Fourth Circuit: Border Agents Can Search Your Phone by Hand, No Suspicion Needed

Posted by leephillips 1 day ago

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Comments

Comment by Cider9986 1 day ago

You deserve a secure device: https://grapheneos.org

Comment by advisedwang 1 day ago

That doesn't help for the kind of search happening here. If the traveler refuse to give the agent the access demanded, they would be denied entry. We need courts to protect the privacy so that you have the right to say no.

Comment by lokar 1 day ago

Unless you have a US passport

Comment by echoangle 1 day ago

I still don’t get why there’s no way to set up a second pin that unlocks the phone but hides sensitive apps and data.

Comment by Cider9986 1 day ago

They don't want to implement something that's only effective against low-level attackers because it would give their users a false sense of security and wouldn't be robust for situations involving any mid-level or advanced attacker. It would also be quickly documented so low-level attackers would be able to find out about it easily once it became common knowledge.

There's a lot of discussion about it you can search "deniability" on their GitHub issue tracker or socials.

Comment by echoangle 1 day ago

You could allow the user to define an arbitrary number of pins with and allow the user to select which app to show for each. Then you could never know if you got everything if you want to check the phone.

Comment by Cider9986 1 day ago

Suggest it on the issus tracker if you think you have a good idea. The thing you have to understand is that it will always leave a forensic trace that can be detected on the SSD.

Comment by advisedwang 1 day ago

This is great, so long as you don't get caught.

But if you get caught, the consequences could be disastrous. For the person whose phone it is, you could get a lifetime ban from the US or charged with a felony. For the developer of a such a feature, the feds are very likely to come after them too (I think there's a strong 1st amendment case, but I wouldn't like to have to fight it in court!)

Comment by tonyedgecombe 1 day ago

If you have something incriminating on your phone then wipe it before you cross the border and restore it afterwards.

Comment by runako 1 day ago

> something incriminating

How would one even define that in 2026?

Comment by leephillips 1 day ago

You may have “incriminating” stuff that you are unaware of:

https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/02/denied-entry-united-states...

Comment by halJordan 1 day ago

Believe it or not, that's also illegal.

Comment by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 1 day ago

> The court’s holding hinged on four differences between manual and forensic searches: (1) in a manual search, a person does the searching, not a machine; (2) a manual search’s breadth depends on the officer’s time and energy, while forensic searches are comprehensive; (3) manual searches reveal only what a user can typically access, while forensic searches can uncover deleted files, cached fragments, metadata, and more; and (4) manual searches are subject to an officer’s fading memory or imperfect notes, while forensic searches create a permanent copy.

> But in identifying these technical differences, the court never explains why they justify a lower standard for manual searches.

Their observations precisely describe the situation the authors of the constitution would expect of every search (barring consideration of concepts foreign to them), when they included the fourth amendment. I would be very interested to hear the court's justification, though I suppose the absence of such speaks for itself.

Comment by Lord-Jobo 1 day ago

It reflects the absolutely pathetic state of the judiciary and their ability to understand the way technology relates to a pre technological age.

Obviously, even absent technology, judges making these decisions and not even explaining major aspects of it would be unacceptable. But the technology gives complexity that they love to use as a shield, or as a sword against things they secretly don’t like.

Comment by metalman 18 hours ago

wtf? anybody ever heard of an sd card? usb drive? not that I personaly care, as my devices remain password free, unencripted, and here take the fucking thing, keep it, as I figure that worse comes to worse there is a way to bootstrap from nothing. then there is the little detail of my phone forcing a "security update", AND forcing a restart, which is absolute proof that I am not liable for anything on any device under any circumstances ever. The simple reality is that basic rights and freedoms of citizenship and the laws to protect that are gone, and we are all bieng treated as chattle by default with performative actions bieng taken in only the most extream and public cases of overt and wonton abuse.

Comment by accountrequired 1 day ago

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