Border agents can search cellphones without a warrant or reasonable suspicion | Hacker News Reader

Border agents can search cellphones without a warrant or reasonable suspicion

lawandcrime.com

235 pointsmmh0000198 comments

It is insane to me that judges consistently rule that the constitution doesn't apply because there's a "border" within 100 miles.

The 4th Amendment says, exactly:

   The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

I do not know how that could be unclear. My cellphone is my effect, and arguably, also a "paper". Which SHALL NOT BE VIOLATED. But apparently, I'm too dumb to understand the sentence[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Amendment_to_the_United...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_search_exception apparently

So the main argument is that in the time that was written and immediately afterwards we can look to see what they mean by that by how it was implemented. At the time it was understood that the government could and would search goods as they enter the country without warrants to enforce things like tariffs. I think that's a fairly reasonable interpretation of the meaning. Where I think this goes wrong (and maybe deviates from history?) is the conflation of papers and other digital records now with physical goods, historically were people's papers searched as they entered the country (beyond say looking through them to find hidden goods, I mean reading and examining letters and records)?

But the 100 mile rule? That covers damn near everybody in the US (>200 million, or 66%, give or take) subject to warrantless searches on the whim of whatever the police want?

Yeah, where does this come from? Who keeps defending this, has it been challenged?

About 213 million people live in this zone, so 2/3 of people in the USA. So I guess the 4th amendment doesn't actually apply to most US citizens?

Two main cases and the interpretation there-of [0]. The most expansive interpretation of the 100 mile zone that includes all coastal areas hasn't really been tested and AFAIK CBP mostly uses it in a more justifiable area around land borders so far relying on other justifications for more inland operations.

[0] ^f Supreme Court: https://forumtogether.org/article/explainer-u-s-border-patro...

It's more than that, it's being "close" to a border (you can argue if 100 miles is "close") and not on a whim but reason to believe you recently crossed it.

I've heard (but can't back up) that any city with an international airport counts as a 'border' for this purpose.

Probably. If international flights are arriving, why wouldn't it?

Because you can't exactly sneak on/off of an international airplane. It should be pretty trivial for customs to funnel travelers through a checkpoint where they can search at the time of the actual border crossing.

Likewise we now have the technology to automatically surveil the border 24/7 (maybe modulo tunnels, though I wouldn't be surprised if we could detect those too?), so a 100-mile exception only ever becomes more and more dubious. We could've built the wall and lined it with a surveillance system for less than the cost of this Iran war (never mind all the m̶o̶n̶e̶y̶ ̶p̶r̶i̶n̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ stimulus this decade), shutting up the whole border debate once and for all, and ending justifications for internal surveillance for trafficking.

> Because you can't exactly sneak on/off of an international airplane.

I'm actually pretty curious about this. You can't easily sneak on/off a commercial international airplane, but that's because they've got the gates set up in the airport to funnel you through a specific path that leads to customs. Showing up on an international charter or GA flight seems squishier. http://www.canada.eaachapter.org/FLYING%20TO%20and%20FROM%20... The process seems to be that you schedule an ETA, taxi to a CBP station and wait there until a CBP officer arrives.

On the other side of it, it looks like CANPASS would let you land in Canada even if the CBSA station is closed...

On the other hand all aircraft are tracked (we are surely not trying to account for the possibility of a stealth aircraft transporting illicit goods across the border and secretly landing somewhere), and they can decide what they're going to demand from international flights. They might be somewhat lax on runway security, maybe? But it's a pretty constrained problem and easy to keep it localized if they want to tighten it.

It's still quite hard to sneakily fly into the US in a GA or charter plane and land unexpectedly at an international airport which is why they seem to not count. I say that because places like the SBCC don't include 100 mile bubbles around international airports on their maps of the issue.

https://www.southernborder.org/100_mile_border_enforcement_z...

If you fly up from countries south of the US you have a tight list of airports you can clear customs at. Wilmington NC is the odd one on the eastern seaboard. Its about 520 miles north of the nearest one. For flights coming up from the Caribbean headed to New England its a lucrative place to be.

https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-19/chapter-I/part-122/sub...

I don't see many maps that include them in the visuals of border so I'm not sure of the status of that and if the feds are arguing it would count and I think they would if there was an indication they were. I do remember that that was part of the discussion when the policy/rule first got a lot of attention a few years ago but it's not showing up in the visuals now. Maybe there was a clarification or restriction added either by courts or by the executive?

See the map here: https://www.southernborder.org/100_mile_border_enforcement_z...

Sure, but if you're driving in NM or TX or AZ, what constitutes that reasonable basis for a stop? As long as the car is legal, there can't be any, yet they still do roving patrols. The also stop buses and trains mid-transit (not at stations), which again, hard to conceive of why that would be necessary - if they know an illegal is on a bus/train, sure stop it and get the person, but asking everybody onboard - should be illegal.

That's a separate issue I don't support outside of situations where they can reasonably prove/show you crossed without alrady going through the search. Luckily, at least so far afaik, it hasn't really been deployed in the maximalist way that turns the whole country into that zone. It's a lot easier to justify near physical land borders like Canada and Mexico than it is if it's being used within 100 miles of very controlled impermiable borders like international airports. Has it been used outside of the land borders?

Well intentioned laws today can be used by illintentioned actors in the future, and mild legal exceptions can become significant ones with a couple additions.

The 100 mile zone is a good example - that 100 mile zone assumes the entirety of the great lakes is international waters, even though Lake Michigan is 100% American Territory and over 300 miles long. So, you could be in a landlocked county of Indiana, and be harassed by the federal government for being in a border zone.

Whats to stop someone from saying, the entire Mississippi river and its tributaries are a border zone? With that you could get 80% of the US population into the border zone.

By enabling some "rule based" decisions that skirt the constitution, you enable a legal mechanism for constitutional rights to be violated without any legislation.

