerous?
/Me looks around
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That part of the advice struck me as an abrupt turn into Terrible Plan territory.
If only for ‘fleet management’/automation purposes; it wouldn’t be at all unlikely for rental phones to come with at least basic ‘IT-level’ remote control; and a malicious operator, a compromised franchise, someone looking to juice their margins by delivering targeted ads, etc. is likely to be considerably worse.
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Given that basically every non-iphone runs a dubiously sensible fork of said obscure operating system; it isn’t really that obscure.
The first-line jackboots obviously won’t be able to do anything with it if the Cellebrite EZ-hack machine doesn’t have a preset for it; but unless your clever trick relies heavily on the details of Android boot mechanisms, or you have a crippling fear of U-boot; something that is a relatively normal linux system without a layer of I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-Java-and-neither-can-Oracle’s-lawyers is probably more pleasant to deal with.
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Another reason for me not to go to America. I’m saving a lot on international travel.
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I agree that cities offer more concentrated dangers, but per capita? Harder to say. I don’t fully trust my gut on that one, but my gut says rural is less safe, for different reasons.
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They have made life suck more. Awesome. Shut. Them. Down.
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Now, whatever would give you that idea?
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Had a semi-distant relative kinda like that. All the family knew was he worked for the government. Before he passed on, he told me in a moment of drunken candor that he worked in “communications”.
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Oh I heard a few stories that are as close to real life James Bond stuff as you can get. My granddad could be a scary person if you knew what he did.
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