I'm afraid to leave the country precisely because I worry about difficulties upon return. I understand that as a citizen I can't be denied reentry, but I also understand they can make the process extremely difficult or uncomfortable if they want to and I have little or no recourse.
They can still make your life very difficult. They could throw you in jail for "obstructing investigation" or something similar.
Not in US, but had my phone seized by authorities and was asked to unlock it. I'm walking free, but I think what really saved me is that I genuinely complied with investigation and the only place where I drew the line was me giving away my password.
If I used my right to remain silent AND not give away the password, I'd probably be charged with something. I'm sure its very similar in many countries, including US.
It's extremely unlikely they'd jail me for obstruction. They wouldn't have a legal leg to stand on and they know it.
From CBP themselves:
"If a traveler being admitted as a U.S. citizen does not present their device in a condition that allows for examination, the U.S. citizen traveler will not be denied entry into the United States based on CBP’s inability to complete an inspection of their device. However, as noted above, their device may be subject to exclusion, detention, or other appropriate action or disposition."
Worst case would be losing the phone, which is a tradeoff I'm willing to make.
They have verbatim told me they would deny me entry into the country merely for not answering things like random questions about what work I do in the country or whether I own guns (I am a US citizen). They involved HSI and tried to get my passport revoked, they tossed me in a jail cell and vans with my hands and feet bound. They wrote lies in a search warrant, tied the source of the lies to anonymous individuals and animals that can never be held to account, and then got a judge to sign a search warrant that turned up nothing. They got doctors to write in my medical record that they think "I am a drug packer" despite never finding anything or any evidence to support it.
You will find "temporary" can be long enough to make your life extremely unpleasant, that they can do unpleasant things to your body (another lady at my point of entry was raped, sued, and lost, -- the raping was done to "probe for drugs" and held to be justified), that they can run up debt in your name (what they did to me is just travel around to different ER and tell them an emergency, then bill it to my name, and to multiple hospitals to rack up the debt), that they can put you on a list so that you have no hope of making any airport connections for many years. I don't even bother scheduling same-day international connections anymore, and I have to plan on family members and animals being taken care of for at least 72 hours in advance before I cross the US border.
You later contact a lawyer, several lawyers in fact, only to find out they've handled many of these cases, always lost, and reluctant to bother trying again.
Respectfully, you don't realize how horribly naïve you are. You are not dealing with people that follow the law, rather genuinely evil people that will do whatever they can get away with because they can get away with it and find supreme satisfaction in sadism.
You'll hear the same "more to the story" if it happens to you, as well. Hope you never have to experience it, but if you do, you'll find the same as me. No one believes it until it happens to them, always "more to the story" or "a lie" or some such right up until they find out reality. Then they find out that "gulf" they thought they saw was a mirage.
They can ask, yes. And I can refuse. They can’t detain me more than temporarily, and they can’t prevent me from entering the country.
I'm afraid to leave the country precisely because I worry about difficulties upon return. I understand that as a citizen I can't be denied reentry, but I also understand they can make the process extremely difficult or uncomfortable if they want to and I have little or no recourse.
They can still make your life very difficult. They could throw you in jail for "obstructing investigation" or something similar.
Not in US, but had my phone seized by authorities and was asked to unlock it. I'm walking free, but I think what really saved me is that I genuinely complied with investigation and the only place where I drew the line was me giving away my password.
If I used my right to remain silent AND not give away the password, I'd probably be charged with something. I'm sure its very similar in many countries, including US.
It's extremely unlikely they'd jail me for obstruction. They wouldn't have a legal leg to stand on and they know it.
From CBP themselves:
"If a traveler being admitted as a U.S. citizen does not present their device in a condition that allows for examination, the U.S. citizen traveler will not be denied entry into the United States based on CBP’s inability to complete an inspection of their device. However, as noted above, their device may be subject to exclusion, detention, or other appropriate action or disposition."
Worst case would be losing the phone, which is a tradeoff I'm willing to make.
They have verbatim told me they would deny me entry into the country merely for not answering things like random questions about what work I do in the country or whether I own guns (I am a US citizen). They involved HSI and tried to get my passport revoked, they tossed me in a jail cell and vans with my hands and feet bound. They wrote lies in a search warrant, tied the source of the lies to anonymous individuals and animals that can never be held to account, and then got a judge to sign a search warrant that turned up nothing. They got doctors to write in my medical record that they think "I am a drug packer" despite never finding anything or any evidence to support it.
You will find "temporary" can be long enough to make your life extremely unpleasant, that they can do unpleasant things to your body (another lady at my point of entry was raped, sued, and lost, -- the raping was done to "probe for drugs" and held to be justified), that they can run up debt in your name (what they did to me is just travel around to different ER and tell them an emergency, then bill it to my name, and to multiple hospitals to rack up the debt), that they can put you on a list so that you have no hope of making any airport connections for many years. I don't even bother scheduling same-day international connections anymore, and I have to plan on family members and animals being taken care of for at least 72 hours in advance before I cross the US border.
You later contact a lawyer, several lawyers in fact, only to find out they've handled many of these cases, always lost, and reluctant to bother trying again.
Respectfully, you don't realize how horribly naïve you are. You are not dealing with people that follow the law, rather genuinely evil people that will do whatever they can get away with because they can get away with it and find supreme satisfaction in sadism.
Why do I get the feeling there’s more to this story....
Anyway, there’s wide gulf between not giving up the passcode to my life and not answering basic questions.
You'll hear the same "more to the story" if it happens to you, as well. Hope you never have to experience it, but if you do, you'll find the same as me. No one believes it until it happens to them, always "more to the story" or "a lie" or some such right up until they find out reality. Then they find out that "gulf" they thought they saw was a mirage.