The problem when you rely on unclear laws that haven’t been modified for 250 years is they haven’t been modified for 250 years.

The scale of surveillance now wasn’t even thinkable back then. The ability to encrypt. The bandwidth and latency of communication. The sheer nunber of people, the research into manipulating minds. Does the second ammendment apply to an f35 or a tank? Well it doesn’t really matter, they clearly weren’t in scope when it was written. There were no wiretapping laws in the constitution because there was no wires. unreasonable in 1780 was different to unreasonable today.

The US has famously failed to update its legal framework via the legislative branch, so It’s upto the judicial branch which seeks to be about interpreting what some wealthy farmers from 250 years ago thought, rather than asking what laws make sense today.

>>The problem when you rely on unclear laws that haven’t been modified for 250 years is they haven’t been modified for 250 years.

The Constitution gives you some rights but maybe not this one (to not be searched without warrant at a border). The problem is not The Constitution but the legislative branch that didn't make laws to ban it.

>>what some wealthy farmers from 250 years ago thought, rather than asking what laws make sense today

It's not the job of judges to invent laws or ponder what laws make sense. That would be legislative branch.

As you snipped out

> The US has famously failed to update its legal framework via the legislative branch, so It’s upto the judicial branch which seeks to be about interpreting…

Yes but it's still not the job of the judges to do that for them.

Our judicial system is modeled after Judaic precepts (shoftim/shotrim/shomrim) outlined in Deuteronomy 16:18.

There, shoftim refers to judges who interpret and apply the law, requiring deep literacy in the Torah to ensure righteous judgment without favoritism or bribery. Shotrim are the enforcers of the court (sheriffs, etc.).

I don't know where people get the idea that the role of a judge is not to interpret the law. This is literally the only thing SCOTUS does.

It's their job to interpret but not to invent new laws or ponder which laws "make sense".

In particular just because it "makes sense" to extend 4th amendment reading doesn't justify judges just going for it. That would be legislating from the bench.

And this is a particular opinion you hold, not necessarily an agreement in the community / nation or even a belief of the legal system about itself.

Fortunatly there are ways to codify the agreement of the community/nation through the passage of laws and constitutional amendments. Something the US fails to do, as it’s more convenient politically to allow the judges to do it.

Every time SCOTUS makes a decision they invent new laws or nullify existing laws. Every case they take is a question about whether certain laws "make sense," and that determination is based entirely on learned, but subjective, personal opinion.

Take for example laws which depended on Roe V. Wade being a Constitutional right no longer existing, and laws created after that right was repealed, because said right didn't make sense to the current Justices (despite being established law for nearly 50 years.) Did the wording of the Constitution change over those intervening years? No. Justices who agreed that Roe was a right died or retired, and were replaced by justices who disagreed, and the Constitution means whatever a majority of Justices say it does. Or the Supreme Court deciding that the 2nd Amendment's definition of "militia" included every American citizen, thus creating a right to personal firearm ownership where none existed before.

Or more accurately, the Constitution means whatever a majority of Justices decide that the hypothetical ghosts of the Founding Fathers, if summoned into a pentagram, would themselves decide. It just happens to be the case that the original intent of the Founding Fathers always correlates to the political bias of the majority. Crazy how that works.

And of course the Supreme Court's power of judicial review itself was never granted by the Constitution. They just made it up because it made sense to them.

> Our judicial system is modeled after Judaic precepts (shoftim/shotrim/shomrim) outlined in Deuteronomy 16:18.

This does not appear to be true. “Judicial” is etymologically unrelated to “Judaic” fyi.

https://www.rightsprotection.org/the-united-states-constitut...

If the constitution doesn't take away a right from you specifically, then you have that right.

Not if the government allows that.

The constitution doesn’t take away your right to build or own a nuclear weapon.

I think they should have to pass a new amendment to fix or clarify when the Constitution seems to say something contradictory. Court shouldn't be able to just decide the 4th Amendment means something weaker than what it plainly says.

Yeah the plain language is unambiguous. That there is an historical border search exception simply doesn't matter to me. We fought a war for this, and it's bullshit.

I mean... yea we also have some shaky interpretations of the 1st amendment (see especially, assembly), 2nd, 5th (e.g. the incredible pressure for plea bargaining), 6th (which, paradoxically, is a major reason for aforementioned pressure on plea bargaining, so I kinda get it), 8th given how bad some prisons are, arguably 10th (even if I am personally not a fan of the 10th amendment so much), and arguably still the 15th (though it's obviously orders of magnitude better than the first 100 years of its existence).

And also various other parts of the construction, like the interstate commerce clause does some comically heavy lifting.

If you torture the US constitution enough it will eventually confess.

There are a lot of issues that fail the constitutional grep test yet somehow they are deemed (un)constitutional. The constitution was written to protect the people and states from the overly zealous congress. Not to fix the situation in which the congress is so dysfunctional that the judiciary has to replace it.

Do constitutional rights apply to non-citizens? I always thought the constitution of the USA was for USA citizens, but then I'm not from the USA and am watching all this from very far away.

Most of them do. The Constitution is clear on when it talks about citizens versus all people. The exceptions are things like the right to vote or hold federal office.

Most of them do. They're usually constructed as restrictions on the government's authority rather than grants of rights to a specific group of people, and there are court rulings clearly stating rights like freedom of speech and freedom from unreasonable search apply to any person subject to the government's authority.

Non-citizens don't get the right to bear arms as far as I know.

This *1000. It's a supreme failure on our educational system and society at large that most Americans don't think about our government and our rights in these terms.

The Constitution actually takes away our rights. It has to, it lays out the powers the government has over us. Even the bill of rights doesn't technically give us rights---it explicitly details the ways our government cannot operate.

I've made this point on this forum before.

These are natural rights. The constitution, as you say, delineates state powers as a necessary infringement upon those rights.

Generally yes but government can currently cancel your visa due to exercising those rights in many cases.

