Is the search limited to the phone itself and the data physically residing inside or can they open any door for which that phone is the key?
3.2 Electronic Device: Any device that may contain information in an electronic or digital form, such as computers, tablets, disks, drives, tapes, flash drives, SIM cards, global positioning systems, unmanned aircraft systems, vehicle infotainment systems, smart watches, mobile phones and other communication devices, cameras, music and other media players.
3.3 Basic Search: Any border search of an electronic device that does not qualify as an advanced search as described in section 3.4, in which an officer conducts a review or analysis of information residing in electronic or digital form on the device. A basic search may include documenting information observed on the device during the search that relates to immigration, customs, or other law enforcement actions in CBP systems.
3.4 Advanced Search: An advanced search is any search in which an officer connects equipment, wired or wireless, to copy and/or analyze the contents of an electronic device. Use of external equipment (including a CBP standalone computer) merely to make the contents of the device available for inspection (including, for example, to bypass a password, overcome encryption, translate content, view files contained in an external drive or other electronic device lacking a screen, or charge a device) does not constitute an advanced search. Documenting notes and observations, as noted in section 3.3, does not constitute an advanced search.
5.1.4 An officer may perform an advanced search of an electronic device only in instances in which there is reasonable suspicion of activity in violation of the laws enforced or administered by CBP or, in the absence of individualized reasonable suspicion when there is a national security concern. All advanced searches require supervisory approval at the Grade 14 level or higher (or a manager with comparable responsibilities). In cases where the inspecting officer and approving supervisor rely on the presence of a national security concern, without reasonable suspicion, to conduct an advanced search, approval from the Director, Field Operations; Chief Patrol Agent; Director, Air Operations; Director, Marine Operations; Special Agent in Charge; or their delegate, is required prior to conducting the search. In compelling circumstances where operational considerations prevent prior approval, notification shall be made as soon as possible. Notification must include an explanation of the national security concern, the compelling circumstances that precluded prior approval, the relevant facts and information supporting the search, and the results of the search.
5.1.5 All searches of electronic devices will be documented in appropriate CBP systems. Officers will document any supervisory approvals required under this Directive and, in the case of an advanced search, the factors establishing reasonable suspicion of a violation of a law enforced or administered by CBP or a national security concern, as well as relevant observations, impressions, and actions taken, as appropriate.
5.1.6 Searches of electronic devices should be conducted in the presence of the individual whose information is being examined unless there are national security, law enforcement, officer safety, or other operational considerations that make it inappropriate to permit the individual to remain present. Permitting an individual to remain present during a search does not necessarily mean that the individual shall observe the search itself. If permitting an individual to observe the search could reveal law enforcement techniques or potentially compromise other operational considerations, the individual will not be permitted to observe the search itself"
If was arrested on suspicion of something, I can get legal assistance and I can know what I am suspected of and why before any of my property (or in this case, potentially very private and sensitive information) could be taken. If the arrest is manifestly wrongful or not based on any evidence, then I expect it would be easy enough to resist investigation.
On the other hand, having someone at the border who can justify an arbitrary search on the basis that "they might suspect of something", without having to clearly justify that basis and that if they then take property (or information), potentially copy it completely opaquely and then have zero accountability if that is misused is extremely frustrating but I guess you need to lobby your lawmakers to make the system fairer and to ensure legal protections of privileged information is completely upheld - period.
If for whatever reason you think you're being investigated or surveilled (who knows for what these days, could be enough to just associate with the various protest groups / orgs), you can just assume that the border will be where they'll try to clone / download your data (phones, laptops, whatever)
I know the UK is an authoritarian state and not really comparable to the US, but as a Brit it's kinda weird hearing Americans complain about flock cameras and arbitrary border searches – these are common place things in the UK and no one cares (well, apart from me and maybe one or two others).
Once they do, they might stop wanting to live in one. But for now they want it.
And quite a bit of backed-up data on Android is not E2EE encrypted
In a dark body cavity?
I'd back up the phone to an SD card and/or send the backup offsite over the network.
After that, I could nuke whatever I wanted -- or factory reset it, switch to a different OS (we often called them "ROMs" back then), play with that for a bit, switch back and forth, or whatever.
