American Who Wiped His Phone With 'Duress' Password During Border Search Gets Felony Charges

American Who Wiped His Phone With 'Duress' Password During Border Search Gets Felony Charges (nytimes.com) 112 Federal prosecutors have charged activist Samuel Tunick with obstruction after he gave Customs and Border Protection officers a duress passcode that wiped his GrapheneOS-powered Pixel during a border search. "His prosecution is one of the earliest known instances of the federal authorities charging a person with destroying evidence using a program designed to wipe a device clean after a specific code is entered," reports The New York Times. From the report: "Obstructing federal law enforcement is a serious matter that has serious repercussions," Theodore Hertzberg, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, said in a statement. "Individuals who destroy or attempt to destroy property, including data, to prevent lawful search and seizure should expect to face prosecution and punishment for their actions." A spokeswoman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a statement that the agency had the authority to search the electronic devices of anyone entering or leaving the United States, regardless of citizenship, to enforce laws addressing terrorism, child exploitation, drug- and human-smuggling, visa fraud and national security threats. "The border search will only include an examination of information that is present on the device at the time it is presented for inspection," the spokeswoman said, adding that it searched the electronic devices of fewer than 0.01 percent of all arriving international travelers in the last fiscal year. "Just the knowledge that the government is peering into your private life in this way, trying to dig up dirt on you, even though it's unsuccessful, is creepy," Tunick said, in response to a question about how the charges have affected him. His message: "The government doesn't own our communications, our relationships, as hard as they might try to. We have to defend our fundamental right to privacy; otherwise we can't say that we really live in a democracy." A spokeswoman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a statement that the agency had the authority to search the electronic devices of anyone entering or leaving the United States, regardless of citizenship, to enforce laws addressing terrorism, child exploitation, drug- and human-smuggling, visa fraud and national security threats. "The border search will only include an examination of information that is present on the device at the time it is presented for inspection," the spokeswoman said, adding that it searched the electronic devices of fewer than 0.01 percent of all arriving international travelers in the last fiscal year. "Just the knowledge that the government is peering into your private life in this way, trying to dig up dirt on you, even though it's unsuccessful, is creepy," Tunick said, in response to a question about how the charges have affected him. His message: "The government doesn't own our communications, our relationships, as hard as they might try to. We have to defend our fundamental right to privacy; otherwise we can't say that we really live in a democracy." This isn't the EU. He's going to win. (Score:5, Interesting) Re:This isn't the EU. He's going to win. (Score:5, Insightful) The argument is that you have no constitutional protections at the border crossing. Which is complete bullshit, but that's their position. Inovking the fifth amendment to not give up a password should be an option for all citizens at any time when engaging with US law enforcement. Re: (Score:2) On paper you have the right to remain silent anywhere. IANAL but you don't have to engage ICE or CBP or speak to them. You can legally refuse searches even in the 100-mile exclusion zone, although some agents will illegally put up a big fight and lie and threaten you a bunch, so it's almost never worth it. Refusing searches at a customs inspection point at an airport should theoretically only escalate to denial of entry. Deleting your phone while the customs agent has the authority to do a border search and Re: This isn't the EU. He's going to win. (Score:2) If you're a citizen or permanent resident, you can't be denied entry. Full stop. You can be detained for a short time, they can make you miss your flights, they can maybe impound your possessions, etc. But you can't be denied entry. Re: (Score:2) I didn't word that carefully. You're not "denied" entry. In my experience they give you the option to turn back. If you insist you are legally allowed to enter the country and still refuse a search, then they will detain you and your devices until you comply. Re: (Score:2) and by "detain you" ... overnight is typical if you pissed them off. your won't get your phone back ever Re: This isn't the EU. He's going