It is insane to me that judges consistently rule that the constitution doesn't apply because there's a "border" within 100 miles.<p>The 4th Amendment says, exactly:<p><pre><code> The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
</code></pre>
I do not know how that could be unclear. My cellphone is my effect, and arguably, also a "paper". Which SHALL NOT BE VIOLATED. But apparently, I'm too dumb to understand the sentence[1].<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Border_search_exception" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Amendment_to_the_United...</a>
> <i>It is insane to me that judges consistently rule that the constitution doesn't apply because there's a "border" within 100 miles.</i><p>People keep misconstruing this.<p>The border search exemption only applies when someone is actually crossing a border, and it does grant broad authority to search whatever they're carrying with them at the time. The authority to do border enforcement within a 100-mile zone around borders does not grant a broad authority to search. It does grant a <i>narrow</i> authority to do things like traffic checkpoints, but those don't permit searches for anything smaller than a person without additional evidence.<p>I do think the ruling establishing the authority to run checkpoints other than actual border crossings was wrongly decided and harmful, but it's not what's at issue in this case.
To add to that, the ruling intentionally did not make a decision on two important distinctions:<p>1. Forcing you to unlock - in this case, Alisigwe unlocked their phone willingly after being asked.<p>2. Forensic extraction - the ruling does not give authorities to confiscate your phone and run a sophisticated break-in off-site without reasonable suspicion.<p>So if you are a US citizen, and you are willingly unlocking your phone at the border (or you don't have a passcode), the Fourth Amendment no longer protect you from a suspicionless manual search of the phone at the border
Proximity to borders leaves the government the possibility that if it really, really wanted to search a property, they'd just have to cede some land in a 100mile radius to a foreign country and instantly create an international border wherever they need one.
So the main argument is that in the time that was written and immediately afterwards we can look to see what they mean by that by how it was implemented. At the time it was understood that the government could and would search goods as they enter the country without warrants to enforce things like tariffs. I think that's a fairly reasonable interpretation of the meaning. Where I think this goes wrong (and maybe deviates from history?) is the conflation of papers and other digital records now with physical goods, historically were people's papers searched as they entered the country (beyond say looking through them to find hidden goods, I mean reading and examining letters and records)?
The problem when you rely on unclear laws that haven’t been modified for 250 years is they haven’t been modified for 250 years.<p>The scale of surveillance now wasn’t even thinkable back then. The ability to encrypt. The bandwidth and latency of communication. The sheer nunber of people, the research into manipulating minds. Does the second ammendment apply to an f35 or a tank? Well it doesn’t really matter, they clearly weren’t in scope when it was written. There were no wiretapping laws in the constitution because there was no wires. unreasonable in 1780 was different to unreasonable today.<p>The US has famously failed to update its legal framework via the legislative branch, so
It’s upto the judicial branch which seeks to be about interpreting what some wealthy farmers from 250 years ago thought, rather than asking what laws make sense today.
>>The problem when you rely on unclear laws that haven’t been modified for 250 years is they haven’t been modified for 250 years.<p>The Constitution gives you some rights but maybe not this one (to not be searched without warrant at a border). The problem is not The Constitution but the legislative branch that didn't make laws to ban it.<p>>>what some wealthy farmers from 250 years ago thought, rather than asking what laws make sense today<p>It's not the job of judges to invent laws or ponder what laws make sense. That would be legislative branch.
But the 100 mile rule? That covers damn near everybody in the US (>200 million, or 66%, give or take) subject to warrantless searches on the whim of whatever the police want?
That's a separate issue I don't support outside of situations where they can reasonably prove/show you crossed without alrady going through the search. Luckily, at least so far afaik, it hasn't really been deployed in the maximalist way that turns the whole country into that zone. It's a lot easier to justify near physical land borders like Canada and Mexico than it is if it's being used within 100 miles of very controlled impermiable borders like international airports. Has it been used outside of the land borders?
