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Man sues feds after being detained for refusing to unlock his phone at airport

arstechnica.com

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Re: Man sues feds after being detained for refusing to unlock his phone at airport

#31

Post by bruceb »

gnicholas wrote: post #29
bruceb wrote: post #22

The problem with Customs and Border Protection is the attitude. They do have a challenging job. 99%+ of travelers are legit and doing nothing nefarious. They have to pick out the ones who are not legit/up to no good. I have no problem with them asking questions of myself or other travelers, even a lot of questions. The problem is the attitude and abusive nature of their conduct. I have had this experience a couple ti…

I think your last sentence should say “without”, not “with”.

yes, edited, thanks.

Re: Man sues feds after being detained for refusing to unlock his phone at airport

#32

Post by dylan604 »

gammateam wrote: post #28

So did anybody call a lawyer like he asked? Reminds me of the movie Trading Places where Eddie Murphy asked for a lawyer and all of the aristocrats coughed and turned away My rehearsed line is “you in the I’ll split the settlement with you if you record this and call a lawyer!” Gotta disrupt the bystander syndrome by calling out a particular person And provide the financial incentive

Interesting approach. How often has it worked?

Re: Man sues feds after being detained for refusing to unlock his phone at airport

#33

Post by rhizome »

gabrielmoshe wrote: post #3

This is certainly not the first article of its kind, and the legality of such action seems to be upheld in court (at least the use of search without a warrant at the border). So, the selfish question then is: How do I protect myself from such unwarranted searches? Is there a way I can present my phone such that it drops into a mode that contains no data? Do I need to back my phone up before traveling, wipe it for the…

Don't use fingerprint or face unlock. Passcode/pattern only.

Re: Man sues feds after being detained for refusing to unlock his phone at airport

#34

Post by dylan604 »

Pawka wrote: post #25
eganist wrote: post #2

Was this incident recorded by any passers-by? It may sound as if I'm asking out of doubt, but rather, I'm asking to see if my hunch that CBP is equally as reckless and uncaring in front of a camera as e.g. other law enforcement agencies.

It is not allowed to use phone/camera at the Customs area.

To the point they don't even like you texting your travel companions inquiring about the delay. Because of these horror stories, I use my phone's ability to disable the TouchID reader forcing the 18 character pass code to be used when returning to the US. On entry of a foreign country, I shut it down completely.

Re: Man sues feds after being detained for refusing to unlock his phone at airport

#35

Post by ardy42 »

danboarder wrote: post #6

Suggestion: for international travel, when possible stow your powered off phone in checked baggage, and bring a non-important factory-reset phone or tablet for entertainment or to connect to the cloud if needed for work etc. If needed keep your work files in a hidden folder on an SD card in your camera... lots of annoying but increasingly necessary workarounds to deal with the growth of authoritarian states.

Instead of a factory-reset decoy phone or tablet, bring a lightly used decoy with enough fakeish stuff on it that it looks legit on casual inspection. Keep your real phone powered off, deeper in your luggage. No need to go though all that nonsense with hidden SD cards.

Be compliant with the border control people and offer up your decoy without complaint. You win if they don't search your stuff at all, and you win if they're satisfied with your faux compliance with the decoy. You only need to start to resist and demand your rights once they've shown an unusual interest in you and thoroughly search your stuff, but if they're doing that they probably had it in for you anyway.

Re: Man sues feds after being detained for refusing to unlock his phone at airport

#36

Post by jack9 »

gammateam wrote: post #24
rjzzleep wrote: post #11

Here's are the procedings [1] and the complaint [2] Say what you will about the US and the fact that you can get shot for looking at the wrong guy at the wrong time, but the mere fact that this happening and so easy to follow is quite interesting. In Germany you'd be laughed out of the room and I've had my fair share of racism to deal with from the authorities despite having grown up here. [1] https://www.courtlisten…

Sorry who would be laughed out of the room and for what? It wasnt clear to me from what you wrote Also I found it interesting that Germans perceive the US as overly litigious but I found an article that said Germany has more lawsuits (per capita? In absolute totals?), funny how perception takes a long time to catch up to various forms of reality

> I found an article that said Germany has more lawsuits

https://www.clements.com/sites/default/files/resources/The-M...

was it this one?

Re: Man sues feds after being detained for refusing to unlock his phone at airport

#37

Post by eeZah7Ux »

gabrielmoshe wrote: post #3

This is certainly not the first article of its kind, and the legality of such action seems to be upheld in court (at least the use of search without a warrant at the border). So, the selfish question then is: How do I protect myself from such unwarranted searches? Is there a way I can present my phone such that it drops into a mode that contains no data? Do I need to back my phone up before traveling, wipe it for the…

There are almost no technical solutions. A freshly wiped phone or any clever encryption gimmick can raise suspicion and make things worse.

AFAIK companies are the exception, unsurprisingly. Some companies require laptop and phone wiping before travel, and if you can prove you are following company policy it might be OK.

Re: Man sues feds after being detained for refusing to unlock his phone at airport

#38

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

gammateam wrote: post #24
rjzzleep wrote: post #11

Here's are the procedings [1] and the complaint [2] Say what you will about the US and the fact that you can get shot for looking at the wrong guy at the wrong time, but the mere fact that this happening and so easy to follow is quite interesting. In Germany you'd be laughed out of the room and I've had my fair share of racism to deal with from the authorities despite having grown up here. [1] https://www.courtlisten…

Sorry who would be laughed out of the room and for what? It wasnt clear to me from what you wrote Also I found it interesting that Germans perceive the US as overly litigious but I found an article that said Germany has more lawsuits (per capita? In absolute totals?), funny how perception takes a long time to catch up to various forms of reality

German law allows predatory lawyers to file lawsuits on behalf of another party without their involvement. That level of BS thankfully doesn't happen in the US.

Re: Man sues feds after being detained for refusing to unlock his phone at airport

#39

Post by bpchaps »

bruceb wrote: post #22

The problem with Customs and Border Protection is the attitude. They do have a challenging job. 99%+ of travelers are legit and doing nothing nefarious. They have to pick out the ones who are not legit/up to no good. I have no problem with them asking questions of myself or other travelers, even a lot of questions. The problem is the attitude and abusive nature of their conduct. I have had this experience a couple ti…

Anecdote:

About a year ago, I went through TSA and asked to opt out of the body scans in place of a pat down.

Another agent on the side watched the whole thing and made kissing faces my way the whole time while making gay jokes.

It was extremely belittling. Fuck TSA.

Re: Man sues feds after being detained for refusing to unlock his phone at airport

#40

Post by peterwwillis »

gabrielmoshe wrote: post #3

This is certainly not the first article of its kind, and the legality of such action seems to be upheld in court (at least the use of search without a warrant at the border). So, the selfish question then is: How do I protect myself from such unwarranted searches? Is there a way I can present my phone such that it drops into a mode that contains no data? Do I need to back my phone up before traveling, wipe it for the…

Most Americans don't protect their data, because most Americans aren't potentially going to be set up by their government to be made to look like some kind of terrorist.

If you happen to be non-white or non-christian or have such as family or who live in a majority Muslim country, then you probably do want to protect yourself against this eventuality. In that case, either bring a dumb/brick phone for them to search, or bring a smartphone which has data on it, but nothing you care about. Don't jump through a lot of hoops to try to fool them, because it'll look suspicious, and then you really aren't going to make your flight.

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