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.
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.
You make it sound so "meh, whatever", but there's a few realities attached to this:
The airline in question will likely not serve you again, but probably more importantly, when you apply for a tourist visa to just about any country on earth, you'll now have to answer that question "Have you ever been denied or refused a visa or entry into a country?" and while some might take sympathy on "Oh, yeah, we get it", you can be sure you'll be getting extra attention and some countries will threaten to deny entry too.
> Have you ever been expelled or deported from the Federal Republic of Germany, had an application for a residence permit rejected, or been refused entry into the Federal Republic of Germany?
Almost like you're just making shit up based on some anti-US sentiment.
LOL at your hypocrisy. I am a UK citizen, and I am an Australian citizen, and I am -not- a US citizen, lived and worked in both and in Europe though I am, currently, in the US. But sure, make the same assumptions that you want to think I'm guilty of making.
"Just lie on your visa applications, no countries on earth share data with each other and no-one cares except the US and who cares about them, nothing will ever happen to you."
Cool.
Actually, the idiocy of this response is even more notable when you learn that many countries will notate it IN YOUR PASSPORT that you were refused entry.
"Lie on your visa application and hope no immigration officer thumbs through your passport." Stunning advice.
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 nobody was wiping their phones.
Not in my organization, or in any that I know of. I don't even understand why it would be in an organization's interest to do that. Why should they care if I'm harrassed for data of a political nature? They generally tell me not to even have any such data on their property.
They do, however, require that I take a burner device or wipe it completely, if I travel to China.
I’m Canadian and work in healthcare. I have a dedicated travel phone that I move my SIM card to whenever I travel to the US.
I carry a letter from my work explaining that I’m not allowed to travel with electronic devices potentially containing confidential patient information in case a recently wiped phone raises any flags
I will be wiping my before I pass through US Customs next, no matter who the president is. I have no idea what some guard might randomly take issue with, best not to risk it.
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.
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.
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.
A US citizen cannot be denied entry into the country for ANY reason. A valid US passport is prima facie evidence of citizenship so once you show it the worst that can happen is you getting arrested.
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 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
What home country is that? Some places (UK I think is one) have less protection at the border for citizens than the US does. The risk of being searched for Average Joe is so small that most people don't even think about it. HN is disproportionately worried.
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.
For a non-citizen, it's basically comply or go home, possibly with a fun stay in a detention center first.
So it's even better for a non-citizen, because you can just turn around and go home?
I don't get why some people end up in a detention center. Why not send them back home on the next flight? Even if people can't pay the ticket a lot of embassies will immediately pay for their citizen's ticket. Especially if they have a job and will be able to pay it back in a reasonable time. If it's an EU citizen they can be sent back on any flight going to Europe. So there is usually a possibility to leave within the hour.
Most people probably won't like having their plans ruined and a bunch of money wasted being forced to abandon their travel. And the US may be home to a noncitizen.
As for why they end up in a detention center, maybe immigration thinks they might want to ask them some more question, or maybe they're just exacting some punishment on the uncooperative foreigner.
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.
I know it isn't routine. But it does happen. I know two people that had to go into secondary inspection and I think they had to unlock their phones. Both of them were completely normal business travelers without anything dubious in their life or their business. One was a medical doctor another one a government employee going to an international conference hosted by a US federal institution (which required some extensive clearance and background checks to even attend). Both Western European citizens with a completely spotless CV.
>Is there any difference between US citizens and visitors?
Yes. US citizens have an absolute right of return to the US (at a land border anyway, they can be stopped from boarding a flight to the US while physically in another country). If there's an active warrant for arrest or they commit a crime right there or the like they can be arrested, but the process at that point plays out the same as an arrest anywhere in the country with the same standards. Property can be screened and denied, or potentially seized, but the person can than challenge that and it must be returned unless there is reason. This significantly changes the math as far as practical inconvenience to refusal to cooperate, though I don't want to downplay how much it could suck for most people to have expensive stuff taken for even a short period of time. But they can't keep someone from getting home and, in turn, back to financial, legal, political, and social support networks which can back them from there.
Visitors on the other hand have no right to entry at all and can be denied for any legal reason (which in practice amounts to near anything). They can be banned from future entry as well for a period of time or indefinitely. So they face different (and greater) pressure.
>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.
This sounds roughly the same as America then, depending on specifics. Here LEAs may not unfortunately need a court order to search the devices of an American "as best they can", but they can't compel cooperation either (and in fact generally cannot get a court order for that at all outside of a narrow exception due to the 5th Amendment). So if a device isn't encrypted, or if it is but they're able to break into it, or if (as in this case) the person in question simply goes ahead and unlocks it for them then that's at least for now allowed (hopefully SCOTUS overrules the 2C), but they can't legally force password entry.
>Basically the same process as anywhere else in the country, international borders are not some special place that gives the police superpowers.
You don't mention your country (and that's fine!) but I don't think there is a single nation anywhere that doesn't have "police superpowers" at international borders. It's sorta a core part and parcel with the basic idea of a "nation" at all, that it can if it wishes regulate its people/goods exchange with the rest of the world. When you travel within a typical free-ish country you can just stop at a store in town and buy stuff and then take it home and the police can't investigate it and demand receipts and that you pay additional taxes or just outright seize it or make you take it back. Right? That's just, normal, within a single polity everything is already under the same rules.
But a border between independent polities by definition means that there could be goods legal in one but illegal in the other, or that are subject to different standards, or different safety considerations, or where there is disagreement on whether/how externalities are accounted for, or just simply taxed differently for pure revenue purposes. In turn, what country doesn't give themselves the right to regulate import of physical stuff, even if internally there is total freedom of movement and goods? Genuinely curious?
The argument here though is that this isn't about regulation of imports, but a criminal investigation. And I agree with legal scholars like Orin Kerr that the Second Circuit got this one wrong. This was not an import power thing, trying to stop contraband or levy legal import taxes, this was a criminal case, and I think that should always be protected by the 4A.
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.