Border agents are more frequently searching traveler’s phones as they enter the US. Many of these travelers are American citizens. Border agents will demand that travelers unlock their phones if they are password protected. Border agents searched less than 5,000 phones in 2015, they searched 25,000 in 2016, and searched over 5,000 phones in February of 2017.
An unlawful search of our tech should disturb everyone.
Traveling while brown? U.S. agents search cellphones of U.S. citizens
When Buffalo, New York couple Akram Shibly and Kelly McCormick returned to the U.S. from a trip to Toronto on Jan. 1, 2017, U.S. Customs & Border Protection officers held them for two hours, took their cellphones and demanded their passwords.