best promotion ever haha What is it? FU-123?

On GrapheneOS, you can also set a "second factor PIN" in the unlock settings under "Fingerprint Unlock", so that to unlock your screen you need to first use the fingerprint unlock and then separately enter your PIN. This means BOTH are required every time you unlock. Your phone can't be unlocked unless it's your finger AND unless you enter the PIN that only you know.

And under the Screen Lock settings you can also enable "Scramble PIN input layout", so that the number buttons on your unlock screen will be out of order, so people watching you or recording you can't just make note of the shape your index finger is making when touching the numbers to unlock your phone(like people looking over your shoulder or recording on store security cameras).

Legality seems to be a fairytale concept in the USA, except for oligarchs. They get full legal coverage.

There’s a bunch of legislation and case law saying that searches are OK within x (50?) miles of a border crossing which covers something like 90% of the population because they count international airports.

So it might get sticky for the person.

Perfectly legal. Unless they were legally charged and ordered by a court to preserve data considered to be used in a crime, they can’t be charged with shit. Cops don’t dictate this, courts do, AND that scope only applies to an active prosecution anyway.

I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not arguing that you're wrong here, but the article describes the federal law the journalist was charged with. It seems very broad, and it's a bullshit law, but from what's here, it seems more grey area than perfectly legal. All of 2232 seems to require knowledge (which it seems like he had, but might be arguable) and action. You could argue that the journalist didn't take any affirmative action to wipe the phone. The action that wiped it was the feds entering a code.

Tourists going to the US and US residents leaving should take a burner phone.

I lost interest of ever visiting again when they started collecting fingerprints from everyone visiting.

In all likelihood they kept his phone and will retain possession until charges are dismissed. Get a burner phone and wipe it before going through security. I assume if they see your phone is "fresh" they'll take it on suspicion anyway.

Would you want the phone back after it's been in their hands? I wouldn't trust them to leave it alone.

If it's not US soil, it's not a detention, it's a rendition, a kidnapping.

Also, I don't know how citizenship works I this respect in the US, but in my country a citizen cannot be denied entry. It can be detained upon entering, but by then you are in sovereign soil.

This is an excellent idea honestly.

yes you can. On Graphene you can set the main profile as just there with nothing except to control wifi/add esim/etc. Then you can create many profiles with their own passwords. You can store your work stuff in 1 profile, private stuff in another. You can even create a dummy profile with fake Google. .

The downside currently is that the OS autoboot to main profile. Then you switch to your other profiles.

Yes US citizens cannot be compelled to provide a password, but biometrics such as fingerprint or Face ID can. Disable these when crossing into the US.

Non citizens can be detained and rejected for not providing access to a device via password. Best to bring a second device if you must enter. Depressing times.

I don't believe you can be compelled to provide a password. That does after all (at the very least) constitute speech. And freedom of speech is also freedom of non-speech, they can't make you say something.

They will however try to make you do that... In many situations authorities are allowed to lie to you. So that's sucks. They can tell you that you're required to unlock your phone, you just have to know that your not actually.

Also they can't make you say anything, but they can make you do things, like for instance "put your finger here" or "look into this camera", which is why biometric unlock is unsafe around cops.

To charge someone with destroying evidence wouldn't they first have to somehow prove the evidence existed?

I did something similar when I last visited the US ~15 years ago. I uploaded an encrypted backup of my phone to a server in my home country and reset the device. I then downloaded and restored the backup when I arrived at the hotel.