When the time was right, I'd use TiBackup to restore the backup. It didn't even have to be the same phone. Apps and data were restored to where they had been. Home screens looked the same. Settings and preferences went back to how they were. The same web stuff remained in browser cache, alongside the same cookies.
There were occasional outliers that didn't come back perfectly, of course, but broadly speaking: It worked very well. Those outliers were few and easy to deal with.
This required root access. But for a time (years), that was easy.
(I will never accept any defense of any proclamations that we must be restricted from doing whatever the fuck we want with the hardware that we own. If I can do things with a desktop PC, then I should also be able to do those same things with a pocket computer.)
The harassment is targeted at critics & opponents of the current regime. The message is very clear: Be afraid of us. Be very afraid
There are 33 days remaining until election day. Vote out all the incumbents.
It's self explanatory.
Locking/disabling the phone, I think, only creates suspicion as we've seen in a previous case not long ago. But if phones can have a cloud back-ups, shouldn't it be possible to have TWO different "back-ups" that can be chosen at will?
https://freedom.press/issues/texas-man-sentenced-to-30-years...
#1. The download and restore backup method would work for people in general- except it doesn't capture what people would need. Exmaple: I have some thermal cameras that rely on old 32 bit apps that do not run on anything android 12 onwards- If i wipe those old phones, and restore- the apps often wanted to reach out to a server for initial activation- they would fail upon reinstall and i'd be out of the apps that are required to control my cameras and related equipment,which is worth several thousand, and has no equivalent spec wise and form factor today in 2026. And it'd be all dead weight and rendered useless.
( competitors today do not compete now- for example try finding a 640*480 30 hz or better form factor thermal camera that attaches to phones - they dont exist anymore)
\The solution is full imaging- but there isnt a real way to fully image phones and restore backups today. There used to be it seems- but not really with the latest stuff at the time of this post
.
On another note:Veracrypt- The weakness of truecrypt and veracrypt, Their strongest counter, the hidden OS option only worked if you converted your computer to MBR, which means you can't have a hard drive too large. Making a UEFI hidden OS has not been done yet, but all computers are this now.
And the Hidden Volume option- isn't 'as' useful, and of course, your OS might make a copy and put it somewhere, you have to be careful. As a example: Any time I open a file, using the software tool Everything to search and confirm this- you can easily see Windows makes copies and temp files and whatnot in randomly named locations- that's the sort of software and OS behavior that will screw people over.( The year of the Linux desktop isn't here yet..)
Solution:We need fully image-backup capable Phones. I mean fully. Not just backing up some apps- as this refuses to backup apps you have that are no longer on app stores, or that Play Protect doesn't like, etc. We need to be able to fully image a device, a forensic image backup, for phones that people can use, then encrypt and upload so they are good if they lose a phone.
Next- Plausible deniability is a way forward- but you need multiple profiles, that are cryptographically indistinguishable, along with the phone being hardened so GreyKey /Cellebrite won't be able to exploit a way in. This needs to be built this way from the ground up ideally, eventually.
There has been research about making devices that treat all block space the same way so you can't tell if someone has 1, or 50 profiles or partitions, etc- and even stuff that overlaps. Often it needs to be fixed size partitions, but it is apparently NOT impossible to create. I am aware of Shufflecake attempting to make a solution for Linux, and yes, a Hidden OS option that is forensic- invisible.
But nothing has come out yet - and especially, nothing in this vein for phones.
It would be nice to see the day where, if you travel to a hostile country, you can tell them you have just one profile, and if they ask, you could theoretically mention a 2nd, and then show it- but you might have 3 more - and they'd all be immune to forensic inspection if the system is built right.(Yes, there's often issues you have to be careful of ,like setting this up so you dont destroy data when in other profiles, but that's not as important)
This is how you solve this problem in the long run-make computing devices impossible to analyze, but standardized.
They'll go through everything: phones, journals, mail. They'll straight up call people in someone's phone and question them if they think it's relevant.
I'm just a regular guy who really has nothing to hide, but that doesn't mean I need to be complacent with just allowing a future I don't like be propped up in front of my eyes.
