[WWKong]

I'm thinking not bringing the phone or deleting all apps before landing won't help much if they ask you to login into your accounts on a computer (or stay detained for hours if you refuse or claim that you don't use facebook/email, your pick).

[derefr]

All these cases always seem to boil down to what should be a very old precedent: is an officer of the law allowed to demand that you contact an associate to which you've entrusted a possession, and tell them to send it to you?

Assuming that the law has no legal power to compel the associate to co-operate, is it then legal for said officer of the law to detain you if said associate—just of their own accord—decides not to cooperate?

(For example: I put all my money in a Russian bank. An IRS officer demands that I retrieve it so they can tax it. The Russian bank says that its policies prevent it from sending money to people who are making requests under duress, and so nothing I could say or do at that point would ever make them send the money. The US has no treaty enabling them to go through diplomatic channels to put pressure on the Russian bank. What happens?)

[eridius]

Can they even ask you to do that? My understanding was searching your phone is allowed because that's treated similarly to searching your luggage. But you're not carrying your facebook or email accounts with you, so I don't see why they'd have any right whatsoever to demand to "search" your facebook/email.

Or is this something they've already started doing? And if so, what makes it legal?

[greenhatman]

Yea, why would they need to. Can't they just get a subpoena to make Facebook and Google give them your info?

[sbarre]

This is a whole other level though, because at that point you're no longer talking about inspecting physical property, and I think this kind of situation would be more precarious and much more likely to set unfavourable precedent should the affected traveler decide to sue.

[Asooka]

That's what he meant by "they can't know if you have alternative accounts". Have an official account and unofficial ones.