to win. (Score:4, Informative) If you're a citizen or permanent resident, you can't be denied entry. Full stop. Not quite. If you're a permanent resident (green card) you can be denied entry if one of the following conditions is present: - you have committed a serious crime (anywhere in the world); - you have stayed for too long outside the country; or - you committed fraud to obtain your permanent-resident status. "Too long outside the country" means a year or more, without returning. Generally the border agents start to get suspicious if you appear to be spending more time outside the country than inside it. There is a way to stay outside the USA for up to 2 years, by filing an I-131 form (Application for Travel Document.) Re: (Score:2) And boy do they work hard at trying to make #3 stick when they decide they want to get rid of a person. Re: (Score:2) I think those may be ways you can lose permanent resident status, but not reasons to be denied entry. But some of this is a question of practice. A border agent "denying entry" on the basis of #2 is not necessarily denying entry to a permanent resident - they are making a judgement that the person before them no longer has status because that is a condition. Even for that there is a due process issue in that if the person claims that that is a record error they should be admitted and then followed up. I Re: (Score:3) I think those may be ways you can lose permanent resident status, but not reasons to be denied entry. No, they're reasons for denying you entry. Border agents don't have the authority to void your permanent-residency status. Only an immigration judge can do that. There is a Form I-407 (Record of Abandonment of Lawful Permanent Resident Status) that a border agent may put in front of you. NEVER SIGN IT. Any abandonment of your permanent-resident staus is voluntary. A border agent may not force or induce you to do that, though some might try to trick you into doing so. Green cards can be revoked with no evidence (Score:3) If you're a permanent resident (green card) you can be denied entry if one of the following conditions is present: - you have committed a serious crime (anywhere in the world); - you have stayed for too long outside the country; or - you committed fraud to obtain your permanent-resident status. You missed one -If your beliefs "compromised U.S. foreign policy interests" according to allegations by the State Department with no evidence needed. https://www.nyclu.org/commenta... [nyclu.org] Re: (Score:2) Re: (Score:1) Re: (Score:1) Sure, you can remain silent and refuse searches... not sure how long you'll be "detained" for that obstructing justice and/or interfering with their duties charge(s). And, not sure how good the butt of a rifle feels against your forehead. You can refuse to let the TSA rifle through your luggage... let us know how the cavity search goes. You _can_ do a lot of things, the end result of doing those things might be good or bad. Wonder if he could get away with it if he'd rebooted his phone into a secondary OS Re:This isn't the EU. He's going to win. (Score:5, Interesting) The argument is that you have no constitutional protections at the border crossing. Which is complete bullshit, but that's their position. Inovking the fifth amendment to not give up a password should be an option for all citizens at any time when engaging with US law enforcement. That is where they have him. He did not invoke his 5th amendment right and remain silent... he gave the federal investigators false information which he knew would result in the destruction of any potential evidence on his device. If you refuse to give the CBP the password, they will hold you for questioning. They will tell you that you have no choice and that you must give them the password. This is a lie, but they are allowed to lie to you. They cannot refuse entry to a US citizen. They cannot hold you indefinitely (I think they are still bound by the 72 hour limit). They must return your device to you. They can hold it for a few days (and presumably make a clone or try to hack it), but they must return it to you. They will lie to you about all of this. Your attorney will tell you the truth. Demand an attorney, and remain silent until your attorney advises you to speak. illegal search? (Score:2) Re: (Score:3) You would need to wrong her again to make it right. Re: (Score:2) Except they can use your silence against you now. [wikipedia.org] So you must know and use the magic words. Re: (Score:2) Technically it was his password, that only he knew, so I'm not sure why it matters. Configuring an action (on iPhone or android) to happen on 'unlock' could perform the same wipe. To counteract that action, i'd simply need to uninstall the app, from all devices, using the Google Play store. This is currently not possible on an iPhone. I would suggest that a US citizen should