US Federal judge rules warrantless phone searches of anyone at US border are ok | Hacker News Reader

US Federal judge rules warrantless phone searches of anyone at US border are ok

androidauthority.com

57 pointseldaisfish20 comments

Travelling to or through the USA has long been among the most hostile experiences faced by international travellers. Even places like China it’s a more orderly, mundane kind of formality and, despite significant language and cultural barriers, less alien-feeling than the USA border.

What strikes me as uniquely hostile about the experience going through US customs/border is the border workers themselves. There’s this weird little-man-with-power vibe that I’ve not found at other borders, where there’s usually a kind of shared understanding that we both just have to get through the process and then everyone gets to go on with their day. US border attitude is more like ‘I’m valiantly defending the greatest nation on earth against you, scum’.

I guess all of this rant is to make the point that this development is completely unsurprising, and my long-held habit of avoiding travel via the USA even if it means a much longer duration or higher cost feels further vindicated.

I've felt that same freaking feeling as a US citizen returning to my own country! It's crazy! The customs officials entering the Netherlands were cracking jokes with us, the ones entering japan were unflinchingly polite and effective. At home I feel like I'm a criminal.

This is a cultural problem which I believe stems from US police and border guard recruiting have a leave from the US arm service. Many of these employees our training and have experience as in occupying force in a foreign country Where is the citizens are at least a threat, if not explicitly the enemy. Individuals hired from the arm forces bringing this mentality with them and skip spread throughout the organizations where they work.

I agree that it's rude/hostile but I dont think it's unique. I've been to about 20 countries and a certain country-not-country, including all the larger Asian ones, and most border crossings are benign with guards just barely glancing at your passport and waving you through.

The only bad experiences Ive had were in Canada and Australia, maybe it's an Anglo thing? In Canada I got asked several times if I was really me, where my parents were from since I insisted I was American(Hispanic), and asked to show other ID. In Australia you dont even talk to the border guard normally, you just scan and are let in. However, an agent still came up to me while I was collecting bags and took me to another room where they went through my stuff and asked a bunch of questions and went through my phone also asking if Im really me.

In the US, out of dozens of entries Ive had just one rude enough to stand out. Anecdotally east coast airports ask me more questions than west coast. So out of my own personal experience, having been to Europe, Latin America and Asia, I'd say Anglo speaking borders are the worst for me(I wont say English-speaking because Singapore's border agents were all smiles).

PS- Everything I described is from before covid. Can't believe it's been over a year, I barely remember being able to fly anywhere every few months...

> First Circuit Judge Sandra Lynch presided over the case. In her ruling, she wrote that “electronic device searches do not fit neatly into other categories of property searches, but the bottom line is that basic border searches of electronic devices do not involve an intrusive search of a person.”

What? No. Judges can just say whatever, huh? There's a reason why every phone/laptop has some form of lock on it. Because it would be intrusive if someone went inside. Just like a house with a lock. You could argue (incorrectly, imo) that we need to perform intrusive searches at the border, but you sound like a clown when you say it's not intrusive at all.

Your car has many locks, yet CBP can basically disassemble it if they want to. The judge must mean intrusive in the sense of a violation of your person (or something to that effect).

> The judge must mean intrusive in the sense of a violation of your person (or something to that effect).

My car does not store private digital information. Well, the infotainment/GPS system might have a record of where I've been, but if CBP wants to collect that every time I cross the border that seems excessive. My phone/laptop has a lot more sensitive information than that and looking at that most certainly is "a violation of your person". You might not be physically violating me, but it's still a violation as codified in various other laws on transmuting/accessing digital information without consent.

The bottom line is, if you want complete access to my digital life get a warrant from one of the many rubber-stamp judges at your disposal. If you can't even be bothered to that much, I don't think you actually need my information but just want an intimidation tool.

I don't like the current state of the law, but it makes sense. The law isn't what we'd like it to be, it's a self-supporting artifice constructed by legislators, lawyers, and judges (many of whom wear multiple hats through their careers).