It depends on the right, some are describing "person", some are "the people". E.g. the 2nd amendment talks about the right of "the people" to keep and bear arms not being infringed and there are federal laws on the books directly barring aliens from keeping firearms so "the people" evidently does not apply to anyone everywhere in the Constitution.

The constitution applies to all people under US jurisdiction. It only specifies a few citizen-only rights, like voting.

The word "unreasonable" leaves the entire thing up to interpretation. Is it "reasonable" to search a traveler's phone with no indication of any wrongdoing? You'd probably say no. I'd say no. The courts say yes. Neither answer is objectively right or wrong according to this text.

Also crazy that lake michigan counts as the border, despite being entirely in the US, so you could be minding your business in Fort Wayne, Indiana and have your phone searched for no reason.

You can complete a water crossing by phone or so (so like in some random harbor in Wiscansin).

That doesn't justify a random search of course, but if there was some reason to believe that you were importing something illegal they could come search ya boat.

> It is insane to me that judges consistently rule that the constitution doesn't apply because there's a "border" within 100 miles.

People keep misconstruing this.

The border search exemption only applies when someone is actually crossing a border, and it does grant broad authority to search whatever they're carrying with them at the time. The authority to do border enforcement within a 100-mile zone around borders does not grant a broad authority to search. It does grant a narrow authority to do things like traffic checkpoints, but those don't permit searches for anything smaller than a person without additional evidence.

I do think the ruling establishing the authority to run checkpoints other than actual border crossings was wrongly decided and harmful, but it's not what's at issue in this case.

To add to that, the ruling intentionally did not make a decision on two important distinctions:

1. Forcing you to unlock - in this case, Alisigwe unlocked their phone willingly after being asked.

2. Forensic extraction - the ruling does not give authorities the power to run a sophisticated off-site break-in on your phone without reasonable suspicion.

So if you are a US citizen, and you are willingly unlocking your phone at the border (or you don't have a passcode), the Fourth Amendment no longer protect you from a suspicionless manual search of the phone at the border

But what they can do is confiscate your phone, _image_ it, without the access attempt, and keep the phone as evidence until or unless they feel the need to apply for a warrant for the access.

No. They cannot keep the phone, and they cannot copy the phone data without reasonable suspicion under this ruling (connecting the phone to an external device to copy is considered advanced forensic and already has case law around it).

Relying on that presumes an administration that respects the rule of law and doesn’t just do what they want anyway.

We don’t currently have such an administration.

True, but Egbert v. Boule (2022) the SCOTUS determined there's no penalty established or monetary damages owed to you if Border Agents cross the boundary of the exemption and violate your Fourth Amendment right.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egbert_v._Boule

https://harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-136/egbert-v-boule/

The remedy is disallowing evidence collected. This is the same for almost every case in which law enforcement searches without proper cause or a warrant.

And I don't know what that would be surprising. Where monetary damages are due they are because statute establishes them, or you can show some specific and direct financial harm (thus money damage is the remedy).

Doesn't stop further action based on your private data and retribution for evidence of anti-American speech or potentially-criminal travel patterns. In terms of government surveillance, evidence doesn't need to be submitted to court. It can be provided to a government surveillance contractor like Palantir or Flock for national security purposes.

The current Exectutive Branch has a history of keyword-search driven action, without a chain-of-command of proper review before action.

At least one American citizen has successfully been un-deported based on bad information resulting in deportation action. DHS has a Predictive Policing division willing to conduct unconstitutional, warantless parellel construction.

Warrantless surveillance is well established, and anti-American evidence may exist on your device depending on the reasonable suspicion provided by other Palantir-esque analysis of your online activity and your level of support of the ruling power. The law enforcement agent you encounter won't receive that context, just that the system they usually use flagged you as suspicious without your knowledge (depending on the jurisdiction you're in).

To your point, it only needs to be justified in court if you take legal action. Per Egbert v. Boule (2022), no remedy for American citizens seeking damages for unjustified violations of the First Amendment or Fourth Amendment when it comes to immigration enforcement-related action exists unless explicitly defined by Congress (which it has not, yet).

Edit:

> “People in the government violated my privacy by reading my private information”, on its own, is not a harm the court can fix.

Basically, the average American should treat Border Patrol agents like they're the Gestapo going after their private, Constitutionally protected information with no legal recourse for that potential violation of Constitutionally-protected right to privacy.

If you're rich you can fight it, but the SCOTUS will likely determine Border Agent overreach is something that just happens until Congress establishes a penalty.

To seek damages in a court you must show that you have suffered specific harm that the court can remedy.

“People in the government violated my privacy by reading my private information”, on its own, is not a harm the court can fix.

If the legislature wants to assign a monetary value to that, they can.

To seek damages in court, you must spend more than taxpayer-funded legal defendants to begin to establish the specific harm.

Your next vote should consider an innocent-until-proven-guilty doctrine that provides potential American citizen victims of Border Patrol overreach a taxpayer-funded Consitutional lawyer in court and a trial in front of a jury of their peers.

Your tax dollars are already being used to harass and falsely detain Americans, might as well also spend your tax dollars on defending the innocent (which might be you next year). Maybe the American Government will stop falsely detaining citizens if it becomes more expensive for taxpayers.

Proximity to borders leaves the government the possibility that if it really, really wanted to search a property, they'd just have to cede some land in a 100mile radius to a foreign country and instantly create an international border wherever they need one.

We gave the government the ability to police itself and there's no punishments for poor rulings.

The structure of the Supreme Court is foolish. It made sense initially, having the people who drafted the constitution adjudicate it. But I think it would be better to drop SCOTUS all together, letting the Federal courts sort out their disagreements via consensus. Or have a review panel setup like the House (elected, population based) who have the ability to override rulings and censure/discipline judges who make poor rulings.

Either way, we need more people involved in the process.

> It is insane to me that judges consistently rule that the constitution doesn't apply because there's a "border" within 100 miles.

