Legal question: if you had whole-disk encryption, and the duress password just zeroized the decryption key, would that be "destroying evidence?" Especially if there was a recovery possible but not instantly available, such as a Yubikey in a safe deposit box in a bank. That would take a subpoena to get, and there is an opportunity to challenge the subpoena in court first. Not instantly at the border. Something like th…
I am not a lawyer. 1. Intent matters. If you give the password to a Customs and Border Protection agent which deletes all the data, your intent was to deceive them and either delete evidence, or at least fail to comply with their request. CBP has wide powers of search. 2. CBP has broad remit to deny entry to any non-citizen for any and no reason. Even if not illegal to provide a duress password, they can and will sen…
Re: Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border
#1001You need to be a bit tricky. Your phone can either require a yubikey or not. You have two pins, 1234 that doesn't require Yubikey and 2345 that turns the phone into yubikey required mode. So what you do before crossing the border is you type in 2345 yourself and turn your phone into yubikey required mode. And if you forgot and the customs agent types in 2345 even though 1234 would have opened the phone without yubikey, nobody can prove you didn't do the 2345 before entering customs. In practice if you give the customs 1234 and are nice to cbp you get your phone back in 48 hours, just make sure you get the email address of the agent in charge not just name and generic phone number.