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Courts Close the Loophole Letting the Feds Search Your Phone at the Border

reason.com

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Re: Courts Close the Loophole Letting the Feds Search Your Phone at the Border

#41

Post by ranger_danger »

schoen wrote: post #15
ranger_danger wrote: post #4

> Judge Nina Morrison in the Eastern District of New York ruled that cellphone searches are a "nonroutine" search, more akin to a strip search than scanning a suitcase or passing a traveler through a metal detector. Does a strip search also require a warrant though?

In the border search context, an intermediate standard of some kind related to actual suspicion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_search_exception#Search...

They can easily make up lots of reasons that will count as reasonable suspicion or probably cause.

Re: Courts Close the Loophole Letting the Feds Search Your Phone at the Border

#42

Post by alphabettsy »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #37
woleium wrote: post #34

They can still get your texts and contacts and call history from your car though. In many cars it syncs.

> They can still get your texts and contacts and call history from your car though. In many cars it syncs Source? If so, that's a privacy boon for CarPlay and Android Auto.

It’s actually the native integrations that do this. Android Auto and CarPlay basically act as a display for your phone and little data leaves your device. Connect via Bluetooth to many vehicles and that data syncs to the car’s infotainment.

Re: Courts Close the Loophole Letting the Feds Search Your Phone at the Border

#43

Post by ranger_danger »

beaglesss wrote: post #14
ranger_danger wrote: post #4

> Judge Nina Morrison in the Eastern District of New York ruled that cellphone searches are a "nonroutine" search, more akin to a strip search than scanning a suitcase or passing a traveler through a metal detector. Does a strip search also require a warrant though?

It doesn't. I was strip searched and imprisoned without a warrant, or even an arrest. And it gets worse from there.

Right, so it's not even like a strip search, it's still much worse.

Re: Courts Close the Loophole Letting the Feds Search Your Phone at the Border

#44

Post by lupire »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #36
BenFranklin100 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A textualist interpretation of the constitution would likely take a very dim view of the federal government trying to stretch its powers and get around the Fourth Amendment. I don’t think we have much to worry about on this topic from the current court.

> textualist interpretation of the constitution would likely take a very dim view of the federal government trying to stretch its powers and get around the Fourth Amendment Scalia was textualist. "Justices Antonin Scalia, Amy Coney Barrett, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch describe themselves as originalists in scholarly writings and public speeches" [1]. (In several cases, e.g. the application of Sarbanes-Oxley to t…

Originalism would also have trouble because phones didn't exist when the Frames wrote or the 18th Century public read the Constitution.

Originalism is funny, by the way. By its tenets, if you don't like what the Constitution says, you can pass an Amendment with the exact same words as the Constitution but those words would have new, different meaning.

Re: Courts Close the Loophole Letting the Feds Search Your Phone at the Border

#45

Post by beeslol »

dcdc123 wrote: post #31
uoaei wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can demand, and you can refuse. However if you have Face ID or other biometric measures, they can (legally) force your finger onto the sensor or hold the phone up to your face to unlock it for their needs. Passwords are personal data, faces and fingerprints are not, apparently.

Five taps of power button on iPhone disables biometrics until you enter the passcode. I always do this before going through airport security

Android has something similar - in the power menu [1] there's a "Lockdown" button which will lock your phone, disable biometrics, and disable showing notifications until you unlock with password.

Depending on your version and flavour of Android you may need to enable this "Show Lockdown Option" in your settings.

[1] Opening this varies - my pixel is power + vol up, some phones are hold power, etc.

Re: Courts Close the Loophole Letting the Feds Search Your Phone at the Border

#46

Post by lupire »

beaglesss wrote: post #23
RIMR wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that sounds like the cops. This is one of those things you should talk to a lawyer about, and possibly, if you want to and your lawyer approves, the media. Being invasively searched for drugs due to false testimony by officers, where it was proven that you were free of contraband, but then being billed for the process, is fucked up and a clear violation of your constitutional rights.

I talked to several including the lawyer of Ashley Cervantes v US , a woman warrantlessly digitally raped (fingered) by doctors at the same hospital in search of drugs. Her case was publicized and far more egregious. They essentially told me they'd given up. I also reported a nurse who acted without consent to the nursing board. The board covered for her. And in Cervantes case, her doctor simply testified it was a he…

If the government broke the social contract so deeply to me, I can only imagine how I would react. You are truly a sovereign citizen now. The government has no legitimate authority over you anymore.

Re: Courts Close the Loophole Letting the Feds Search Your Phone at the Border

#47

Post by lupire »

mindslight wrote: post #32
RIMR wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't apply the law retroactively. The law, despite being unconstitutional, allowed this, so you can't go back and arrest people who weren't breaking the law at the time. What you can do is track back every arrest that resulted from one of these searches, and ask for all charges and convictions to be vacated/overturned because the evidence was collected in an unconstitutional way. I'm more interested in damage co…

There is an asymmetry in your reasoning that I don't doubt is in many court decisions due to sovereign immunity, but need not be universal. If the law is declared unconstitutional, then that law was unconstitutional the whole time. Therefore there was no legal basis for the people-who-happened-to-be-employed-by-the-government to do what they did. And I'm pretty sure the laws against false imprisonment and extortion w…

Sorry, but that's insane. You can't legitmizime criminalizing and imprisoning someone for the the crime of not having a time machine. You can legitimize the government making amends for its mistakes.

Re: Courts Close the Loophole Letting the Feds Search Your Phone at the Border

#48

Post by [deleted] »

lupire wrote: post #47
mindslight wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an asymmetry in your reasoning that I don't doubt is in many court decisions due to sovereign immunity, but need not be universal. If the law is declared unconstitutional, then that law was unconstitutional the whole time. Therefore there was no legal basis for the people-who-happened-to-be-employed-by-the-government to do what they did. And I'm pretty sure the laws against false imprisonment and extortion w…

Sorry, but that's insane. You can't legitmizime criminalizing and imprisoning someone for the the crime of not having a time machine. You can legitimize the government making amends for its mistakes.

[deleted]

Re: Courts Close the Loophole Letting the Feds Search Your Phone at the Border

#49

Post by [deleted] »

beaglesss wrote: post #33
schoen wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the border search context, an intermediate standard of some kind related to actual suspicion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_search_exception#Search...

Sure but I learned that hard way when I got the sealed probable cause statement of my warrant, the detective claimed an unnamed officer claimed an unnamed dog alerted and that set off that intermediate standard. So in practice there is nothing needed. Because it is impossible to challenge 3rd order interspecies anonymous hearsay.

[deleted]

Re: Courts Close the Loophole Letting the Feds Search Your Phone at the Border

#50

Post by mindslight »

lupire wrote: post #47
mindslight wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an asymmetry in your reasoning that I don't doubt is in many court decisions due to sovereign immunity, but need not be universal. If the law is declared unconstitutional, then that law was unconstitutional the whole time. Therefore there was no legal basis for the people-who-happened-to-be-employed-by-the-government to do what they did. And I'm pretty sure the laws against false imprisonment and extortion w…

Sorry, but that's insane. You can't legitmizime criminalizing and imprisoning someone for the the crime of not having a time machine. You can legitimize the government making amends for its mistakes.

You do not need a time machine to look at the law as it stands, judge that the legality of an action is unclear, and then prudently choose to not do it. As I said, this is the dynamic everyone who is not a government employee has to deal with, and it encourages a dynamic of staying well away from the edge of the law.
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