be the same, by the US goverment, regardless of where in the world that person is. Re: (Score:2) >Demand an attorney, and remain silent until your attorney advises you to speak. He asked for his attorney. They denied him. A US lawyer made a video about this incident and looked at some of the case law: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] Re: (Score:1) Inovking the fifth amendment to not give up a password should be an option for all citizens at any time when engaging with US law enforcement. It is an option, and one he really should have used. He would still have been detained but in court would not be charged with obstruction. Alternately if the device was properly locked or powered off, relying on full disk encryption, and also invoked his 5th amendment rights, he would have been released by now. Although admittingly without his phone. But instead he intentionally took actions to destroy evidence, so none of that matters anymore. Re: (Score:2) The problem here is that he: 1. asked for a lawyer and 2. wasn't given a lawyer and 3. was held for a long time without access to a lawyer. I think him wiping the device is reasonable if he wasn't able to go free and wasn't given the lawyer. If I was the judge, I would bar the government from prosecuting him because he was held without a lawyer for an extended period of time. Re: (Score:2) Well - but are you still forced somehow to tender the self incriminating evidence? Is 'destroying evidence' equivalent to 'refusing to cooperate' (as in not givin up the password? What if the phone was wiped out on the plane? Re:This isn't the EU. He's going to win. (Score:4, Insightful) Re: This isn't the EU. He's going to win. (Score:2) He tricked them into doing it, if anything that will work against him. They are allowed to lie to you, you are not allowed to lie to them. Re: (Score:2) Re: (Score:2) Sure you can withhold your password and they cannot keep a US citizen from entering. But they will take the phone and send it off to Israeli hackers to get your data. Theoretically after they don't find anything they will return your property to you, perhaps in several years. But I doubt they do that anymore. Re: (Score:2) Re:This isn't the EU. He's going to win. (Score:4, Interesting) Re:This isn't the EU. He's going to win. (Score:5, Informative) It would me more like if the police could search your house at any time without one. They come to your house and you flush the toilet and they claim you flushed drugs with no evidence. We have no evidence the person was involved in a crime, we simply know they destroyed data on a phone. NOT going for funny, but... (Score:2) I think he's already lost and will keep paying more money to the lawyers for a long time. Whether or not he gets convicted has become moot when the actual goal is scaring people into compliance. Actually the obvious next step is to criminalize the duress passcode and go after anyone who creates such software. Fundamental advantage on their side because trying to advertise such software has to include contact information... Losses in court are irrelevant to the creation of fear. Silly to suggest a solution on Re: (Score:3) Devil's advocate -- Is this different than flushing the drugs down the toilet when the police are at your door with a warrant? Yes. This is like being charged with destroying evidence because you were witnessed flushing something down the toilet prior to being detained. It might've been drugs, it might've been a fresh turd. If law enforcement can't follow the pipes and find the evidence, that's their problem. Does it mean some criminals might get away with crimes? Yeah, but that beats the alternative of charging people with destroying evidence unjustly, because they were just going to the bathroom at the wrong time. Re: (Score:2) It's exactly that and people don't like it. When you're stopped at the border they're conducting an investigation. So yes, destroying something that could be considered evidence is tampering. Re: (Score:3) Evidence of what, exactly? No alleged crime, no search warrant. Re: (Score:2) It’s an active investigation. Any of your possessions could be considered as evidence. Re: (Score:2) Re: (Score:2) Re:This isn't the EU. He's going to win. (Score:5, Interesting) Yes. Here is why: If the police are at your door with a warrant, they have already shown sufficient probable cause to a judge to show that a search warrant is justified. Due process is being followed. If the police are demanding your password, you as a citizen of the United States have a constitutional right under the 5th amendment, and under legal precedent (Doe v United States, 1988) to tell them to go fuck themselves: The Foundational Doctrine: "Testimonial" vs. "Physical" Evidence Under the Fifth Amendment, the government cannot compel a person to make an incriminating testimonial communication. The Safe