A US-born NASA scientist was detained at the border until he unlocked his phone - Polidicks

[QUOTE=Guriosity;51816294]Here is how I resist. I give a copy of my birth cert. Then social security card. Then a copy of my merchant mariner card. My veterans card. My drivers license. A copy of a state Id. My passport. My passport card. My street entertainer card. In short I give them my long and ever expanding list of documents to irritate them and waste their time.[/QUOTE] the world never ceases to impress me with just how petty some people can be

He should have just said he didn't want to be detained, that's the magic words that makes you immune to all this.

[QUOTE=Coolboy;51816326]So when I ever enter the US, I should backup my phone and laptop and other stuff onto an external server, wipe phone and laptop and get my contents from the server after passing all checks. Got it.[/QUOTE] That's probably what people who actually want to sneak sensitive info in/out of the country are already doing.

[QUOTE=_Axel;51816772]That's probably what people who actually want to sneak sensitive info in/out of the country are already doing.[/QUOTE] People with bad intentions already have more sophisticated methods, I'm sure.

[QUOTE=Scarabix;51816257]Will astronauts be detained at the border of space when flying back from the ISS?[/QUOTE] They could be literal illegal aliens. :xfiles:

What if I don't have a phone or a facebook account? What if I have no friends? Won't they let me in? How can I make friends if they don't let me in?

[QUOTE=Sims_doc;51815775]They've just access to a phone containing state secrets and possibly downloaded those secrets. Treason? Would be what they've just committed.[/QUOTE] 'state secrets' It's JPL, not the DNI. They work with minimally-classified material, and compartment their research to keep national defense information separate from aeronautics research (which they share with international partners). If the guy had 'state secrets' on his phone, then [I]he[/I] was the one committing a felony mishandling of classified information by taking it out of the country, and if they determined that he gave it to anyone it would be an [I]espionage[/I] charge. More likely he has nothing sensitive, but they're just ruling out the possibility in typically overbearing CBP fashion, searching his phone to make sure he didn't take anything out of the country that shouldn't have left. Edit: I think it's worth pointing out that if you work for an organization that does handle classified information, you're put under more scrutiny than the general population. If CBP selected him because he had an ethnic-sounding name, then that's indefensible and makes an utter joke out of an organization that's expected to reliably screen people moving across the border. If CBP was tipped off by the FBI that the guy was a potential intelligence risk and may be exfiltrating sensitive material, then the decision to screen him was made before he ever got to the border. I'm not saying that's what happened, but the difference between an act of discrimination and a deliberately planned counterintelligence search is invisible to an outside observer and that makes me hesitant to break out the torches and pitchforks without more information. If CBP has a documented trend of 'randomly' stopping and searching federal employees who just so happen to belong to ethnic minorities then that's bullshit.

Super common. And it's all in the name of "National Security" so they can do w.e they want. Fun fact(s): If a border security guy comes across someone who is from Google or Apple carrying new prototypes of iPhones or a Google phone, they might think to themselves, "Sweet, I want to see what the next big thing is!" and have every right to search and look at these prototypes. They might find something cool and then leak it to the press giving away secrets that other companies could then use as a competitive edge to try and push something out before they do. That's why Google and Apple disguise their prototypes in perhaps older looking cases, (say the new iPhone 7 is coming out and so Apple will fit it into an iPhone 5 or 6 case to look inconspicuous) and the employees will then just say they're going to some business conference or "\insert plausible business excuse here" and the border won't know any better that they're carrying showcase prototypes. EVEN IF the border guard catches on they could be carrying seriously awesome goods, the devices will then be in a different software mode that is unlocked into the actual showcase mode with obscure "hold power button for X seconds then press volume up/down X times etc etc" so even if the guard gets them to unlock their iPhone 7 in a iPhone 6 case, they can't tell the difference because it's running in the iPhone 6 mode when really it's an iPhone 7.

[QUOTE=InfectedPotato;51815418]What the hell is that even legal?[/QUOTE] Yes.

This is, unfortunately, a normal thing for all countries to do. This isn't unique to the US and has been going on for sometime. There are shows that documented border authorities in Australia, Canada, (Border Security series) and the US. And probably others.