A Journalist Security Checklist: Preparing Devices for Travel Through a US Border

This post was originally published by the Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF). This checklist complements the recent training module for journalism students in border communities that EFF and FPF developed in partnership with the University of Texas at El Paso Multimedia Journalism Program and Borderzine. We are cross-posting it under FPF's Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. It has been slightly edited for style and consistency.

Before diving in: This space is changing quickly! Check FPF's website for updates and contact them with questions or suggestions. This is a joint project of Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Those within the U.S. have Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures — but there is an exception at the border. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) asserts broad authority to search travelers’ devices when crossing U.S. borders, whether traveling by land, sea, or air. And unfortunately, except for a dip at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic when international travel substantially decreased, CBP has generally searched more devices year over year since the George W. Bush administration. While the percentage of travelers affected by device searches remains small, in recent months we’ve heard growing concerns about apparent increased immigration scrutiny and enforcement at U.S. ports of entry, including seemingly unjustified device searches.

Regardless, it’s hard to say with certainty the likelihood that you will experience a search of your items, including your digital devices. But there’s a lot you can do to lower your risk in case you are detained in transit, or if your devices are searched. We wrote this checklist to help journalists prepare for transit through a U.S. port of entry while preserving the confidentiality of your most sensitive information, such as unpublished reporting materials or source contact information. It’s important to think about your strategy in advance, and begin planning which options in this checklist make sense for you.

First thing’s first: What might CBP do?

U.S. CBP’s policy is that they may conduct a “basic” search (manually looking through information on a device) for any reason or no reason at all. If they feel they have reasonable suspicion “of activity in violation of the laws enforced or administered by CBP” or if there is a “national security concern,” they may conduct what they call an “advanced” search, which may include connecting external equipment to your device, such as a forensic analysis tool designed to make a copy of your data.

Your citizenship status matters as to whether you can refuse to comply with a request to unlock your device or provide the passcode. If you are a U.S. citizen entering the U.S., you have the most legal leverage to refuse to comply because U.S. citizens cannot be denied entry — they must be let back into the country. But note that if you are a U.S. citizen, you may be subject to escalated harassment and further delay at the port of entry, and your device may be seized for days, weeks, or months.

If CBP officers seek to search your locked device using forensic tools, there is a chance that some (if not all of the) information on the device will be compromised. But this probability depends on what tools are available to government agents at the port of entry, if they are motivated to seize your device and send it elsewhere for analysis, and what type of device, operating system, and security features your device has. Thus, it is also possible that strong encryption may substantially slow down or even thwart a government device search.

Lawful permanent residents (green-card holders) must generally also be let back into the country. However, the current administration seems more willing to question LPR status, so refusing to comply with a request to unlock a device or provide a passcode may be risky for LPRs. Finally, CBP has broad discretion to deny entry to foreign nationals arriving on a visa or via the v