Originally Posted by
Ber2dca
In the real world not handing over the potential key piece of evidence in an investigation makes you look suspicious. If I have received a complaint about someone having illicit material on their phone and I ask if I can have a look at it and they go 'nope'..well while that does not prove their guilt, it certainly makes me wanna take a closer look.
And given they appear to have let OP go without charges or anything, that's all they did.
If a city cop approached me and asked for my phone without any further explanation, I'd say no. How is this remotely suspicious?
If I'm passing through immigration, I'd probably hand over the phone. Although for my international trips in the Trump era, I'll probably hard-reset before each trip. (Not really a big deal with an Android phone.) Yes, I realize forensics experts can still extract data from a phone even after a reset, but a simply snoopy agent wanting to look at Facebook and the like would be thwarted.