Wyden To Introduce Bill To Prohibit Warrantless Phone Searches At Border (onthewire.io)

Trailrunner7 quotes a report from On the Wire: A senator from Oregon who has a long track record of involvement on security and privacy issues says he plans to introduce a bill soon that would prevent border agents from forcing Americans returning to the country to unlock their phones without a warrant. Sen. Ron Wyden said in a letter to the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security that he is concerned about reports that Customs and Border Patrol agents are pressuring returning Americans into handing over their phone PINs or using their fingerprints to unlock their phones. DHS Secretary John Kelly has said that he's considering the idea of asking visitors for the login data for their various social media accounts, information that typically would require a warrant to obtain. "Circumventing the normal protection for such private information is simply unacceptable," Wyden said in the letter, sent Monday. "There are well-established procedures governing how law enforcement agencies may obtain data from social media companies and email providers. The process typically requires that the government obtain a search warrant or other court order, and then ask the service provider to turn over the user's data."

Comments

lack of foresight

[Anonymous Coward]

If only our forefathers would have had the foresight to create some sort of document that prevented warrantless searches, then none of this would be necessary.

Re:lack of foresight

[KiloByte]

Americans should not be subject to unreasonable searches and seizures.

Note the wording: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, [...]. It doesn't say "Americans" anywhere. So while I can't run for US president, if I visit, I am supposed to have thugs keep the [expletive] out of my "papers and effects". Which does include my phone.

Re:lack of foresight

[Tesen]

Could tie in with that part mentioning "We the people" found in the Declaration of Independence. Which would eliminate non-citizens from protection (possibly).

Except if you look at the full Preamble: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Or to paraphrase: We the representatives of the people of the sovereign states hereby define the owners manual for our country.

There have been many people that argued the preamble implies citizen only, but that is contrary to the the fact they enumerated citizen only restrictions elsewhere in the document, in addition, other restrictions upon the Federal Government and the rights of granted to the people via the bill of rights, seems to imply where important distinctions are made.

Re:And for everyone else...?

[ASDFnz]

while completely ignoring any intrusion/violation of the rights of visitors.

Speaking as someone from another country (New Zealand) who has visited the US on several occasions (mostly social) I can tell you it has certainly become an issue.

Recently I was planning to attend an event in Las Vegas (hobby related). My first thought was to the invasive border security that is already in place but I though why not and decided to go anyway.

Others decided differently, in the end the event in Las Vegas was canceled because of the invasive border protection and we all went to Australia instead.