It's one thing if a border guard inspects your house key you brought along, analyzes for dangerous substances, drugs, etc.
It's another if they clone that key and have someone drive out to inspect your house with it.
To me, your house in this scenario is your entire collection of private data accessible online / remotely (finances, taxes, possibly the private data of others -- possibly even portals to HIPAA/other PII data of a more commercial nature).
Assuming you agree that it is unfair to let the border search data outside of the phone, then it gets still more problematic.
One of the tricky aspects here is that it seems you can be detained / intimidated if you refuse to decrypt / unlock your device (as a US citizen re-entering your own country). I think you're getting at the idea that the phone/laptop is a physical device and should be searchable like any other object -- and, I think that's fairly reasonable. The problem is that the border guard can also "compel" you to decrypt that device / log in to it if you've put these measures in place. People have been forcibly detained for refusing to cooperate [1], even being put into a chokehold [2].
I respect that some amount of extra search power is required at borders -- but that power must be reasonably scoped (and in this case, I'd say it is not).
"possibly even portals to HIPAA/other PII data of a more commercial nature)."
You bring up a good point about HIPAA. I work in health care and we are allowed to keep a work email client on our phone provided that we keep control of our phone at all time (to keep PHI/HIPAA info safe). A border agent searching through my phone could be considered a HIPAA violation and would have to be reported. Not sure if anything would come out of it fine wise for the company but it would still be a nightmare for compliance.
One interpretation is that you're responsible for someone else breaking the law. If it's a violation, then the border guard committed the violation.
Another interpretation is that you cannot possible obey the law. If the border guard has the legal right to demand access to the HIPAA protected data, and you can't legally give him access... then the law enforcement officials are forcing you to break the law.
With no punishment for them, of course.
There's one set of rules for normal people, and another for law enforcement. How does this keep me safe?
"One interpretation is that you're responsible for someone else breaking the law. If it's a violation, then the border guard committed the violation."
The problem with that is that they aren't a covered entity and thus shouldn't have access to the data. Because they aren't a covered entity HIPAA rules do not apply to them.
It's one thing if a border guard inspects your house key you brought along, analyzes for dangerous substances, drugs, etc.
It's another if they clone that key and have someone drive out to inspect your house with it.
To me, your house in this scenario is your entire collection of private data accessible online / remotely (finances, taxes, possibly the private data of others -- possibly even portals to HIPAA/other PII data of a more commercial nature).
Assuming you agree that it is unfair to let the border search data outside of the phone, then it gets still more problematic.
One of the tricky aspects here is that it seems you can be detained / intimidated if you refuse to decrypt / unlock your device (as a US citizen re-entering your own country). I think you're getting at the idea that the phone/laptop is a physical device and should be searchable like any other object -- and, I think that's fairly reasonable. The problem is that the border guard can also "compel" you to decrypt that device / log in to it if you've put these measures in place. People have been forcibly detained for refusing to cooperate [1], even being put into a chokehold [2].
I respect that some amount of extra search power is required at borders -- but that power must be reasonably scoped (and in this case, I'd say it is not).
[1] http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/13/us/citizen-nasa-engineer-detai... [2] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/american-citizens-u-s-b...