Originally Posted by
jphripjah
Yeah, it was the CBP threat to confiscate my business iphone that got me cooperating pretty quickly. I really didn't want to have to explain to my boss and IT department that my phone had been confiscated for refusing to answer questions from CBP officers.
I relish the opportunity to explain to corporate IT that my laptop was stolen by CBP. Our laptops are whole-disk encrypted and automatically backed up, so I won't really lose anything and will get a replacement as soon as I get to a site. (A colleague accidentally ran over his laptop with a car and was given no hassle, just a new laptop with the old but still running hard drive.) While company policy encourages us to "cooperate" with border patrol in any country, I have no qualms about refusing to give up the password to the US CBP and letting the company lawyers sort it out. The company has a history of claiming that individual design documents are worth billions of dollars, so if CBP did break through the encryption, there might be some fun press.
What scares me is them confiscating my camera memory cards or personal cell phone. Usually when traveling I have no realistic way to upload gigabytes of photos. I have occasionally taken to putting reduced-size copies of the photos on an SD card that I keep separate and in a location away from other electronics. And losing my cell phone would just be a nightmare. Are there even pay phones in airports any more? And do I really know or have written down the phone numbers I need? Could I buy a prepaid phone in a terminal? (guess I should look into that)