What I've come to realize is there is really no safer place for your data and communications than just your own home. At the very least, I would like a judge to review the evidence of my alledged wrong doing before the government can raid my castle and get what they need.
Why do I, as a regular citizen feel the need to invoke and create my own protections on personal data and communications?
There's something deep inside me that feels the need to be prepared for this odd future where the government feels they have the right to access everything. It's deeply troubling on many fronts.
Yeah, you do.
Post your nudes.
Post your full financial details.
Post your whole medical history.
Post every crime you might have committed, even as a juvenile.
Post all your credit cards and bank account details.
Hmmmm, so you ARE hiding those, eh? Quit framing this as "nothing to hide", because we ALL have things we hide... Not because they're illegal or anything, but because it protects us.
If you’re just now getting upset about this then you need to check your political bias becise that’s the only thing that’s changed.
And...
> In Fiscal Year 2020, CBP processed more than 238 million travelers at U.S. ports of entry. During that same period of time, CBP conducted 32,038 border searches of electronic devices, representing less than .014 percent of arriving international travelers.[1]
In other words, now it's as likely[0] to get your phone searched as in 2020. It's interesting how the media shapes people's perspective, isn't it?
[0]: 0.001% less likely, so just marginal error.
[1]: https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/cbp-enforcement-statistic... not sure it reports 2020's data here though.
One eye. That will rule them all.
Summary is they can’t detain people for no reason, they can detain people for specific offences relating to immigration and citizenship, customs and excise and also the normal stuff any regular police officer can arrest people for.
I’m no apologist for how much state authority they have, but it’s not as bad as you’re making out.
The UK border agents (technically counter-terrorism) can stop you at the border, force you into a room, ask for your passwords to all your devices and you don't have the right to refuse.
You also don't have the right to a lawyer to be in a room with you and you are compelled to answer all their questions and they do not need to tell you why they stopped you.
Then, if you are lucky they return your devices 7 days later after they have been through everything.
This guy went through it last year and talks about what happens when they stop you: https://youtu.be/991kRp8KUmo?si=-5S1uLE7K9KG_gNj
This makes returning to the country nice and pleasant. The border agents never ask you creepy questions like: Where are you going? Where will you be staying? What do you intend to do? (it's what US border agents ask their citizens). They just say hi and let you in.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/federal-judge-makes-hi...
But sure it's the current administration what pushed this so far beyond. Beyond 40k phones into 50k phones!
Has the % of people searched actually decreased?
I don't trust the current U.S. gov (or any U.S. gov, really), but the figure isn't actually increasing in a significant way. The US. remain as unwelcoming to visitors as they have been since 2001. Nothing to see in this report.
Strangely the stats don't back your assertion. Wouldn't being "unwelcoming since 2001" result in a decrease in travel?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism_in_the_United_States#V...
Government always want to have as much control as it can possibly acquire.
There are some instances where powers need to be exercised in a hurry, but there should always be proper reporting and a paper trail, with stiff reprimanded for misuse or abuse of the system. Accidents can happen, but they should be infrequent and should follow protocol.
It would be great if citizens had more direct involvement in these cases too. I don't see why egregious abuses shouldn't be tried by jury.
Police and intelligence agency employees should be held to a higher standard than civilians (like military personnel are subject to UCMJ), and breeches of protocols should lead to harsher punishments imposed upon them. It would be fine to pay them more if it required more training and accountability.
Asking whether or not something is new or how frequently it's been done in the past isn't saying it's acceptable nor does it put them on the side of tyranny. In fact, a sign of tyranny would be a significant uptick in the number of these searches, and how else would you be able to see that worrying signal without answering the question they asked?
...or, returning to one.
Huh. ITAR?
The only thing you can do is travel with a clean device on which you maintain a completely innocuous social presence, such as chats with parents and non-foreign friends, and some social media with normie activity. Even that would not be enough if you're an activist or otherwise personally targeted, as your real accounts are already known in that case and your only option is not to travel at all, but it reduces your chances of getting in trouble (or arrested, depending on the target country). Though it still won't help in the long run as security services collect and organize more and more data about everyone.
ulfbert_inc•58m ago