I think the worrisome thing here is that there isn't any restriction or regulation around what people should be looking for at the airport on someone's phone slash what are the markers for why they should be scrutinized. Even with regulation, this kind of power gets abused. Just look at cops in the US. Even though there are rules around when a cop is allowed to search someone's vehicle, cops often find ways around it to do so and get away with it, because it's often a cop's word against a regular citizen's word (and to get anything changed, it's often a long, drawn out and expensive legal battle.)
Maybe you don't mind about this specific invasion of privacy, but you should be extremely mindful of setting a precedent for future laws. When does it end? What will they be forcing you to do in the next couple of years? What will our children have to endure?
At borders is a huge limitation. The government can pat you down at a border as a normal procedure, it's like entering a prison. Historically, flying was something of an exception because it started as something rich people did and governments tend to treat them very differently.
Consider what happened to people that showed up at Ellis island. Some people would be forced to strip, take a shower, and undergo medical examinations. Remember, this was published as perfectly reasonable things that confirm to social norms. Further 1-2% of people where deported often due to physical deformities. https://books.google.com/books?id=OyL6JatN5KwC&pg=PA129&lpg=...
PS: I don't mean we should go back to a system like this, just crossing borders is very meaningfully different than sitting at home or driving down the street.
Traveling internationally isn't uncommon and is becoming more commonplace with advances in air travel. I'd rather not be subjected to an invasion of privacy while on vacation.
Suppose police kill 1 person per month across the US. That's would not be a huge red flag for me, but if police killed 10,000 people per month across the US that's grounds for a revolution. The ground between A and B can be vast, so saying X happens on it's own is less important than the context.
All I am saying is that a 3x annual increase in X can be a bad sign even if the old and new rates are justified because the trend on it's own is concerning.
In the United States, border zones are any areas up to 100 miles inland from a land border or coast. The majority of US population and cities are in border zones and the border rules apply to them:
Like most parts of the law the details are very complex. So, in fact there is a huge difference from being within 100 miles of a border and having just crossed one at an airport.
Or to quote your link: Border Patrol, nevertheless, cannot pull anyone over without "reasonable suspicion" of an immigration violation or crime (reasonable suspicion is more than just a "hunch").
I assume there are probably a 1,000 people that cross the US border a year where there is a very compelling case to check a phone. The same argument does not work for 10,000,000 people. So, I assume when you ramp up the people your adding have a much lower threshold than the old group.
Further there is a long history of random inspections as people cross borders without a warrants meaning it's simply doing the same things with different means. Basically, border security is one of the core functions of government and the expectation of privacy is minimal.
Or put another way, if you are going to open 1,000 laptops a year then I assume that getting a warrant would not be difficult. If you want to open 100,000,000 laptops a year then your not acting on any kind of evidence just going fishing. But, that kind of fishing tends to be ineffective and expensive both directly and by discouraging people from visiting the US.
PS: The same argument exists in other areas. Having 100 H-Bombs on ICBMs is a very powerful threat. Having 10,000 H-Bombs on ICBMs is just more expense without really changing the threat. You increase the risk of bad things happening, spend ~100x the money and gain what exactly?