Combination Metaphor (Doe v. United States, 1988): The Supreme Court drew a famous distinction regarding self-incrimination: Compelling a suspect to surrender the physical key to a lockbox is permissible because it is physical, non-testimonial evidence. Compelling a suspect to reveal the combination to a wall safe violates the Fifth Amendment because it forces the suspect to surrender the "contents of their own mind". Application to Passwords: Most courts treat an alphanumeric passcode or PIN as the modern equivalent of a safe combination. Recalling and providing it requires cognitive effort and confirms knowledge, ownership, and control over the device and its contents. Grabbing some dude's phone at the border under the guise of border control, when that dude is a US citizen and has shown documented proof; and then demanding his password to unlock it is a violation of his 5th Amendment rights. Moreover, there was no probable cause for the seizure of property, and without a court order for the retrieval of evidence (a search warrant) it remains his non-legally-encumbered property to do with as he pleases, including giving them the password that is a metaphorical string tied between the doorknob and a shotgun trigger. There was no crime for them to investigate, and therefore no probable cause to issue the illegal search. There was no court order from a Constitutionally empowered judge to approve agents of the government trampling this man's rights. HTH. Re: (Score:2) Re: (Score:2) Right, you can shout 5th Amendment... they take the device and detain you, send the device to some hush-hush site where they have a machine that can hack into anything (or, they just desolder the storage chip, run government-level encryption-cracking programs to get to the contents). When they find nothing of value, they just return the device to you in bits, and send you on your merry way, and probably bill you for all the hassle. Re: (Score:2) It's more like tying a string from the toilet flush-handle to the bathroom doorknob. Unless you open the door a certain way, you'll flush the drugs down the toilet. That's even assuming there was anything as incriminating as drugs on the guy's phone in the first place. And alas, I predict that this poor fellow will lose. He set up a booby-trap that destroyed evidence that the border inspectors were legally allowed to examine without a warrant. Re: (Score:2) Flush the toilet with unknown contents. It's not evidence. If you put a landmine in the bathroom and someone steps on it, they didn't blow themselves up - you did it. Re: (Score:2) In this case, however, the border crossing officers hadn't been looking for evidence of criminal activity. They had been looking for names and contact information of anti-government protesters. The motive for the search was for conducting unconstitutional activities. By giving them a duress password, the owner of the phone was protecting people from being victim of potential crimes. Re: (Score:2) They're going to make an example out of this guy so other people don't try it. Unless the DEI justice department really fucks up and the case is dismissed. Re: (Score:3) Re: (Score:2) I agree they will *try*. If the succeed we might as well set the constitution on fire but we were already there, I guess. You're a bit late to the party in that regard. Re: (Score:3) Why do you think you wouldn't win in the EU? The EU is pretty proud on its privacy laws. Re: (Score:2) Re: (Score:2) Re: (Score:2) Re: (Score:2) The administration doesn't decide the merits of the case, a judge does that. And while there's a better than there should be chance that the judge was appointed by this administration, it's still a coin flip. Re: (Score:2) The administration doesn't decide the merits of the case, a judge does that. And while there's a better than there should be chance that the judge was appointed by this administration, it's still a coin flip. Guess how many federal judges were appointed by president ChoMo? Re: (Score:2) How are they going to prove the phone was not clean to begin with? What if he wiped it up on the plane before even border crossing? Is this still 'destroying the evidence' ? Yea - this is very sketchy. Advice for regular criminals - you just come through with a clean phone. For the rest of us mortal, expect you browser history to be exposed. Re: This isn't the EU. He's going to win. (Score:2) If you're from the US, you probably don't know this, but US agents may find a clean phone suspicious and deny entry by claiming you're hiding something. Re: (Score:2) To the US citizen? Re: (Score:2) Not a chance, they cannot deny entry to a legal us citizen. They can however detain one at the border if some criminal charge can be made. Re: (Score:2) It's like you haven't been paying attention for the last 18 months. Constitutionality isn't important, the legal recourse available