100 miles (160 km) covers about two-thirds (66%) of the US population:

* https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/border-zone

This happened to me last month in Halifax Canada, I wanted to board a transfer flight to Amsterdam, going through Boston. I was stopped as I had salts with me from a buddhist relic I couldn't exactly identify. The machine said it contained a primary explosive (silver azide). I was ordered to give my access code to my iphone and 3 suspicious screenshots were found I made 2 years ago about the Iran/Israel war. I said I'm interested in geo-politics and watched the news. I was barred from the US for life - it was said that it could have been much worse. When I wanted to go to the main airport hall a number of canadian police officers arrested me and drove me handcuffed to a cell. I was asked if I wanted a lawyer and they arranged a phone call. The lawyer said I would spend to nights in a cell and then she would come to prepare my case and was strongly advised not to talk to people before that. I was released from my cell 7 hours later that evening after a thorough and friendly conversation with the canadian special police. I can understand that security don't want to take any chances with people carrying supposed explosive powders on an airport, so the system was doing it's protective job. That day there was a threat alert I heard later. A week later I heard from the person who gave me the relic (I was on retreat) that the border guard contacted them and said it was a false positive (what I suspected at the time, but I didn't dare argue against the machine results).

I commend your understanding. I would have been losing my mind with rage.

Thank you, I just went to a tibetan-buddhist retreat so I saw it as meditation-in-action

You were barred for life over a false positive? That's crazy.

They were barred for life for having screenshots the current administration considers anti-American.

The 2024 screenshots I had forgotten about involved A) an X by Denys Davidov - a youtuber commenting on the Ukranian-Russian war - where commented on IS suicide bombers B) an infographic on the Israel-Iran war with a map with explosions C) another one i have forgotten about I can understand that if a machine detects something questionable and my phone has these things, that that could be reason to search and question me thoroughly given a general high alert.

> I was barred from the US for life

I'm a little confused. Canadian police barred you from the US for life?

Also sounds like you did not take your lawyer's advice not to talk. Regardless, sorry you went through such a stressful ordeal over a false positive.

You can pre-clear US customs and immigration in a number of Canadian airports, including Halifax

And just to clarify another element of the story: there is a significant legal difference between pre-clearance in a Canadian airport and landing in the US and proceeding through customs on US soil. At a pre-clearance station, you are still on Canadian soil. I'm sure there are exceptions, but you generally can "withdraw your application to enter" and basically just turn around and walk away from the border. If you decide you don't want to unlock your phone for the CBP officer, you can walk away. At that point they've already seen your passport and you're going to be flagged and may never be approved for entry again, but you're not going to end up on a CBP facility. Once you're through, you'll need to clear Canadian customs to go back, but if something happens it will be Canadian police that arrest you.

I’m confused why they would contact the person that gave you the relic to tell them it was a false positive? It doesn’t seem like something they would do. Why not contact you?

I don't know, good question. They had my passport data and name - but not my contact data.

> suspicious screenshots were found I made 2 years ago about the Iran/Israel war

> I was barred from the US for life

Getting banned for life due to wrongthink screenshots is pretty wild. No idea why screenshots would be suspicious.

> I can understand that security don't want to take any chances with people carrying supposed explosive powders on an airport, so the system was doing it's protective job.

I'd understand rejecting your entry on that day but why would they make you persona non grata forever? That seems completely out of proportion.

I could go to the consulate in my country to ask if I could go to the US in the future.

The problem with these laws isn't that they can search you at the border. It's that they can search you within 100 miles of the border (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_search_exception). The total number of people who live within that zone is 213 Million people, or 2/3 of the total population (https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/border-zone).

Seems like a generally terrible idea. Why this cannot be one day changed to 200 miles on a whim?

It will, one day, be changed to 200 miles (or more) on a whim

Patriot Act did basically that.

The best time to delete all social media accounts and never post anything online with your name attached ever again was 10 years ago. The second best time is right now. This stuff can and will be used against you out of context 10, 20, 30 years into the future.

Completely agree.

Does HN comply with CCPA requests?

Also consider the fact that if someone else makes accounts in your name (whether maliciously or simply because they share the same name) I imagine this could be used against you.

This has happened to multiple people I know who have deleted a Facebook account. Shortly after, a fake account with their picture and info popped up. I wonder if there are bots scanning for this waiting for people to delete accounts.

I have a facebook extension that alerts when a friend vanishes from my friend list. It does a lot of other stuff too, like remove ads etc. But that's one of its features and it's super easy to detect apparently. Facebook doesn't notify you for obvious reasons, but if you simply maintain a list of friends between visits it's easy.

I always thought it was bold for people to post anything using their real identity.

You never know if a stance you have now will be frowned upon in 5 or 10 years from now.

I’ve heard you can’t pass customs with a phone without your social network accounts.

Maybe not all customs are created equally, but flying between Toronto and the states I have never had to show my phone let alone my social accounts. Also never seen that going up through customs.

Sometimes people get searched randomly, and occasionally it correlates to their skin color.

You don't need to post under your real name to be IDed.

It's trivial to acquire a list of real people tied to email addresses, phones, social media. And that's what's out there for "normal" businesses.

Who knows what kind of tooling is available to people who serve on the boards of tech giants?

I haven’t done that since around 2012. But it’s rough since you get cut off from family and friends who exclusively use social media to stay in touch. Because I don’t use Instagram or fb, there are so many local events and opportunities I keep missing out on.

Customs has always been able to search everything without a warrant or suspicion when crossing the border. I guess this is saying that they can search the digital contents of physical devices/media as well?

It says they can manually search them. According to this, the ruling explicitly doesn’t say if they can digitally search them.

digitally also means “using the fingers”, so never consent to a digital search without prior clarification

You using the whole fist, doc?

Breathe easy.

