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Comment by lifestyleguru | Hacker News Reader

Unfortunately not consenting and knowing your rights doesn't help because they will search your belongings anyway. You can only delay the search which usually will not work in your favour. It happens in many developed "rule of law" countries. Something similar happened to me in Germany when traveling alone by car. When they noticed I have multiple smartphones with me they went hysterical. Luckily I had no cash on me, neither drugs of course. They were pursuing some criminals and perfectly wasted half an hour on scrolling my smartphones. Not even a single nude photo, just sunsets and travel photos with my girlfriend. Great job Kriminalpolizei from Dresden.

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German polizei search culture blows my mind though.

When festival buses are going to Fusion Festival (think Burning Man), it's common knowledge that half the buses will be stopped and "controlled", i.e. warantless search of all the passengers' belongings. That my German friends think this is normal or acceptable just blows my mind.

Searching buses and passenger cars is quite common in Belgium as well, "probable cause" is enough, and we all know how easy it is to find probable cause.

it’s getting even worse, in addition to warrantless action, they are getting looser and looser with granting warrants. A few years back, someone called their Mayor a willie/"pimmel" on twitter and got his house raided.

So did you consent on searching your phone or something else happened?

You say as if "consent" means anything in such situations. They told me to unlock the smartphones. The plain-clothes policeman was so aggressive and rude that I felt the devices would be confiscated otherwise, he was already holding them in his hands. I was only transiting, didn't feel like looking for a lawyer in Germany or even speaking German. They refused to identify themselves when I wanted to note it down before finally driving away. I know they were real policemen because regular uniformed police patrol joined them during the search.

Those are difficult situations indeed. I asked because I was wondering how it goes. Thanks for the explanation.

I've never had any experience like that luckily, but nowadays I only travel with disposable phones. They want to confiscate it? Let them. And If I do decide to grant access, anything important is never stored on the phone itself.

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