to citizens is prohibitively expensive when it isn't an illusion, and if something rises to the level of the Supreme Court the presumption of fairness is... gone. It doesn't matter whether he wins in the short term. Even if he wins the government will ignore it and he will lose. Re: (Score:2) Yep. Traveling into the EU is far more pleasant than traveling into the USA, at least for me (Canadian). One wrinkle is that if I ever travel to the USA (which I haven't done in a while and don't intend to do in future), I go through customs pre-clearance here in Canada. So if they start hassling me, I can just say "OK, I've changed my mind; I don't want to enter the USA." They can detain me for a bit, but ultimately they have to let me go, because I'm on Canadian soil. Slippery Slope (Score:3, Insightful) This is a huge slippery slope and a massive Orwellian nightmare. Unless the law can articulate what evidence they expect to find on the device, it should not be considered "evidence". What the orange man's minionsappear to be doing is a spear fishing expedition to try and find dirt on people without probable cause. Re: (Score:3) The guy was crossing the US border. When you do that, agents can search your devices without a warrant. Re: (Score:2) Re:Slippery Slope (Score:4, Informative) Customs agents do not need probable cause or a warrant to initiate a routine seizure and basic search of your electronic devices at a U.S. port of entry. Almost any seizure while under the border search exception is basically considered justified. So if you delete your phone, burn your wallet, tear up your love letter to your EX, flush your drugs, etc. The border agents can view that as "Destruction or removal of property to prevent seizure" Don't like it? Write your legislature to reverse the long-held ruling. Re: (Score:2) So if you delete your phone, burn your wallet, tear up your love letter to your EX, flush your drugs, etc. The border agents can view that as "Destruction or removal of property to prevent seizure" Only if you do it in front of them. Do it before you're anywhere near the border and I think you're fine. P.S. stay away from illegal drugs, whether you're crossing the border or not. Re: (Score:3) The whole thing is bullshit, because for it to be evidence of a crime, there has to be an actual crime to investigate. Where's the probable cause? Where's the due process? Why is he being charged with obstruction of justice, when there is no predicate crime to investigate? Evidence of fucking what? Unless they can answer that, this goes the same way as the Subway sandwich assault guy, the olympian reflecting pool vandal, and the seashells prosecution of Director Comey. Re: (Score:2) It doesn't matter whether the "evidence" on the guy's phone was incriminating or not. The border agents had the authority to examine the information on his phone without a warrant. He tricked the border agents into destroying that information before they could examine it, and that's the crime. Things are different when you cross a border. Due process rights are reduced significantly. Agents don't need probable cause or a search warrant. They can just search. And there doesn't need to be a predicate crime to b Re: (Score:2) The border agents had the authority to examine the information on his phone without a warrant. Correction, the dystopian interpretation of the constitution purveyed by our current lunatic fringe Supreme Court is that they have the authority to do so. The constitution says otherwise, but at some point, our government stopped actually reading it. The solution is clear. (Score:3) Rather than destroy evidence, simply do not take your real phone out of the country. Take a burner phone. Wipe it on the way to the airport. I would never hand a device that has access to my whole life to someone without a warrant and I wouldn't unlock it (no face ID, it's a password). So the I would take a burner phone with me while traveling internationally. Minimum tooling required for my travel. Re: (Score:2) I'd like Android-in-docker. Run Android and have a perfectly usable phone. Normal PIN entry. Normal apps. Can make phone calls. Pretty limited text message log. And then start the docker container with your accounts, chat programs, etc. The key thing is I would want it to take over the messaging services while the container is running instead of having everything going to the outer dumb layer. Not only is this good for agitators fighting government overreach. But it seems like a good way to have a work accou Re: (Score:1) Or, maybe a way to dual-boot... quick reboot into the secondary OS, complete with a separate /usr/ directory, and enough junk stuff to look well used. "Solution" (Score:5, Insightful) Respectfully, that's a workaround, not a solution. A real solution to a dysfunctional government is inherently political. When the laws and their