US-Born NASA Scientist Detained At The Border Until He Unlocked His Phone (theverge.com)

Sidd Bikkannavar works at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. After racing solar-powered cars in Chile, he had trouble returning to America. mspohr quote The Verge: Bikkannavar says he was detained by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol and pressured to give the Customs and Border Protection agents his phone and access PIN. Since the phone was issued by NASA, it may have contained sensitive material that wasn't supposed to be shared. Bikkannavar's phone was returned to him after it was searched by CBP, but he doesn't know exactly what information officials might have taken from the device...

The officer also presented Bikkannavar with a document titled "Inspection of Electronic Devices" and explained that CBP had authority to search his phone. Bikkannavar did not want to hand over the device, because it was given to him by JPL and is technically NASA property. He even showed the officer the JPL barcode on the back of phone. Nonetheless, CBP asked for the phone and the access PIN. "I was cautiously telling him I wasn't allowed to give it out, because I didn't want to seem like I was not cooperating," says Bikkannavar. "I told him I'm not really allowed to give the passcode; I have to protect access. But he insisted they had the authority to search it."
While border agents have the right to search devices, The Verge reports that travelers aren't legally required to unlock their phones, "although agents can detain them for significant periods of time if they do not." They also report that Bikkannavar "was not allowed to leave until he gave CBP his PIN," adding that the cybersecurity team at JPL "was not happy about the breach."

Comments

Arrest him and throw him into Gitmo

[ghoul]

And by him I mean the CBP officer guilty of breach of national security.

Re:Arrest him and throw him into Gitmo

[wvmarle]

... and sit in jail himself waiting for the results?

Re: Arrest him and throw him into Gitmo

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a clear violation of the constitution to conduct baseless, warrantless searches like that, border or not.
I don't give a shit if the courts have said it's okay. The courts used to say slavery was okay.

Re:Arrest him and throw him into Gitmo

[wvmarle]

I believe he did the smart thing, and probably the best when it comes to making a stand.

Under protest unlock the phone, get it done, then report the incident to his employer (as breach of security - employer being NASA has a bit more standing) and report to the press (allowing for public outrage to ensue).

This way he has a fair chance of getting a lot of attention for the case - and it appears it worked, at least the story made it onto /.. If instead he had been held in jail at the border, it may have been a lot harder to get the story out quickly. Now the end result is the same (the story is out & hopefully NASA is enraged over the breach of security, more so than had he stayed in jail and they had gotten him out a week later without the phone having been unlocked), without him having to suffer unduly.

Re:Arrest him and throw him into Gitmo

[geekmux]

I believe he did the smart thing, and probably the best when it comes to making a stand.

Under protest unlock the phone, get it done, then report the incident to his employer (as breach of security - employer being NASA has a bit more standing) and report to the press (allowing for public outrage to ensue).

This way he has a fair chance of getting a lot of attention for the case - and it appears it worked, at least the story made it onto /.. If instead he had been held in jail at the border, it may have been a lot harder to get the story out quickly. Now the end result is the same...

When an individuals actions make the difference between a breach of security happening vs. not happening, I'd say the end result is not the same. I'm thinking NASA would agree, since they're the ones forced to do an investigation and assess impact right now over the transfer of sensitive information to unauthorized persons, which absolutely happened.

Sadly, based on policy, the person responsible for allowing a data leak to happen could now face considerable punishment. For his sake, let's hope that common sense prevails and his employer realizes the only entity truly responsible for this breach and coercion against a US Citizen is the US Government.

Re: Arrest him and throw him into Gitmo

[Joce640k]

That's not how border security works. They don't need a warrant. The courts have decided this.

There was nothing illegal that happened here.

Even if you're a returning US citizen?

This word "freedom". I don't think you (or most of the USA) knows what it means even though you spend your entire lives repeating it.

Re: Arrest him and throw him into Gitmo

[Joce640k]

Papieren, bitte!

Factory reset before you get off the plane.

[quenda]

Wow, am wondering if I should be doing a factory reset before the plane finishes taxiing.
Or will they then demand my Google/Apple password?

Nah, I'm white. I'll wait 'till they come for us.

Re:Factory reset before you get off the plane.

[Miamicanes]

I'd be more worried that they'd install NSA-grade bootloader-compromising malware capable of surviving anything short of JTAG-reflashing everything from the motherboard BIOS to the hard drive, videocard, and network card firmware, and turn my kick-ass laptop into one that mysteriously crashes for no apparent reason thereafter, even after I've reinstalled Windows multiple times (without even getting into the fact that it would be permanently compromised from a privacy and security standpoint). Think: Sony rootkit on steroids, with the nearly-unlimited of the US government and support from the legal system behind it (for the few who don't know, Sony's rootkit was distributed as a file that auto-ran if you inserted certain audio CDs to play them on your computer. It literally REFLASHED YOUR DRIVE'S FIRMWARE to disable functions used by ripping software).

The question isn't whether the NSA has malware like that. They absolutely do. Google "Advanced Persistent Threat" ("APT"), and know that it's common knowledge that the US, Russia, Britain, China, and Israel (plus countless more) ALL have state espionage agencies with the resources to develop and deploy APTs... and they actively do it every single day.

The NSA is full of self-perceived super-patriots who've willingly sacrificed every shred of their own privacy, and see nothing wrong with inflicting large-scale collateral damage to American citizens' computer hardware in the holy name of protecting the American homeland from any threat... major or minor, real or perceived. To their mindset, if deploying malware to the laptops of 14 million American citizens crossing the border in some given year causes Windows (or any network hardware that might be subsequently used by those laptops) to occasionally crash for no apparent reason thereafter, but enables DHS to prevent a single terrorist attack, it's 100% worth it, and as far as they're concerned, anyone who thinks otherwise is an evil commie terrorist-loving scumbag who hates America.

Racism at work

[whoever57]

Is there anyone here who doesn't think that the reason the guy was detained was because his skin color was too dark?

Re:Stop complaining you crybabies!

[Darinbob]

Why shut up? One of the few benefits left in this country is that we are allowed to criticize our government. This is actual our moral and civic duty to bitch at the government, otherwise the power goes to their heads and they start turning authoritarian. Democracy is not just something that happens every 2 years after which we go home and put up with whatever bullshit the government spits out.

Re:Stop complaining you crybabies!

[Yosho]

Actually, you have the right to criticize the government as much as you want, regardless of who you voted for or even if you didn't vote at all, thanks to something call the first amendment. Suggesting otherwise makes you anti-free speech.