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Comment by encom | Hacker News Reader

>arbitrary

Border searches aren't arbitrary. Sure, in the sense you may or may not get searched, but not in the sense that cops come and turn over your house for no reason. Crossing the border, you know some fraction of travellers will get searched, and that the government does so lawfully. Antagonising law enforcement in this situation is not a smart move, no matter how righteous you feel it is, unless you're doing it as some form of protest.

With that said, I do think searching phones is absolute bullshit, and I'm not arguing in favour of it at all.

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Border searches aren't arbitrary when done for the purposes of border security and applied to travelers in a non-arbitrary way. It's pretty clear that CBP agents have a wide discretion to search people at their own whims i.e. arbitrarily.

>that the government does so lawfully

There are many legal question in this case, it's not clear the government acted lawfully. If he'd have arrived in a different federal court district, the search was unlawful because precedent says they need reasonable suspicion.

Not to mention this was a pretext to gather warrantless evidence for the FBI for a domestic investigation and nothing to do with securing the border.

>Antagonising law enforcement in this situation is not a smart move

Not what he did.

>Not what he did.

Maybe "antagonise" isn't the right word (ESL). By tricking the border agent into wiping the device, you have made him annoyed / angry / look foolish etc. No matter how much you are in the right, you have now given this person, with the power to create a lot of problems for you, the motivation to do so. You have to weigh that against coming home to your wife and children, in time for dinner. That's not fair, but that's reality.

Or maybe you crossed the border, with the intent to create this situation, to get it tried in court. More power to you.

About five years ago, here in Denmark, the government decided that freedom of assembly no longer applied. An activist decided to hold a party for about 10 people, including his lawyer, called the police on himself, and live streamed the whole thing. I can't find whatever became of that case, because search engines can no longer search. His name is Lars Andersen. He's been jailed a lot of times for petty bullshit.

What fraction of travellers get their phones "randomly" searched for child porn specifically, as in this case?

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