interpretations allow for unchecked executive power to surveil, the outcome isn't surprising. The solution is to promote, vote for, and elect officials who believe in protecting rights and will nominate court officials with sane views on the 4th amendment and executive power. Ideals are adorable but futile (Score:2) Fantasy solutions must be ritually recited these days due to social fashion but humanity was never good which is why there is only technical, not "moral" progress (vanity is not progress). Government is bad because humanity is bad and always was bad. We are bestial apex predators who happen to be good at technology. Our race tends savage and stupid, intelligence being neuro-divergent. That dictates reality. Re: (Score:2) Re: (Score:2) Rather than destroy evidence, simply do not take your real phone out of the country. Take a burner phone. Wipe it on the way to the airport. One of the things I loved about the pine phone was the ability to boot from sd card. For something like foreign travel the ability to swap cards and boot a whole different image would be perfect. Re: (Score:2) Rather than destroy evidence, simply do not take your real phone out of the country. Take a burner phone. Wipe it on the way to the airport. I would never hand a device that has access to my whole life to someone without a warrant and I wouldn't unlock it (no face ID, it's a password). So the I would take a burner phone with me while traveling internationally. Minimum tooling required for my travel. Yes - Or if possible, avoid entering countries with oppressive policing policies. Innocent until proven guilty? (Score:1) Re:Innocent until proven guilty? (Score:4, Interesting) So, he's charged with destroying evidence for a crime he may or may not have committed. You're confused. He tricked the border agents into destroying the information on his phone before they could examine it. That was the crime. Ironically, if he had wiped the information himself before presenting at the border, I'm pretty sure he would have been fine. Re: (Score:2) You're confused. He tricked the border agents into destroying the information on his phone before they could examine it. That was the crime. Perhaps the proper response to being accused of said “crime” is ”Uh, exactly what information are you accusing me of making you destroy before verifying it ever existed in the first place?” My need to carry a personal communications device, doesn’t mean you get to be fucking lazy and assume the 4th Amendment means nothing. Re: (Score:2) But even calling it "evidence" sets up the bias. Destroying data for possible crime is a way to put it, but then that seems like minority report. Destroying something law enforcement believes is evidence in that moment is literally Obstruction of Justice, and destroying evidence is literally a crime specifically for that reason. There really isn't much grey area here. Re: (Score:2) But even calling it "evidence" sets up the bias. Destroying data for possible crime is a way to put it, but then that seems like minority report. Destroying something law enforcement believes is evidence in that moment is literally Obstruction of Justice, and destroying evidence is literally a crime specifically for that reason. There really isn't much grey area here. The grey area you’re looking for, was addressed about two hundred fucking years ago. When we ratified the 4th Amendment. That is not “evidence” until you have a fucking legal reason for it to be. Wipe your devices BEFORE You travel. (Score:3) Should he be charged with anything, no, but, did he do something stupid? Yes! Re: (Score:3) It's only "stupid" if we live in a police state. I'm not sure if the USA is a police state yet, but we're uncomfortably close. Also, why is it stupid if he should not be charged? If he should not be charged, then he should be free to take his computer (smartphones are computers) & personal data with him when leaving & entering his home country. Re: (Score:2) Re: Wipe your devices BEFORE You travel. (Score:2) Yes of course it is a police state, but yes of course it's stupid to pretend you don't live in one when you do Re: (Score:2) I'm not sure if the USA is a police state yet Here, let me fix that for you: "I'm sure the USA is a police state". There is a reason your tourist numbers are dropping rapidly, I feel sorry for the actual residents. Re: (Score:2) hidden encrypted VeraCrypt volume Any random data on a partition is a suspected holder of hidden volumes. Even in cases where there are no hidden volumes, enjoy trying to convince border police of that while they're holding you indefinitely. This is just a friendly reminder that random data and plausible deniability do not mix. Holding random data can be a major risk if that is all you have and no ability to prove otherwise. Depending on who you are and where you're traveling, transparency may be the safest