Well intentioned laws today can be used by illintentioned actors in the future, and mild legal exceptions can become significant ones with a couple additions.<p>The 100 mile zone is a good example - that 100 mile zone assumes the entirety of the great lakes is international waters, even though Lake Michigan is 100% American Territory and over 300 miles long. So, you could be in a landlocked county of Indiana, and be harassed by the federal government for being in a border zone.<p>Whats to stop someone from saying, the entire Mississippi river and its tributaries are a border zone? With that you could get 80% of the US population into the border zone.<p>By enabling some "rule based" decisions that skirt the constitution, you enable a legal mechanism for constitutional rights to be violated without any legislation.
It's more than that, it's being "close" to a border (you can argue if 100 miles is "close") and not on a whim but reason to believe you recently crossed it.
Sure, but if you're driving in NM or TX or AZ, what constitutes that reasonable basis for a stop? As long as the car is legal, there can't be any, yet they still do roving patrols. The also stop buses and trains mid-transit (not at stations), which again, hard to conceive of why that would be necessary - if they know an illegal is on a bus/train, sure stop it and get the person, but asking everybody onboard - should be illegal.
I've heard (but can't back up) that any city with an international airport counts as a 'border' for this purpose.
Yeah, where does this come from? Who keeps defending this, has it been challenged?<p>About 213 million people live in this zone, so 2/3 of people in the USA. So I guess the 4th amendment doesn't actually apply to most US citizens?
Do constitutional rights apply to non-citizens? I always thought the constitution of the USA was for USA citizens, but then I'm not from the USA and am watching all this from very far away.
Most of them do. They're usually constructed as restrictions on the government's authority rather than grants of rights to a specific group of people, and there are court rulings clearly stating rights like freedom of speech and freedom from unreasonable search apply to any person subject to the government's authority.<p>Non-citizens don't get the right to bear arms as far as I know.
Generally yes but government can currently cancel your visa due to exercising those rights in many cases.
Most of them do. The Constitution is clear on when it talks about citizens versus all people. The exceptions are things like the right to vote or hold federal office.
Also crazy that lake michigan counts as the border, despite being entirely in the US, so you could be minding your business in Fort Wayne, Indiana and have your phone searched for no reason.
I mean... yea we also have some shaky interpretations of the 1st amendment (see especially, assembly), 2nd, 5th (e.g. the incredible pressure for plea bargaining), 6th (which, paradoxically, is a major reason for aforementioned pressure on plea bargaining, so I kinda get it), 8th given how bad some prisons are, arguably 10th (even if I am personally not a fan of the 10th amendment so much), and arguably still the 15th (though it's obviously orders of magnitude better than the first 100 years of its existence).<p>And also various other parts of the construction, like the interstate commerce clause does some comically heavy lifting.
Yeah the plain language is unambiguous. That there is an historical border search exception simply doesn't matter to me. We fought a war for this, and it's bullshit.
The word "unreasonable" leaves the entire thing up to interpretation. Is it "reasonable" to search a traveler's phone with no indication of any wrongdoing? You'd probably say no. I'd say no. The courts say yes. Neither answer is objectively right or wrong according to this text.
If you torture the US constitution enough it will eventually confess.<p>There are a lot of issues that fail the constitutional grep test yet somehow they are deemed (un)constitutional. The constitution was written to protect the people and states from the overly zealous congress. Not to fix the situation in which the congress is so dysfunctional that the judiciary has to replace it.
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_search_exception" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_search_exception</a> apparently
This happened to me last month in Halifax Canada, I wanted to board a transfer flight to Amsterdam, going through Boston. I was stopped as I had salts with me from a buddhist relic I couldn't exactly identify. The machine said it contained a primary explosive (silver azide). I was ordered to give my access code to my iphone and 3 suspicious screenshots were found I made 2 years ago about the Iran/Israel war. I said I'm interested in geo-politics and watched the news.
I was barred from the US for life - it was said that it could have been much worse. When I wanted to go to the main airport hall a number of canadian police officers arrested me and drove me handcuffed to a cell.