Two in the pink, one in the stink

Not everything. From the case itself:

"To be sure, nonroutine searches, which are “more invasive searches, like strip searches, require reasonable suspicion.” Id. But we have held that “the label ‘non-routine’ should generally be reserved for intrusive border searches of the person (such as body-cavity searches or strip searches), not belongings.” United States v. Levy, 803 F.3d 120, 123 n.3 (2d Cir. 2015) (emphasis added)."

So carry a separate device while traveling. Or wipe your phone, then restore after the border. This is just going to lead to a service that does this for you and the overreaching feds won’t be able to do anything about it.

And as far as I can tell you still don’t have to give them your pin code.

They don't need your pin, they can just hack the phone take all your data anyway. ICE has a contract with Cellebrite

Not really. Cellebrite isn't magic. If you have an up to date OS and a strong password not pin, encryption functions as it should. The best thing to do is simply have a travel phone.

It's not magic, but that doesn't mean it doesn't work most of the time.

From https://cellebrite.com/en/blog/the-access-gap-is-closed-what... :

Here’s what that looks like in practice in 2026:

iOS: Cellebrite supports access to the latest iPhone models and iOS versions, including both after-first-unlock (AFU) and before-first-unlock (BFU) states. Recent updates have introduced new AFU access methods for previously unsupported iOS device configurations, expanding the range of devices that can be accessed without requiring a prior unlock event.

Android: The latest releases restored and expanded full file system (FFS) extraction across a broad range of newer Android models, which is an area where the competitive landscape had seen fluctuation. Coverage now spans Samsung, Google Pixel and other major Android manufacturers at their current OS versions.

"Access" is not what you think it means. This is marketing hype directly from their site. I have first hand experience using their extractors and its not as robust as they make it sound. They extract metadata outside of the encrypted volumes. It all depends on what your worried about.

Actual hardware 0-days are highly coveted, extremely expensive, military classified tools that TSA does not have access too and never will.

Edit: CBP not TSA (thanks good callout)

Minor nitpick this wouldnt be TSA but CBP; both are anti-American organizations under DHS.

Imaged encrypted volumes can be decrypted later. We're building massive amounts of compute with government bonds these days.

This is true for literally everything encrypted. Security is always a function of time and effort. The name of the game is being not worth the effort.

When the effort becomes trivial, so does the justification for it. Doesn’t cost them any of their own money.

Once again its not as simple as oh its easy now. It's highly dependent on how much time has passed, who you are, what your worried about... etc... making it out like everyone is on the same plane makes the threat assessment worthless.

Right now it seems GrapheneOS is the only OS capable of resisting Cellebrite.

Thats not at all accurate. When you say "resisting" you are glossing over really important distinctions. The lastest versions of iOS are perfectly capable of being locked down in a such a way that they are not able to be penetrated by Cellebrite.

The info extracted is the nuance your missing here. Cellebrite doesnt break encryption, it brute forces weak PINs and passwords and collects metadata thats outside of the protected volume.

Your online activity likely exposes much much more about you than the data extracted by Cellebrite. These distinctions matter as its really easy to misunderstand and sensitionalize their tools.

the worry is that this will be interpreted as tampering and cary consequences.

This would not be tampering, because you haven’t tampered with anything. The “evidence” is simply at home.

The law isn't a computer program. Intent matters.

Try proving intent when it’s a common practice. I’d even say it’s a best practice these days, especially for business.

You’re fearmongering. Find me a case of someone getting prosecuted for having a burner phone. It doesn’t exist.

If you're worried about that, you are not living in a free country anymore.

It's been somewhat established that having a wiped or basic phone is in itself sus and reason for them to investigate you further.

They can investigate all they want, they can even detain you briefly, but if you are a citizen and there’s no evidence of a crime then they have to let you in.

They have more guns than you do, and these days, most of the judges are blindly and shamelessly on their side. They don't "have" to do jack.

You’re fearmongering. Despite what some may say, it’s not Nazi Germany. Rule of law still has sway.

Find me caselaw where a “basic” phone was used as valid evidence. Or where the phone was already empty when someone began to approach the border.

Rule of Law was very strong in Nazi Germany. Everything that regime did was legal in Germany at the time.

If you really believe that the two are equivalent, I hope you’re taking action right now and not just posting on HN. Otherwise that would certainly speak poorly of your character.

I mean they'll shoot protesters execution-style and retroactively declare that person a terrorist before they've even done any investigations.

It's not Nazi Germany, but this administration has certainly demonstrated that they're not above inventing reasons to justify their actions later.

Despite the problems, this stuff is still a rarity among most people. And most people understand that.

It’s obviously getting worse, but that’s not a reason to give up all hope.

I don't think I disagree with anything you said. I think cynicism is lazy.

Rule of law still has sway.

Get back to me once the Good and Pretti homicides in Minneapolis have been prosecuted.

I said that it still has sway, not that it’s perfect. Your position basically amounts to “hide in bed and hope they don’t come for you”.

My position is that what happened to them could happen to you or me.

You don't seem concerned, though. So that's good. I guess.

The question isn’t whether something is merely possible. You could get struck by a moving ambulance tomorrow.

It’s about how likely something is.

Getting more likely every year.

And if you're not a citizen?

Then this does not apply. Best to consult a lawyer

Have not heard this, whats your source? I don't see how they could determine that because "its a new phone" is hard to dispute.

best case scenario is that a higher court overturns this but not holding my breath.

Do you have any references to this?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49386895

That doesn't support the proposition that carrying a new or previously-cleaned phone across the border is cause for suspicion. In that case, the defendant wiped the phone after he was encountered by CBP.

It's abundantly clear when a phone is new or previously-cleaned, they would consider that cause for suspicion all the same.

Clear from what? Cite examples where this has happened, please.

Step 1: Person is detained. Step 2: They wipe their phone on the spot. Step 3: Police say they're hiding evidence.

