US Border Agents Searched a Record Number of Phones and Laptops This Year
Password, Please: Border Searches of Laptops, Phones Up 32% This Year
US Customs and Border Protection searched 55,424 devices in fiscal 2025, and 2026 is already running 32% higher with a quarter still uncounted. Most are "basic" searches requiring no suspicion, where refusing your passcode lets agents hold the device for five days. Advanced searches use Cellebrite and Grayshift to copy encrypted data, and an Atlanta man now faces five years for triggering a duress PIN at the border.
Are you absolutely certain that everything in your entire message history, across all platforms, would pass that inspection?
- bemtevi
I haven't entered the U.S. in some years now and I don't plan to any more. Unlike going to any other country, it just feels icky to go there and dehumanizing to go through any airport in the U.S.
It's rather sad too because I like lots of places there and there's lots of cool stuff but with what's happening, I'm making an active effort to avoid it.
- k310
I read the article on "The Signal Chats That Cost OpenAI Researchers Their Jobs" [0] and the (former) employees were asked for their phone password.
Accessing Signal, OpenAI discovered (the absence of) disappearing messages to an external researcher.
So, if an application is password protected either by the OS or another app which demands a password to launch another app, would the official just ask for the application's launch password, or is that beyond whatever overly generous powers granted to them? Perhaps this is rhetorical, because what we called laws are merely ignored these days.
Laws for which there is no charge, no prosecution, and no consequence (I can give 34 examples) are merely suggestions.
- timothyduong
There needs to be a decoy passphrase for laptops or mobiles etc. Allow access to a decoy enclave.
Instead of a killphrass/killcode, give them access to playground of `dummy` data.