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No Warrant Needed: Border Agents in NY, CT, and VT Can Now Search Your Phone
(www.gadgetreview.com)
this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2026
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Fuck ICE and fuck CBP.
The Knight First Amendment Institute argued as amicus that searching expressive and associational content on phones demands a First Amendment warrant. The Second Circuit rejected that argument, holding that neither the Fourth nor the First Amendment carves out a special exemption for phones at the border.
Wow. Yeah... We all need shitty travel phones with very little on them now. That's fucking gross.
The Second Circuit rejected that argument, holding that neither the Fourth nor the First Amendment carves out a special exemption for phones at the border.
The second circuit used the right argument but somehow came to the wrong conclusion. The 4th carves out no special exemption, meaning you need a warrant.
Or don't travel with a phone at all. Take a digital camera and use that for pictures.
Anything else, just buy a used phone at your destination and load all your accounts on that, then delete and reset your phone and sell it before you leave
Take a digital camera and use that for pictures.
They'll search that too! Take an analog camera instead. At least that way you get the film developed for free ;).
If by "developed" you mean "opened and exposed to the light" then yes
This is nothing new. I don't agree with it but people are acting like this was rolled out yesterday. Unless we can reverse the supreme court ruling on it, nothing will prevent them from searching phones at airports or within 100 of borders.
If I’m going down for a meme then you can bet your ass I’ll be doing my best to sink my teeth into some throats like I’m Rick fuckin’ Grimes as soon as my phone is taken. In for a penny in for a pound.
Looks like it's time to carry a dummy phone with you if you decide to visit the US. Not really sure why any non-citizens would want to do that at this point though.
Interestingly, iOS 27 has a new “2 phones can share 1 number and you can swap between them” which didn’t seem to make a lot of sense.
What in the what now? Just between apple phones or with android or other OS? Guess I hafta go read…
I always hit "Factory Data Reset" before crossing a border, but now they aren't just at (or nenar) borders.
Time to keep any data on a server, in a jurisdiction that tells the MAGAt motherfuckers where to stuff it.
Sadly hard to find a commercial service. Sync is in Canada, and they're a compelte joke now that Carney is ruining the place. Tuta is in Germany, and they have AfD running a new Nazi takeover one chunk at a time. Proton is Switzerland which is good... For Citizens. Most of us aren't Swiss, though.
Honestly we need someone to make a service like Proton, and put it in Iceland...
Which will be good, until that fuckwit Cheeto mistakes it for Greenland and invades.
Encrypt all your remote hosted stuff!