If step 2 happens at the border post detention, or prior to arrival at the border, the perspective to the police is all the same, they see a wiped phone. Police detained somebody, saw they had a wiped phone. Doesn't matter when they wiped it.

Common sense...

The law distinguishes between not bringing evidence to a law enforcement encounter and destroying it in the middle of one.

Please, ask an attorney and educate yourself before you continue.

"The law" doesn't operate by standard norms at the border, almost like you missed the point of the original article. If they want to charge you with something, they'll find a way to do it. Not sure which version of the US you live in where all government actions follow the letter of the law, but it's not where the rest of us are.

Read Samuel Tunick's article again:

> Customs and Border Protection officers wanted to search his phone. After questioning, he eventually turned it over but gave officers a passcode that then erased the contents of his Google Pixel phone.

If he had given them a blank phone, it wouldn't matter whether he had _just_ wiped it or had arrived with a wiped one, they would treat him all the same.

> Please, ask an attorney and educate yourself before you continue.

I've gone through this process at the border and have in fact consulted an attorney on precisely this. How about you do the same before you continue.

> If he had given them a blank phone, it wouldn't matter whether he had _just_ wiped it or had arrived with a wiped one, they would treat him all the same.

Whether someone’s activity meets the elements of a destruction of evidence charge depends on context. Any competent attorney will tell you that. Wiping your phone once the encounter has begun, and especially in response to being asked to hand over the phone for inspection? Bad. Doing it before you board the plane? Less of a problem.

A border agent might still question you more intensely if you show up at the encounter with a new or previously cleaned phone, but that’s not the same as being hauled off and criminally charged for destruction of evidence after the encounter has begun.

> I've gone through this process at the border and have in fact consulted an attorney on precisely this.

What did they tell you, exactly? And can you give me their contact info?

> How about you do the same before you continue.

I am an attorney. (Not legal advice, consult your own.)

>but that’s not the same as being hauled off and criminally charged for destruction of evidence after the encounter has begun.

I'm glad you have so much faith in our system.

> What did they tell you, exactly?

That you have far fewer exercisable rights or guarantees at the border.

> And can you give me their contact info?

No thanks, I'm alright.

>I am an attorney. (Not legal advice, consult your own.)

I'm sure you are!

> That you have far fewer exercisable rights or guarantees at the border.

That’s true, but also not what we’re debating.

We are debating whether, on inspection, having a new-appearing phone when you first encounter CBP will give rise to reasonable suspicion that you violated the law or are inadmissible and thus should be further investigated. I asked you for specific examples where this happened to someone, and you provided an example that didn’t fit the pattern. You gave some other story about someone who destroyed evidence in the middle of an encounter.

If you don’t have an example that matches, that’s fine. But don’t then move the goalposts.

Fun fact, no we aren't!

Go ahead and re-read the original comment: "It's been somewhat established that having a wiped or basic phone is in itself sus and reason for them to investigate you further."

The implication is that, as in the case I provided, if they have already detained you, and you provide them with a wiped or basic phone (Tunick), this will be a "in itself sus and reason for them to investigate you further."

Goalposts are where I left them, not sure where you're going...

edit: And let me save you time in your response, "investigate you further" implies they were already investigating you.

What are they going to do if you’re not carrying anything illegal and you’re a citizen? You cannot be refused entry to the US as a citizen and they can’t charge you or hold you without evidence. You don’t have to tell them why your phone is wiped, just stay silent until you’re released.

It's the same in other countries like the UK for example.

You can get stopped at the border, forced to talk to the border agents, you do not have the right to have a lawyer in the room during the interrogation (although you can have one phone call before your interrogation starts), you do not have the right to refuse to answer questions and they will seize your phone and computers and send them back to you later. Also you will have to provide your passwords and pin-codes for your devices.

This guy went through it last year: https://youtu.be/991kRp8KUmo?si=AFfJA3erydfZZFj1

This is confusing; what happens to you if you refuse a warantless search of your property?

I'm a US citizen returning home. Do they just... send me back out of the country? :) I don't suppose they'd have the grounds to arrest me since there is no law that I can see being broken. I suppose they could keep the device until such time that a warrant could be obtained to digitally search / break into the device (but that requires some reasonable suspicion - simply refusing a warantless search isn't it).

They let you in and keep your property. I've never had an issue at a border, but I still keep my devices encrypted and powered off when crossing.

They can put you in custody.

Not for this they can't. They can seize your belongings but they can't detain you for something that isn't a crime and they cannot prevent you from entering the country if you're a citizen. You have an absolute right per Supreme Court rulings to enter the country unconditionally as a citizen

As a citizen they cannot block you from returning to the country. What they can do however is seize your devices (and briefly your person) and other property.

It’s crazy that back in Belarus in 2021 we laughed off our friend who gave his phone & password to search to a solider who approached him during his commute to university.

We couldn’t expect that it will became a norm in our country, not to mention “civilized world”. But it did…

Just five year later same practice is OK in US. Same US that was busy with ethical question of unlocking or not unlocking terrorists iPhones in past decade.

Tech is going from Wild West to Cyber Gulag.

In your opinion, has the tourism recovered?. Because it seems like somebody does not want that. Each time tourists try to approach US again, the government hisses.

[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49754687

It's a massive swing and a miss that GrapheneOS has a religious opposition to a VeraCrypt-style hidden volume arrangement that allows different passwords to unlock different OS volumes.

It would be vastly superior to their current solution, which basically guarantees contempt charges.

I hope they change their mind soon!

This. There should be a password that unlocks to a fairly minimal, but not too minimal configuration that wouldn't have anything of interest on it.

What do you imagine being on your phone that is "of interest" to CBP at a border crossing?

Perhaps a screenshot of a politically-incorrect social media post.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49759504

The problem is it will be detectable and detected and then the password demanded and a failure to provide it will result in charges. I think unfortunately the answer is the phone has to be plausibly empty when crossing the US border, they should focus their efforts on being able to store the full state of the phone remotely and encrypted and being able to restore it easily.