I was asked if I wanted a lawyer and they arranged a phone call. The lawyer said I would spend to nights in a cell and then she would come to prepare my case and was strongly advised not to talk to people before that.
I was released from my cell 7 hours later that evening after a thorough and friendly conversation with the canadian special police.
I can understand that security don't want to take any chances with people carrying supposed explosive powders on an airport, so the system was doing it's protective job. That day there was a threat alert I heard later.
A week later I heard from the person who gave me the relic (I was on retreat) that the border guard contacted them and said it was a false positive (what I suspected at the time, but I didn't dare argue against the machine results).
> I was barred from the US for life<p>I'm a little confused. Canadian police barred you from the US for life?<p>Also sounds like you did not take your lawyer's advice not to talk. Regardless, sorry you went through such a stressful ordeal over a false positive.
You were barred for life over a false positive? That's crazy.
I commend your understanding. I would have been losing my mind with rage.
Land of the … <i>laugh</i> … free!
Customs has always been able to search everything without a warrant or suspicion when crossing the border. I guess this is saying that they can search the <i>digital</i> contents of physical devices/media as well?
Not everything. From the case itself:<p>"To be sure, nonroutine searches, which are “more invasive
searches, like strip searches, require reasonable suspicion.” Id. But we
have held that “the label ‘non-routine’ should generally be reserved
for intrusive border searches of the person (such as body-cavity
searches or strip searches), not belongings.” United States v. Levy, 803
F.3d 120, 123 n.3 (2d Cir. 2015) (emphasis added)."
It says they can <i>manually</i> search them. According to this, the ruling explicitly doesn’t say if they can <i>digitally</i> search them.
The best time to delete all social media accounts and never post anything online with your name attached ever again was 10 years ago. The second best time is right now. This stuff can and will be used against you out of context 10, 20, 30 years into the future.
Also consider the fact that if someone else makes accounts in your name (whether maliciously or simply because they share the same name) I imagine this could be used against you.
Completely agree.<p>Does HN comply with CCPA requests?
The problem with these laws isn't that they can search you at the border. It's that they can search you within 100 miles of the border (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_search_exception" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_search_exception</a>). The total number of people who live within that zone is 213 Million people, or 2/3 of the total population (<a href="https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/border-zone" rel="nofollow">https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/border-zone</a>).
Anyone still crossing US borders with electronic devices that aren't fully wiped? This is company policy for some European companies for a long time. Even during the Biden administration.<p>Most employees just receive a wiped phone/laptop for the duration of the trip. Depending on the country its either a device that only has access to the bare minimum of Services, or for countries like Russia they issue a dumb phone that can only call and text.
Half of the commenters here seem to believe that nobody has ever done this successfully because it must be “suspicious”. Despite it being a common practice for many organizations.
It might be suspicious, but they don't get any incriminating evidence that way. It's also much easier for people visiting. Most of the time entry is denied and you can take the next plane back home. I'm fine with that, don't care. I only care if I would get taken into ICE detention. This risk grew significantly, so I simply won't go.
I do that several times a year, and never wipe my phone. I looked at statistics of such phone examinations over the last few years, and I didn't see any difference between the current and last administrations, when <i>nobody</i> was wiping their phones.
Yes, the vast majority of US citizens returning from international travel cross the border with their regular personal, unwiped phones every day.
It's frankly insane that y'all have to do that, and yes Americans cross the border, perhaps haplessly.
Is there any difference between US citizens and visitors? It just seems like US citizens think those charades are normal and don't question them. In my home country I can just deny getting my devices searched. They might be allowed to seize and seal them, awaiting a court order for searching the device. Which I could appeal. Basically the same process as anywhere else in the country, international borders are not some special place that gives the police superpowers.<p>Ps: we also don't have some special paramilitary border police. Just regular police stationed at the border.
