When there is a "circuit split" like this, with different appellate courts going in opposite directions you are almost 100% guaranteed SCOTUS has to step in to fix it.

I don't know the outcome of this, as I've not studied border searches in years, but while SCOTUS went in the favor of defendants on prior search cases (e.g. Riley v. California, 573 U.S. 373, cellphone searches on person during arrest; Carpenter v. United States, 585 U.S. ___ (2018), cellphone GPS logs from carrier; United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400 (2012), GPS attached to car), the court has changed to the right, which generally (but not always) means less defendant-friendly, more government-friendly.

If I had to wager, SCOTUS will uphold warrantless border searches.

  Gorsuch, Neil M.        April 10, 2017  
  Kavanaugh, Brett M.     October 6, 2018  
  Barrett, Amy Coney      October 27, 2020  
  Jackson, Ketanji Brown  June 30, 2022

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/573/373/

The opinion was written by Roberts with a concurrence by Alito.

Again, presumably, the 2024 court is likely to take an even a dimmer view of the Feds trying to expand their powers and circumvent the 4th Amendment than the 2014 court.

Scalia was textualist. "Justices Antonin Scalia, Amy Coney Barrett, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch describe themselves as originalists in scholarly writings and public speeches" [1]. (In several cases, e.g. the application of Sarbanes-Oxley to the January 6th cases, they dismissed a textualist interpretation.)

Textualism would have trouble with this case because phones aren't mentioned in the Constitution. Originalism does better, which explains Riley.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Originalism

This is one of those things you should talk to a lawyer about, and possibly, if you want to and your lawyer approves, the media.

Being invasively searched for drugs due to false testimony by officers, where it was proven that you were free of contraband, but then being billed for the process, is fucked up and a clear violation of your constitutional rights.

At border checkpoints on US soil, the border search exception to the Fourth Amendment which this court is interpreting narrowly does not differ based on citizenship. I think there is even no difference about the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination in that context.

Of course, noncitizens do not have the same constitutional right to enter the US as do citizens, which is the same rule that most countries use. So refusing to cooperate at the border could block a foreigner from entering the US in ways it can’t for a citizen.

It is unfortunately also true that US constitutional rights only apply to noncitizens who are physically outside the US in very particular situations and not most of the time. (US preclearance border checkpoints on foreign soil count as physically outside the US for this purpose.) By contrast, US citizens at least in theory fully retain those protections with respect to US government actions wherever they are in the world when the US government ought to know they’re dealing with a US citizen.

I've been asked for my phone at customs, and I just hand over the "nokia". They can play snake all the like.

I don't know, it depends on their mood I guess? I'm unaware of the U.S. legal system specifically, but the Court of Justice of the European Union invalidated laws retroactively in the past. This isn't exclusive to EU laws either. My home country did the same thing with national laws. So I don't know, maybe the US can do that as well, but people just assume the US can't because it feels intuitive for it to be that way?

There are ... some exceptions. Pardons can be granted (presidential or gubernatorial) for those convicted of specific violations, or under procedures later discredited. This doesn't of itself provide the ability to prosecute bad cops / bad prosecutors, but does at least undo some of the damage.

E.g., President Biden has given broad pardons for marijuana possession under US and D.C. (administered by the Federal government) law:

<https://www.npr.org/2023/12/22/1221230390/biden-pardons-clem...>

This doesn't include state convictions for drugs possession (the vast majority of such convictions) but does signal to states which direction the Federal government is leaning.

But your damage control is within reach.

The rulings you're referring to are based on the Fifth Amendment. They don't involve the privacy rights of the Fourth Amendment. Rather, they treat the act of revealing your password as testimonial: if you say "my password is hunter2", you are testifying; and the Fifth Amendment says you cannot be forced to testify against yourself; so you cannot be forced to reveal your password.

You can scan your fingerprint or face without speaking a word, so those acts are not testimonial, and forcing you to do them would not implicate the Fifth Amendment. Similarly, brute forcing your password, or searching for it written down in your notes, would not implicate the Fifth Amendment.

What's the alternative? The guy paid $1000+ just to get there and spent 3+ hours at customs. Refusing is basically saying "ok I fly back home"

Why Android? Try GNU/Linux with SXMo instead: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39155103

https://cellebrite.com/en/advanced-services/

The biggest thing is to set your device up on arrival to be powered OFF. Most of Cellebrite (and other security vendors) solutions rely on the phone having been unlocked once since first poweron (or "AFU").

So in practice there is nothing needed. Because it is impossible to challenge 3rd order interspecies anonymous hearsay.

https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/09/car_text_harvesting/