alt Hacker NewsI think one of their main justifications for claiming a right to inspect your phone is the possibility that you could be carrying illegal data on it, such as CSAM (which they apparently invoked in this particular case). Since they generally can inspect your luggage to check if you're crossing the border with illegal goods, this seems somewhat plausible as a legal interpretation.
Personally, I believe that there should be explicit laws protecting your personal devices, given the amount of sensitive private information they carry. I think an explicit law, or even amendment to the constitution, would be much better than relying on ever more arcane legal interpretations being invented by judges based on vague wording and vague principles.
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general enforcement of federal law as a special exception of the 4th amendment doesn't seem to be in the charter passed by congress in https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/6/211
no judge thought there was sufficient evidence to grant a warrant in this case, so what you're saying is that any CBP agent can go fishing for anything they want. anyone can be detained for any reason that an individual CBP agent considers necessary.
That's nonsense because it's trivial to move data internationally without ever crossing a physical border.
There is no reason for anyone to ever try to smuggle digital data through a border crossing and so zero justification for ever conducting a digital search at the border.