>don't you also need to be able to honestly say you can not provide access to it?
It's been said further down, but they can't possibly have carte blanche to compel that you reveal all data you have access to anywhere, which is what this would require.
Of course they have that carte blanche, at least if you are not a citizen (and since you are travelling internationally, I'd assume that you're not a citizen on at least one of the legs).
Normally, they can ask whatever the eff they like to decide whether to grant you entry or not.
The logical conclusion here, is to decide, what is more important: Gaining entry, or keeping your data. In the first case you're just fucked. If you get searched, you have to give up your stuff (even if you can claim you can't; they can then just not let you in). In the second, just encrypt your shit, rescind your request for entry when it looks like they might be interested in you and don't give up your password.
HN makes this much too complicated, again. And forgets that this is a legal and social problem, not a technical one.
> Normally, they can ask whatever the eff they like to decide whether to grant you entry or not.
Yep. There's this tendency to say "I beat their rules, so they have to let me go!" The CBP aren't fairies, they aren't bound to stay within some narrow precommitment. At least if you're not a US citizen, these things are almost totally discretionary. Not only can they bar you for not unlocking Facebook, they can bar your for genuinely not having Facebook if they decide you're lying. When even simple truth isn't a defense, clever tech tricks don't count for anything.
In my cynical moments, this outlook strikes me as a disease caused by excess programming - living in a world of contracts and invariants blinds people to how much of the world runs on "screw you, you know what I mean."
> The TSA aren't fairies, they aren't bound to stay within some narrow precommitment. At least if you're not a US citizen, these things are almost totally discretionary.
It's been said further down, but they can't possibly have carte blanche to compel that you reveal all data you have access to anywhere, which is what this would require.