Would it be detectable to some goon at the border? Probably not. They'd put in the sanitized password, see nothing, and let the person go. If it gets seized and an FBI or CIA analyst gets ahold of it, then yeah the smart guys are going to see it but you'd be in that situation anyway, so why not have an out that may avoid it?

Hidden volumes are impossible to detect, even with the password to the 'clean' volume and full device access.

Yes. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49399927. In the US you don't have key disclosure laws so the best course of action is to shut the fuck up [1].

[1] https://reddit.com/r/funny/comments/olecn5

Hidden volumes are not detectable and impossible to prove, even with the password to the clean volume and device access. That's the entire point.

My understanding is that wear-leveling on SSDs leaves forensic traces which allows hidden volumes to be detected.

The trick around that is to use some form of oblivious block storage. That would completely remove those traces, though it is very performance intensive to anything obliviously.

However, that would clearly make your phone look suspicious from forensic analysis. To counteract that, you have two hidden volumes leaving you with three total systems: your insecure system (first password), the honeypot volume for “clever” actors to find, and then the truly secure volume.

I think one honeypot would be ideal. It needs to be convincing and have data that seems sensitive which would take a lot of effort. Put your nude photos there or something.

It's a bad idea because of the increased attack surface even if it was possible and it's not possible according to Veracrypt [1]. It would quickly become a known feature document in guides regularly updated and handed to law enforcement. Forensic tools would also add detections.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

[1] https://veracrypt.io/en/Wear-Leveling.html

https://veracrypt.io/en/Trim%20Operation.html

Land of the … laugh … free!

Anyone still crossing US borders with electronic devices that aren't fully wiped? This is company policy for some European companies for a long time. Even during the Biden administration.

Most employees just receive a wiped phone/laptop for the duration of the trip. Depending on the country its either a device that only has access to the bare minimum of Services, or for countries like Russia they issue a dumb phone that can only call and text.

Half of the commenters here seem to believe that nobody has ever done this successfully because it must be “suspicious”. Despite it being a common practice for many organizations.

It might be suspicious, but they don't get any incriminating evidence that way. It's also much easier for people visiting. Most of the time entry is denied and you can take the next plane back home. I'm fine with that, don't care. I only care if I would get taken into ICE detention. This risk grew significantly, so I simply won't go.

You make it sound so "meh, whatever", but there's a few realities attached to this:

The airline in question will likely not serve you again, but probably more importantly, when you apply for a tourist visa to just about any country on earth, you'll now have to answer that question "Have you ever been denied or refused a visa or entry into a country?" and while some might take sympathy on "Oh, yeah, we get it", you can be sure you'll be getting extra attention and some countries will threaten to deny entry too.

Lol no. Nobody cares. Also airlines don't care.

Edit: typical US perspective. Something that happens in the US doesn't have relevant implications to the rest of the world.

Airlines do care. They get assessed a fee for every passenger that is turned around.

Oh look, Australia cares: https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/form-listing/forms/1563.pdf

> Have you, or any other person included in your visa application, ever been removed, deported or excluded from any country (including Australia)?

Oh look, Germany cares: https://preview.auswaertiges-amt.de/blueprint/servlet/resour...

> Have you ever been expelled or deported from the Federal Republic of Germany, had an application for a residence permit rejected, or been refused entry into the Federal Republic of Germany?

Almost like you're just making shit up based on some anti-US sentiment.

LOL at your hypocrisy. I am a UK citizen, and I am an Australian citizen, and I am -not- a US citizen, lived and worked in both and in Europe though I am, currently, in the US. But sure, make the same assumptions that you want to think I'm guilty of making.

Just mark "no" on the form and it's no problem anymore. Or mark "yes" and list it. Nothing is going to happen.

That's the best you got.

"Just lie on your visa applications, no countries on earth share data with each other and no-one cares except the US and who cares about them, nothing will ever happen to you."

Cool.

Actually, the idiocy of this response is even more notable when you learn that many countries will notate it IN YOUR PASSPORT that you were refused entry.

"Lie on your visa application and hope no immigration officer thumbs through your passport." Stunning advice.

It's frankly insane that y'all have to do that, and yes Americans cross the border, perhaps haplessly.

Is there any difference between US citizens and visitors? It just seems like US citizens think those charades are normal and don't question them. In my home country I can just deny getting my devices searched. They might be allowed to seize and seal them, awaiting a court order for searching the device. Which I could appeal. Basically the same process as anywhere else in the country, international borders are not some special place that gives the police superpowers.

Ps: we also don't have some special paramilitary border police. Just regular police stationed at the border.

It's not routine. Most tourist visitors don't have any trouble. I'm a US citizen, but I've never had my phone searched at an airport or border crossing, not that I cross the border all that often.

I know it isn't routine. But it does happen. I know two people that had to go into secondary inspection and I think they had to unlock their phones. Both of them were completely normal business travelers without anything dubious in their life or their business. One was a medical doctor another one a government employee going to an international conference hosted by a US federal institution (which required some extensive clearance and background checks to even attend). Both Western European citizens with a completely spotless CV.

all of our police are essentially paramilitary now. There's nothing special about ICE or CBP other than they're federal rather than local. Even local cops have become hyper-militarized and think they're patrolling the streets of Fallujah

It's the same thing for US citizens entering the US. They can try to search your device, and they can seize it temporarily (although that may end up being a long temporarily), but they can't deny you entry.

For a non-citizen, it's basically comply or go home, possibly with a fun stay in a detention center first.

So it's even better for a non-citizen, because you can just turn around and go home?

I don't get why some people end up in a detention center. Why not send them back home on the next flight? Even if people can't pay the ticket a lot of embassies will immediately pay for their citizen's ticket. Especially if they have a job and will be able to pay it back in a reasonable time. If it's an EU citizen they can be sent back on any flight going to Europe. So there is usually a possibility to leave within the hour.