Good time to remind everyone that judges are literally just attorneys that a) won an election or b) were appointed.

This one was appointed by Bill Clinton in 1995 and will continue in her position until she dies or retires. The only option for removal is impeachment by the house and removal by the senate, which will absolutely not happen.

The worst part of this overreach is this:

>“federal regulations give U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) authority to operate within 100 miles of any U.S. "external boundary."

... which puts all international airports and their surrounding regions up for grabs.

It's only a matter of time before some judge rules that the US border extends to pre-clearance areas giving the US powers on foreign soil.

The ACLU says approximately 2/3 of the US population live in those areas.

https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-zone

> ... which puts all international airports and their surrounding regions up for grabs.

International airports are not external boundaries. External boundary means land boundary, plus some water.[1]

[1]: https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/8/287.1

https://basecamp.com/handbook/15-international-travel-guide

Time to start wiping things before you go on trips again.

Just mail them to yourself. Ironically, shipped mail has more legal protections than you do. Apparently making sure other people don't read my spam mail is more important than ensuring some CBP agent isn't skimming saved credentials off people's phones. Wasn't there just an article that some major company was storing their credentials on the FS in plain text on Android?

Also, I would be tempted to wipe it, then install every cryptolocker variant I can find on it. You want my data, have at it, but I wouldn't try to do too much with it... Or just overwrite it with /dev/random. Let them try to figure out how to decrypt it lol.

You can also delete all apps that have personal information and clean cache. They cannot force you install a particular app.

This should be news to no one. The Fourth Amendment prohibits "unreasonable searches." Searches at the border for contraband and dutiable goods have never been deemed "unreasonable" because they're always been considered a routine part of border enforcement. One of the very first thing the founders did after ratifying the Constitution was to create a customs department for performing warrantless border searches.

If I give that argument the benefit of the doubt, I'm left trying to figure out why it bothers me to have CBP look through my phone but not through my luggage. I think the issue is what sort of contraband or dutiable good might I have on my phone in particular? I don't understand what I could possibly be bringing into the US, especially as a citizen, on an electronic device that wouldn't fall under the scope of a required warrant. If I have an invasive species, for example, it seems reasonable to search for that because of the imminent threat of bringing it into the country. But I don't understand what could be on my phone that would justify that kind of search in the absence of a warrant or probable cause with regard to my situation in particular.

I don't agree with the argument that borders are "twilight zones" of territory, because if they were, you'd end up in this kind of Zeno's paradox situation, and I think as a practical test, you could ask how the US would feel if foreign powers just sort of claimed the right to occupy border search zones. There probably is some grey area, but once you get to the search space, it's not grey anymore as the CBP is asserting their authority over it. I think the idea that the border zone includes 100 miles around border points speaks to the absurdity of the idea that the border is some kind of twilight zone where constitutional protections don't apply.

This is one of these decisions that seems to me to fly in the face of common sense and reflects some subjective feeling on the part of the judge that having CBP look through your phone "seems reasonable to them," which to me isn't reasonable at all.

Are the searches in your luggage on any flight not bothering you?

I agree that phones are different from other possessions.

> This is one of these decisions that seems to me to fly in the face of common sense and reflects some subjective feeling on the part of the judge that having CBP look through your phone "seems reasonable to them," which to me isn't reasonable at all.

I think that's exactly what happened, but the judge is severely underestimating the kind of data on their phone. Frankly, I really wish that when judges rule something "reasonable" that they are then immediately subjected to whatever they've deemed reasonable by some civil rights group (the ACLU is an obvious one).

I think this would get reversed in a heartbeat if the ACLU could roleplay CBP and demonstrate just how much you can get leverage on people using the contents of their phone.

I don't think it's malicious, just ignorant.

Declaring written content as contraband has historically been the domain of Eastern Block countries.

This is no different from leafing through a diary or searching for counterrevolutionary magazines.

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