You (the notional you) aren't even from here. If you say no, you've identified yourself as a potential threat, and can just sit in a room by yourself for as long as it takes to put you on the next flight back to wherever you came from, at your expense. And you probably won't be allowed to return.

If you're a citizen and say no, they might confiscate the device, and might make you wait around long enough to miss your connecting flight (and maybe even the next couple, if they're feeling particularly peevish), but that's about all they can do.

They may get that drilled into their skulls, but I think it's more that they just don't want their boss to yell at them.

No police officer arrests a DUI and says "but I'm just doing my job." It's only when the other person (the traveler in this case) has an entirely legitimate reason to resist them that "I'm just doing my job" comes out, with an implied threat that the authority they're appealing to (that they themselves don't have) will come down on everyone involved, and they don't want that.

Also, they don't have any personal liability for anything that goes wrong in this process, except perhaps that the company they work for will lose the contract (unlikely here). Again, "boss will yell at me."

These people are better thought of as clerks than cops. And yes, they can inconvenience you, but that's not the same thing as compliance.

The policy might change to include cells at the borders where people are detained until they hand over login details or voluntarily decide not to enter.

HN needs to stop living in a bubble. Only 1/3 of the US even bothered voting in the Trump v Clinton presidential election. I'll let you think about that for a moment. Now think about border searches. Has your phone been searched? Neither has mine. I'll go back to my company catered lunch now.

My phone has not been searched, either, but the issue here is to stand up for your rights. If you have never been wronged by a person or organization in position of authority in US government then consider yourself lucky. I and most people I know living in the US have.

Source: https://www.google.de/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2016/11/11/polit...

1. No one once reaching the age of majority should have their voting rights taken, for any reason including criminality

2. The figures also do not include people of age who are ineligible to vote or have not registered. The "Have not registered" is a key part because many stated in the last 2 election cycles have been passing a number of laws to disenfranchises segments of the populations making it harder and harder to register

3. The concept of our nation is "Consent of the people", that is all people, not just those voting. the majority of PEOPLE reject the 2 candidates put forth buy the corrupted and unethical political parties then the government can not claim to have the consent of THE PEOPLE...

Many many many Americans feel complete disenfranchised by the political systems that gives them 2 Choices that are equally terrible and corrupt. Forcing a defensive vote that is mainly against the person you do not want to win instead of voting for a qualified person you actually want to be in office.

As a life long Libertarian, I have no interest in voting for either a Republican or Democrat

Seriously? You need to register to have the privelige of voting in your country? That is beyond fucked up.

Obviously, if you don't plan on voting, you won't bother to register.

Why would anyone want to go through that on their vacation? Unless you enjoy that sort of thing, go somewhere pleasant instead. (And if you enjoy that sort of thing, there are far easier ways...)

I say this as a US citizen who will be sad if it comes to pass, but this bullshit won't stop unless the rest of the world refuses to put up with it. Your average US citizen doesn't travel internationally (only about 10% of the population has a passport), so they don't notice unless it hits their wallets.

Please force us to stop.

honestly? the us is a beautiful country, with amazing people. i love visiting and love going to weird towns to meet different people. (also, my sister is married to an american citizen, and i want to meet her every once in a while).

but at the same time, it's really fucking awful to be treated as a criminal every time you try to go to the country.

I would never go there now that a dangerous buffoon like Trump is in office, also for a long time now it's been known that outsiders will be treated like a criminal at the border for no reason. And I mean literally no reason because I could easily not have all my masses of terrorist information on the laptop and just download it from the terrorist servers when I get there. So there is literally zero reason to be searching my digital property, and I'm not about to take the gamble that I could be prevented entry or delayed enough to possibly cause thousands of dollars personal cost for no good reason. The security theatre is ridiculous.

Outsiders are obviously not welcome so I'm not coming.

There are plenty of sane countries around the world to go to, why would I go to the US?

I hope the American people can find the motivation to vote and pressure their representatives to actually do something about their own freedoms. Not only border patrol but your militarised and outrageously unaccountable police force.

Sorry but that's just, like, my opinion, man.

I'm glad your frequent travels are eased through customs to the point where you don't see what happens. But allow me to suggest that a frequent traveler through one port once a month is an insufficient data set from which to draw conclusions?

If nothing else, you have available the fact that a software vendor sees sufficient demand to invest in this feature, to go along with your google skills to find counterexamples to your experience. I don't know if that's sufficient to get you past your blithe dismissal of others' concerns and lived experience and on to a skeptical but open view or not.

[1] Which would be typical; one of the easiest tactics to steer public discussion is to pick and choose what data to collect and release. The US has a long history of this tactic, especially with issues that touch on law enforcement. The lack of decent data on killings committed by police is well-known; categorical refusal to allow studies on various drugs is too. But this is a frequent problem; hammering on killer cops with video is provoking grudging, slow change on the first and incremental legalization of pot is changing the second. But there are lots of issues over which this happens.

https://travel.state.gov/content/visas/en/general/border-bio...

I'm not a criminal, and I will not be fingerprinted.

This is a form of "citizen duty".

Oh also I'm white.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

All: upvoting such blatant violations of the site guidelines also causes accounts to lose voting privileges on HN.

What? I'm not sure I believe the grandparent's post, and it would be nice if it were sourced or clarified as opinion rather than stated as fact (as briandear (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14406689) and Banthum (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14407293) urged), but your reaction seems grossly hostile and unconstructive.

Is there any actual data source on this, or is it just a narrative you prefer?

The story with stealing citizens' personal information is entirely different; there is almost certainly no legitimate legal basis to fuck over US citizens for excercizing the basic rights explicitly protected by the 4th and 5th amendments, just because they happen to be at a border area.

The Supreme Court has actually weighed in on this and granted it a legitimate legal basis.