Counter: the border agent asks "are you hiding any information from us?". answer yes, and they get you to disable travel mode. answer no, and you just committed a felony.
Not bringing something with you is inherently different from hiding it.
It's like moving your private files from a device before travelling, you're not hiding anything you just didn't bring it.
However, they are hoping that people don't know that and do it anyway, even though they don't have to. Also, a lot of CBP employees probably don't understand that distinction anyway. It feels like it's all "on the phone".
Of course that distinction between data in your possession on your device and data that's hundreds or thousands of miles away might not matter if enough precedent accumulates to support forcing people to go fetch things when they're at the border. So we need to stand up for freedom from government intrusion now!
Except they are allowed to deny your entry if you don't satisfy their whims.
You should use your right to be silent rather than answer any questions of course, but that right disappears at the border.
Still, lying to a customs agent isn't a felony (at least not in the US). (If so, please cite the law). If you're not a citizen of the country you are entering, the most they can do is refuse entry. If you are a citizen, well there is where it can get complicated.
This is unfortunately far from the truth. See this recent post: http://www.wisenberglaw.com/Articles/How-to-Avoid-Going-to-J...
https://www.popehat.com/2011/12/01/reminder-oh-wont-you-plea...
False: the relevant statute, 18 USC § 1001, doesn't mention the word "oath" once, and applies to "any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the Government of the United States".
Other forms of lying can also be illegal, however.
I think many of us would equally argue there isn't any 'reasonable justification' for forcing phone unlocks on random strangers in airports, but that still happens. I think you are asking for a reasoned distinction from people incapable of drawing them, and that while what you say makes sense, we are not dealing with a sensible system.
I can absolutely envisage some asshole airport security staff member causing grief over these kind of features should they grow in popularity - the existing interactions over phone unlocks are already in a weird constitution-free legal grey area in the US, even for US citizens. For foreigners the situation is worse still - basically zero options but compliance, or feel free to go home and never be granted entry ever again.
But you don't have access to your notebook once in the country. The 1Password travel mode is not for while you're in the country, but specifically just for the border crossing.
If they can't access my sent email when I send it from abroad without a warrant, then how does me entering the country without a phone or computer allow them access to my email?
You really, really don't want to get into a rules-lawyering match with Federal fucking prosecutors over whether "clever technological solution" counts as "hiding" something or not. They have all of the guns in this situation, and you have a demonstrably inaccurate understanding of the relevant statute.
You WILL lose.
Your adversary here is a group of humans. Not a Bash script.
This is an awfully good summary. There are a thousand different questions that would invalidate this, and the idea that maybe-possibly-sort-of outwitting one question solves the problem is insane. Any reasonable plan has to be prepared for a question that can't be invaded - whether that means "yes, here's the data", or "yes, but I can't get the data", or "no comment, I want a lawyer".
Your position seems to be that if you were carrying your checkbook (as an American) and then decided against it because you were worried someone might get your bank account number then you somehow risk getting into a debate over technicalities with a border agent. I would strongly recommend not getting into that debate as well by not bringing it up.
You have deliberately chosen to make certain information not available during the search period and are planning to make it available again once the search is over. I can absolutely see how that counts as "hiding".
What if my laptop had similar capabilities?
If it's going to bother you why not just use a dumb device and a VPN to access your sensitive data?
First you must ask them to not use loaded terminology like "hiding" when dealing with information you own and don't feel like accessing. Don't answer "yes" or "no" to whether you're hiding something. If you use their words then they have a huge advantage.
If I had to go there for work from Australia, I'd request a laptop and new credentials to be provided to me at the destination. For emergency comms during travels I'd wipe my mobile device and use a new prepaid mobile/cell service SIM card in it, from a different carrier, leaving the original one behind.
As such I'd not be bringing any 2FA that'd let me access my Lastpass which has just about all my stuff, and I'd be able to honestly state as much.
>If you’re a team administrator, you have total control over which secrets your employees can travel with. You can turn Travel Mode on and off for your team members, so you can ensure that company information stays safe at all times.
In which case, you as a user literally can't access the information without communicating with an admin at your organization. If CBP ever starts requiring that you call a third party to retrieve confidential information, well... I hope we never get to that point.
What would they do, do you think, if said third party was a foreign citizen—of a country with no deportation treaty with the US—and upon getting the person you have in hand to call them (presumably under duress), they just said "I don't negotiate with hostile governments" and hung up?
I'm not sure what this means, afaik there's no such thing as a "deportation treaty" (perhaps you're thinking of extradition?). If you aren't a citizen, you can be deported, no treaty necessary. Furthermore, if you're at the border you're not even being deported, you're just being denied entry - you get to not pass customs at all and sleep in the airport lounge until you can secure a flight back to your home country, if the CBP decides to turn you away for any reason they choose. As a non-citizen outside the border, you really have no rights at all, and no recourse against any decision the CBP chooses to make.