option. Re: (Score:2) He didn't destroy it, they did (Score:2) He's not required to potentially incriminate himself by telling them the password. He told them a word. They entered it and destroyed the data. Obstruction = Federal PMITA Prison, sorry (Score:2) You're free to do whatever you want to your own data (subject to previous judicial order), but the moment a legitimate authority -- whether state or local law enforcement or a Federal agency like Customs and Border Control -- indicates that your data/property is subject to search or review, destroying such data is literal obstruction and will get you as much of a charge as if you flushed evidence away while a cop was asking for it. If the LEO or agency is overstepping their bounds, once you've been put on no Re: (Score:1) So, far more useful for the duress password to take you to a fake account, drawing from your family photos and whatnot so it's plausibly you but with anything important hidden. Interesting Re: (Score:2) Simpler: one password gets you access to the account, but *not* access to (or even notification of) any encrypted volumes. Another password gives you access to (and the ability to see) all encrypted volumes. You could quite plausibly set this up just to simplify any "can I use your phone?" moments, or someone asking you to look something up (while they watch, of course). No need to grant access to your stash of busty catgirls, or whatever it is you're worried about. Are they still Rights, or are they Wrongs now? (Score:2) "Obstructing federal law enforcement is a serious matter that has serious repercussions," And violating an individuals 4th Amendment Right comes with what now, an extra gold star on a border guards weekly report? A spokeswoman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a statement that the agency had the authority to search the electronic devices of anyone entering or leaving the United States, regardless of citizenship, to enforce laws addressing terrorism, child exploitation, drug- and human-smuggling, visa fraud and national security threats. A spokeswoman, needs a fucking lesson on the Bill of Rights. Either enforce them, or prove why you need to get rid of them. Hate the bullshit exception list, because you can hang any cannot-confirm-or-deny lie under the excuse of "national security". No. It doesn't matter who is in the White House. Hell, the last autopen in charge elected an Open Border Czar as a reminder of how delus They should put me on the jury... (Score:2) Idealism in the real world is childishly naive. (Score:3) Having much of anything on one's phone is terrible security because spyware can easily exfiltrate it without user knowledge, so I don't do that. Having stuff that matters on your phone is like storing drugs in your car, you can but nothing makes that smart. At most a phone used when crossing borders should be a distraction whose storage holds plausible files like ebooks and does not have an email client etc. If one must an alternative is storing encrypted, useful files elsewhere for later downloading with nothing on one's phone. Making one's phone a central information repository is silly with or without possibility of formal inspection. Wishful thinking is not security. The world was always a very bad place so choose wisely without passion. Legal Eagle assessment of the case (Score:2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] We put 8 protesters in jail for life (Score:2) Even if you make the argument that one of the eight fired a gun that might have hit a cop you've still got to contend with the other seven who were just at a protest and are now rotting in prison until the day they die unless a Democrat president happens to pardon them, either that or they can come up with a couple million dollars each to buy a pardon from Trump. I guess what I'm getting at here is you already gave up your civil rights. Or if you didn't then your neighbor did It's be nice (Score:2) Re: It's be nice (Score:2) Good thing he wasn't in the UK... (Score:2) What criminal charges can be levied against travelers to the UK who purposely destroy content on their electronic devices? Schedule 7 Terrorism Act 2000 – Wilful failure to comply / obstruction Under Schedule 7, examining officers (police or designated Border Force officers) at UK ports, airports, or the border area can stop, question, search, and detain travellers without suspicion to determine whether they appear to be involved in terrorism-related activity. This includes searching electronic devices Papers please, the electronic version (Score:2) At this point, it's hard to separate truth from fiction from history from historical fiction. Re: (Score:1) Dude, this has been settled case law for centuries. If it weren't, literally all customs inspections at the border would be illegal under Federal law absent an individually-signed search warrant.