Yes, there's a difference: US citizens have the right to enter the USA; visitors do not. US officials can deny a visitor entry arbitrarily, and the visitor has limited recourse to appeal such a decision. A visitor who does not cooperate with officials who want to search something is likely to be denied entry.<p>A citizen may only be denied entry if they're entering the country for the purpose of committing a crime, and if the government can prove that, they'll probably admit the citizen and immediately arrest them instead.
all of our police are essentially paramilitary now. There's nothing special about ICE or CBP other than they're federal rather than local. Even local cops have become hyper-militarized and think they're patrolling the streets of Fallujah
It's not routine. Most tourist visitors don't have any trouble. I'm a US citizen, but I've never had my phone searched at an airport or border crossing, not that I cross the border all that often.
It's the same thing for US citizens entering the US. They can try to search your device, and they can seize it temporarily (although that may end up being a long temporarily), but they can't deny you entry.<p>For a non-citizen, it's basically comply or go home, possibly with a fun stay in a detention center first.
[dupe] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49754687">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49754687</a>
So carry a separate device while traveling. Or wipe your phone, then restore after the border. This is just going to lead to a service that does this for you and the overreaching feds won’t be able to do anything about it.<p>And as far as I can tell you still don’t have to give them your pin code.
It's been somewhat established that having a wiped or basic phone is in itself sus and reason for them to investigate you further.
They can investigate all they want, they can even detain you briefly, but if you are a citizen and there’s no evidence of a crime then they have to let you in.
Do you have any references to this?
Have not heard this, whats your source? I don't see how they could determine that because "its a new phone" is hard to dispute.<p>best case scenario is that a higher court overturns this but not holding my breath.
They don't need your pin, they can just hack the phone take all your data anyway. ICE has a contract with Cellebrite
the worry is that this will be interpreted as tampering and cary consequences.
This is confusing; what happens to you if you refuse a warantless search of your property?<p>I'm a US citizen returning home. Do they just... send me back out of the country? :) I don't suppose they'd have the grounds to arrest me since there is no law that I can see being broken. I suppose they could keep the device until such time that a warrant could be obtained to digitally search / break into the device (but that requires some reasonable suspicion - simply refusing a warantless search isn't it).
They let you in and keep your property. I've never had an issue at a border, but I still keep my devices encrypted and powered off when crossing.
As a citizen they cannot block you from returning to the country. What they can do however is seize your devices (and briefly your person) and other property.
They can put you in custody.
They detain you, probably take and keep your stuff, and within a relatively short amount of time release you.<p>Well, they probably release you. If you're brown or just dealing with the wrong people they may unlawfully beat, kidnap, and exile you anyway (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportations_of_U.S._citizens_in_the_second_Trump_administration" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportations_of_U.S._citizens_...</a>).
Given that the US's economy is utterly dependent on tourism, do they just not want to have money any more or something?<p>Because who in their right mind is ever going to travel there at the moment?
It's a massive swing and a miss that GrapheneOS has a religious opposition to a VeraCrypt-style hidden volume arrangement that allows different passwords to unlock different OS volumes.<p>It would be vastly superior to their current solution, which basically guarantees contempt charges.<p>I hope they change their mind soon!
The problem is it will be detectable and detected and then the password demanded and a failure to provide it will result in charges. I think unfortunately the answer is the phone has to be plausibly empty when crossing the US border, they should focus their efforts on being able to store the full state of the phone remotely and encrypted and being able to restore it easily.
Would it be detectable to some goon at the border? Probably not. They'd put in the sanitized password, see nothing, and let the person go. If it gets seized and an FBI or CIA analyst gets ahold of it, then yeah the smart guys are going to see it but you'd be in that situation anyway, so why not have an out that may avoid it?
Hidden volumes are not detectable and impossible to prove, even with the password to the clean volume and device access. That's the entire point.
This. There should be a password that unlocks to a fairly minimal, but not too minimal configuration that wouldn't have anything of interest on it.
[dead]
And now you're extra suspicious if you don't have one at all