If US CBP catches a low-level gang member from the UK, they can use their testimony to get an extradition order for higher-ranking gang members—so CBP are incentivized to detain low-level gang members and grill them to see what they know, even if they haven't done anything. But if it's e.g. a low-level Russian or Chinese or Iranian gang member, then the "extradite" part of the "use testimony as evidence to extradite higher-level members" plan doesn't work, so there's relatively little point to grilling such people.
EDIT: Another way to put this: Is there an expectation that a border agent could, for example, ask for the password to my bank account? If not, how would there be an expectation that if that used to be on my iPhone it should still be there when I travel?
If you are a citizen, it's not clear that anything at all can be demanded, even logging into an account already on the device. It just hasn't been put to an unambiguous court challenge.
Some of the responses on this thread make it sound like there are people who would actually start explaining travel mode unprompted because they arrived at it by some twisted logic about what 'hiding' means.
If a border agent asks you directly, "Did you remove information from this device to prevent us or others from seeing it when entering or within this country?" the only truthful answer is "Yes", but travel mode has still achieved its goal. Even if they confiscate your device, they can't access the credentials. You may have other issues entering the country but your data is kept secure and private.
Nice mental gymnastics, though. I'm genuinely curious whether the first Federal judge to see this argument laughs or issues a contempt citation first.
The data isn't on the computer they are searching, it's on a server thousands of miles away. The data was erased from the device. If they can force you to sign into that service, they could also force you to sign into your bank, github, etc.
If you're a non-citizen attempting to enter the US under a visa waiver program, from certain countries, yes, they can.
The big questions is for Americans, who also have fewer rights at the border (4th amendment for example). Can they force you to sign into external services at the airport if you're a citizen? Everyone should refuse to do this.
i don't have a facebook account. she said this was really suspicious.
oh and she also found suspicious that i had two us entry stamps within a week of each other and didn't accept my explanation that i had gone through the us to go to england with my wife (even after i pointed to the GB entry stamp).
i hate going through the us border control.
I bet they'll mark you as suspicious if you travel without any electronics too, because that has become uncommon.
Isn't that what passport and visa are for?
Yes, they can ask you if you've deleted things, or if you have things elsewhere, but that's not generally what they ask or look for, or the issue at hand.
Look, you can twist the words however you want. At the end of the day, if a CBP agent or Federal prosecutor clues to the fact that you're using this functionality, their interpretation is almost certainly going to be "'late2part is hiding something!", and they will bring their (considerable) powers to bear in response to that, in order to figure out what that is.
Your indignation about or lack of understanding of that reality aren't going to change it.
Remember: if you're this far down the rabbit hole at immigration, the machine is out of your bag, open, and unlocked. They can take it, while in this state, and image it. If there is evidence that you've been even unintentionally untruthful with the CBP folks, you're screwed. Not only have you lied, but you may have handed over evidence of obstruction of justice/tampering with evidence.
Federal charges like that stack up quickly. If they want to fuck with you, they will.
Now "travel mode" simply removes the local git repository. The data still exists in the cloud, but you have to actively go out and log in to their service to retrieve it. Are you "hiding something" because you deleted a local copy of something from your device? There isn't something on your device that is somehow hidden. It's not there.
Otherwise, they could get your for "traveling with more than $X" because you have more than $X in a bank account somewhere that you could get via ATM.
Why should the actual answer be any different with data than it would be with the drugs?
Also, the case law is iffy on whether a one-word answer of 'no' can be used in an obstruction charge. (read about 'exculpatory no doctrine').
Edit: Yes, US citizens are allowed to ask for a lawyer (at the U.S. Border). But, the 4th Amendment is mostly out the window.
Customs is sort of a different issue, they can go through your physical and digital belongings and search you.
Looking up 'exculpatory no' implies that the matter was clearly settled in 1998 by the Supreme Court, which decided the doctrine is wholly invalid and the obstruction charge can be applied.
If there's iffy case law here, I'm not finding it successfully.
I feel like I saw a recent exception to this, but even if I didn't:
1998 is pre-9/11, pre-TSA, pre- the large riots of the 2000s and 2010s like ferguson and occupy. It's pre-snowden, pre-aaron swartz. It's pre-iphone which means its pre every case about recording cops in public. It's pre stop and frisk.
Criminal justice has changed a lot since 1998.
Answer yes, always, because: I have client data I'm most certainly hiding from you on my computer because they'd in general be worried if it i didn't, also I have passcodes to friends mail servers I manager for them I'm hiding from you, also I'm hiding from you all the emails I've sent to my parents, I'm also hiding from you all the pics of my gonads I sent to my lover. So yes, I'm hiding information from you. What country is this anyway? <asks the person arriving to the US from Germany>
Edit: Besides, if I ever travel out of country with my work phone, if anyone wants access to it they'll need to call my work's legal office as I'm not allowed to let anyone access that phone without their permission.