If you are asked to produce the contents of your property and provide access to a subset of that property, that will be interpreted as either hindering official action or lying to a federal agent. Lying to a federal agent is a felony.
From the customs agent and legal point of view, there is no distinction between hiding a secret compartment in your luggage and a device.
> there is no distinction between hiding a secret compartment in your luggage and a device
Is it really illegal to have a secret compartment in your luggage? I mean, I have no doubt it's highly risky and that they will make the case you've done something wrong, but have you inherently done something illegal by merely having a secret compartment? Maybe only if you've explicitly represented that there are no other compartments? Or you've got contraband in there, or something else they've explicitly inquired about that you claimed you don't have? (But that's more about lying or existing laws, than the compartment itself.)
If you turned over your phone for inspection and could see they were looking in an app you don't use, are you committing a felony to not volunteer that they should look in the other browser for your real history or whatever? If having two profiles and only providing one is illegal, what about having two phones? (like your "real" one in your luggage, turned off.) Do I have to volunteer that when they asked for "my phone" that I actually have multiple? What if I kept the "real" one at home -- do I have to tell them the one they're looking at is only a subset of my property and doesn't represent what they probably actually meant when they asked for "my phone"?
I'm not entirely sure where "the lines" are here, but perhaps the passcode is part of it. Once they require that, they've crossed from dealing with physical items physically crossing the border, passing into things that are in your mind or physically located elsewhere. If they can require a lockscreen code, there's not really any reason they can't require every other password since those are "secret compartments" accessible from your phone, and if just having an undisclosed compartment really is illegal, I guess you'd better volunteer an exhaustive list of all your accounts...
If you have a desire to do some civil disobedience re some law that you have a beef with, the customs area of a port of entry is a really bad place to start.
In many cases, the customs people have discretion to not admit you for a variety of reasons. There's a tension between the process around physical goods and digital data that isn't clearly understood by the law. Until the law is more firmly established, you're better off not carrying stuff you care about.
> How have I hindered official action or lied to a federal agent by providing one of my passwords?
The same way that your child disobeyed you when you say "Go to bed", and they lay in yours and tell you "You didn't say which bed".
Clearly, the border agent wasn't asking for the password to your alternate, fake part of the phone, and they aren't likely to be happy if they figure out that you followed your own interpretation of the letter of the order, rather than an interpretation that conforms to the spirit of the order.
I'm not implying that people should behave in any particular way when asked to provide information to LEOs, only that phones should behave in a certain way when provided with a password. This might provide a level of security to a journalist who has been abducted, for example.
I'm assuming they're referring to the serious felony of lying to border police that you've fully unlocked your phone as requested when in reality you're presenting an artificially limited profile.
I don't know what you mean by "fully unlocked". Is there a legal definition for this? I made available to you more than just the lock screen software of my electronic device by entering a passcode, what more does "fully unlocked" entail (Please cite sources)?
An argument like this is fun on the internet, and it might (eventually) help you out in the courtroom. Let us know how it works out for you if the border guard decides that you're trying to make a fool out of him.
The parent poster was talking out their rear. There is no way utilizing such a tool, if it were available, is felonious in nature whatsoever.
Having multiple profiles per device and accessible in this manner would be preferable for a number of reasons. Least of which is not wanting anyone else access to your own sensitive information that they have no business looking at to begin with.
Have a mode that allows users to selectively designate and delete sensitive data.
Everyone has the feels over this border stuff and HN is collectively spewing the same inane questions repeatedly, but the reality is that people are more likely to get into trouble more often when spouses, employers, teachers, family, etc get to see things that weren't intended to be seen.
We have airplane mode to shut off phone radios, why not a purge mode to whack marked data. On iOS, the most rudimentary level of this sort of protection is available with MDM -- you can configure a device to erase managed data when it leaves a building or campus. The device is still active and manageable, but the data is gone until it becomes compliant.
