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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."
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."
Back when I was in the Army, I unfortunately had a clearance. Which means when you go on TDY, you become a classified material pack mule. In this particular case, in addition to a bunch of sealed envelopes, I had to carry a stickered laptop. Unshockingly, electronics certified to handle classified material are labeled clearly to include the words "US Government Property" and "Protect from unauthorized disclosure". I was also traveling on a government purchased ticket using government ID. But in civvies, because post-9/11.
Sadly didn't have my crypto carrier card as I wasn't carrying crypto material, that one gets you waved past any security checkpoint. TSA had semi-recently been spun up. Naturally US military people are high risk on aircraft, so we got selected for 'random searching'.
TSA: Sign into the laptop and turn it over.
Me: Uhm. No? It's a classified laptop, and I have no proof you have proper clearance.
TSA: We handle government laptops all the time.
Me: Not my problem. You can swab it for explosives all you want, but if it leaves my line of sight, I'm grabbing the real cops to arrest you while I call the FBI to report theft of classified material.
They squawked like a bunch of chickens. Dumped out all of our stuff, triple checked everything. Sadly none of our stuff was easily breakable, because well, soldiers. Not for a lack of trying. They also tried to make us miss the flight. Like we cared, as again, government travel voucher. This was before body cavity searches and sexually assaulting folks, but it got pretty hands on. Laptop however remained within my line of sight and turned off the entire time. You could almost taste the bureaucrat rage. Got the "special" random selection treatment every time I flew (again, usually on govt dime) for a long while afterwards, so I guess they did get the last laugh.
Hell, that's TSA and pretty expected. Fed buddy was made to bin his bottled water, but his loaded Sig and spare loaded magazines were fine. CBP made me dig out receipts to prove the booze I picked up in Ireland were from the duty free shop. I had him hold my SAW (a not small belt fed machine gun) while I dug around for the bottles and receipt. He didn't even blink. Never underestimate a government employee's ability to follow stupid rules.
And by him I mean the CBP officer guilty of breach of national security.
That's what I thought.
I see the possibility of a CPB officer taking bribes (or blackmail) from a foreign entity, (government or business) to copy the phones of people who may have access to interesting things. So many are already on the payroll of drug runners.
Basically don't make any funny faces, give back any sass, or make eye contact while going through security or customs lines. The only joy in life these guys have is hassling people. It's a boring job, they're never going to get promoted and they know it, so they're going to take out their bullying instinct whenever they can. This is not government policy, these are individuals trying to prove that they have authority over you.
If the guy's abroad on a personal trip, why's he carrying his JPL issued phone with him? That seems like a security no-no.
I've never worked at NASA but I have been issued equipment by government contractors and taking it out of the country while on personal trips was expressly forbidden. I never traveled abroad on company business but my understanding was that for at least some destinations the security department would require you to take a different laptop that only had the data you needed for the trip on it instead of your usual one. I'm not sure if that was for every destination or just for the more hostile ones.
To date, my electronic devices have only been inspected (beyond "can you turn it on?") by the US border control. Granted, there may be others in the world but I normally don't travel to totalitarian hell-holes.
One of my previous employers made a policy in 2008 about what devices could be taken through the US border control and under which circumstances. Exec summary: if not on official business, no device from the employer can be taken to the US. If on official business, a loaner laptop is handed out and it will be re-imaged on return.
There are laws that the president cannot break. Treaties are laws. He would need congressional approval to break the treaties, including UN treaties. The president cannot increase the number of green card holders without congressional approval. Deportations require review by the courts, as constitutional due process applies to everyone in the US, legally or not. Opposite of that, the president also can't make all illegal immigrants legal by himself. Current immigration law forbids discrimination of immigrant visas on the basis of race, sex, or place of residence; though the president can impose stricter background checks ("extreme vetting"). Of course presidents have often overreached here.
Congress has the plenary power to regulation naturalization in the constitution, and because the constitution does not mention immigration the supreme court has held that this clause gives congress plenary power to regulation immigration. Nowhere in the constitution is the president granted powers over naturalization or immigration, although the executive does enforce these laws and regulation with some latitude granted by congress.
Unless you can point to the clause in the constitution that says otherwise, this is the job of congress. Which is one reason everyone was so angry at unilateral action taken by president Obama.
NASA more standing than the oldest US LEO?
That is a possibility, some areas of NASA's research is more important to national security than protecting the borders from dodgy porn or similar. The exact nature of certain valving arrangements on liquid fuel rockets might be of interest to North Korea for example. Or some of their more advanced jet propulsion research might be of interest to Russia. The thing is that customs officer had no real good reason to search the phone and plenty of reasons why he shouldn't. Even if he did have the legal right to do it, it might not be the sensible thing to do.
Sadly, based on policy, the person responsible for allowing a data leak to happen could now face considerable punishment.
So now it's getting interesting. NASA forbids him to reveal the PIN code (and let's assume there's a law in place that underpins this).
The border inspection requires him to unlock it (and for the sake of the argument, let's just assume they have the legal right to do so - I'm sure the immigration official told the guy so, and being an authority figure, the scientist has or at least should have no reason to doubt this).
The result of this is that one law requires something another law forbids. Talking about being caught between a rock and a hard place!
Not "after X number of PIN attempts" but after entering the "Wipe me" special PIN.
The officer has no means of discerning if the number they received is the one that unlocks the phone or one that wipes it.
There's even a milder option: Plausible Deniability sandbox. A special PIN that gives access to the phone in "guest mode", unlocks it to something that looks just like a generic phone content of a random citizen, while the real content remains hidden.
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