Most people probably won't like having their plans ruined and a bunch of money wasted being forced to abandon their travel. And the US may be home to a noncitizen.

As for why they end up in a detention center, maybe immigration thinks they might want to ask them some more question, or maybe they're just exacting some punishment on the uncooperative foreigner.

Yes, there's a difference: US citizens have the right to enter the USA; visitors do not. US officials can deny a visitor entry arbitrarily, and the visitor has limited recourse to appeal such a decision. A visitor who does not cooperate with officials who want to search something is likely to be denied entry.

A citizen may only be denied entry if they're entering the country for the purpose of committing a crime, and if the government can prove that, they'll probably admit the citizen and immediately arrest them instead.

A US citizen cannot be denied entry into the country for ANY reason. A valid US passport is prima facie evidence of citizenship so once you show it the worst that can happen is you getting arrested.

I remember reading about narrow exceptions, but a quick search suggests I was mistaken.

That's the theoretical worst that should happen. The theoretical worst that could happen is far worse than that.

> It just seems like US citizens think those charades are normal and don't question them. In my home country I can just deny getting my devices searched

What home country is that? Some places (UK I think is one) have less protection at the border for citizens than the US does. The risk of being searched for Average Joe is so small that most people don't even think about it. HN is disproportionately worried.

It's not the UK, which is similarly fu*d up as the US.

>Is there any difference between US citizens and visitors?

Yes. US citizens have an absolute right of return to the US (at a land border anyway, they can be stopped from boarding a flight to the US while physically in another country). If there's an active warrant for arrest or they commit a crime right there or the like they can be arrested, but the process at that point plays out the same as an arrest anywhere in the country with the same standards. Property can be screened and denied, or potentially seized, but the person can than challenge that and it must be returned unless there is reason. This significantly changes the math as far as practical inconvenience to refusal to cooperate, though I don't want to downplay how much it could suck for most people to have expensive stuff taken for even a short period of time. But they can't keep someone from getting home and, in turn, back to financial, legal, political, and social support networks which can back them from there.

Visitors on the other hand have no right to entry at all and can be denied for any legal reason (which in practice amounts to near anything). They can be banned from future entry as well for a period of time or indefinitely. So they face different (and greater) pressure.

>In my home country I can just deny getting my devices searched. They might be allowed to seize and seal them, awaiting a court order for searching the device. Which I could appeal.

This sounds roughly the same as America then, depending on specifics. Here LEAs may not unfortunately need a court order to search the devices of an American "as best they can", but they can't compel cooperation either (and in fact generally cannot get a court order for that at all outside of a narrow exception due to the 5th Amendment). So if a device isn't encrypted, or if it is but they're able to break into it, or if (as in this case) the person in question simply goes ahead and unlocks it for them then that's at least for now allowed (hopefully SCOTUS overrules the 2C), but they can't legally force password entry.

>Basically the same process as anywhere else in the country, international borders are not some special place that gives the police superpowers.

You don't mention your country (and that's fine!) but I don't think there is a single nation anywhere that doesn't have "police superpowers" at international borders. It's sorta a core part and parcel with the basic idea of a "nation" at all, that it can if it wishes regulate its people/goods exchange with the rest of the world. When you travel within a typical free-ish country you can just stop at a store in town and buy stuff and then take it home and the police can't investigate it and demand receipts and that you pay additional taxes or just outright seize it or make you take it back. Right? That's just, normal, within a single polity everything is already under the same rules.

But a border between independent polities by definition means that there could be goods legal in one but illegal in the other, or that are subject to different standards, or different safety considerations, or where there is disagreement on whether/how externalities are accounted for, or just simply taxed differently for pure revenue purposes. In turn, what country doesn't give themselves the right to regulate import of physical stuff, even if internally there is total freedom of movement and goods? Genuinely curious?

The argument here though is that this isn't about regulation of imports, but a criminal investigation. And I agree with legal scholars like Orin Kerr that the Second Circuit got this one wrong. This was not an import power thing, trying to stop contraband or levy legal import taxes, this was a criminal case, and I think that should always be protected by the 4A.

Yes, the vast majority of US citizens returning from international travel cross the border with their regular personal, unwiped phones every day.

I do that several times a year, and never wipe my phone. I looked at statistics of such phone examinations over the last few years, and I didn't see any difference between the current and last administrations, when nobody was wiping their phones.

Wiping phones/laptops before entering the US is common practice for many organizations for over a decade now.

Not in my organization, or in any that I know of. I don't even understand why it would be in an organization's interest to do that. Why should they care if I'm harrassed for data of a political nature? They generally tell me not to even have any such data on their property.

They do, however, require that I take a burner device or wipe it completely, if I travel to China.

I will be wiping my before I pass through US Customs next, no matter who the president is. I have no idea what some guard might randomly take issue with, best not to risk it.

Yes, the whole system is broken for a long time. Basically since 9/11.

I’m Canadian and work in healthcare. I have a dedicated travel phone that I move my SIM card to whenever I travel to the US.

I carry a letter from my work explaining that I’m not allowed to travel with electronic devices potentially containing confidential patient information in case a recently wiped phone raises any flags

Back in 2010 my employer was requiring everyone to take blank burner devices to china. Sad that's come to this in America.

How the fuck did we let this happen?! Apathy. That's how. If we fight back now, we can save what's left of this dying "democracy" before it's too late.

Our grandfathers didn't die for this. Pathetic.

Given that the US's economy is utterly dependent on tourism, do they just not want to have money any more or something?

Because who in their right mind is ever going to travel there at the moment?

The US's economy is definitely not "utterly dependent on tourism".

It’s hard to find an authoritative source with perfect data but it seems unanimous the US is in the bottom quintile in terms of share of GDP from tourism.

Almost all countries below the US have much more immediate concerns about physical safety.

What a terrible fucked up system.

And now you're extra suspicious if you don't have one at all

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