One of the laws that's enforced pretty well in the USA is the protection against unreasonable search. Most of the time, a search requires showing a judge evidence that the search is more likely than not to reveal evidence of a crime. Exceptions are narrow and specific; the government's options to punish someone who refuses to decrypt data at the border are limited to brief detention and seizure of the medium.
Not yet tested is the idea that erasing data on the spot satisfies the purpose of the border search exception, which is to prevent importation of things that are illegal to import. This case might address that question.
> In a full banana republic, technical compliance with the law will not prevent consequences for failing to do what the authorities want. In a jurisdiction with perfect rule of law, it always will.
I think you may be misunderstanding that many laws, even in fair, just societies, are intentionally designed to be flexible. The real world is so variable and messy that in many cases it isn't feasible for a law to be written such it can be unambiguously determined whether or not a specific action violated the law. Laws often rely on humans using context to judge whether something violates the spirit of a law, and in a just society, this is a good thing.
My point is that I don't believe the idea of "perfect rule of law" is sensible. Law is always necessarily a bit fuzzy and nebulous.
Edit to add that its also more difficult than it should be to protect and exercise the right against unreasonable search. If a cop knocks on your door its a consent-based interaction. You can simply not respond, but if you do happen to crack the door they can and will look in for any signs to claim as probable cause. Further there are cases where a person stepped out to talk and when they turned around and walked inside the cop slid right in behind them and later claimed in court the open door was implied consent. (I don't have a link to the court docs unfortunately.)
Sure, but there are also many instances today of evidence getting thrown out in court due to cops not getting a warranty and poisoning the tree and all its fruit. Rights don't just enforce themselves, there are and have to be a number of layers to the onion to help reduce the violation numbers at each stage.
And there are also many instances of the city being sued, those cops being sued, losing qualified immunity, losing their jobs, etc, because we do still have recourse when cops do the wrong thing.
If your rights were violated, you stand to get a big payout, and get the cops fired that violated your rights. We aren't powerless, yet.
"In United States criminal law, the border search exception is a doctrine that allows searches and seizures at international borders and their functional equivalent without a warrant or probable cause. Generally speaking, searches within 100 miles (160 km) of the border are more permissible without a warrant than those conducted elsewhere in the United States."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_search_exception
213 milion people live in this zone.
then consider this paired with the implementation of mass data sharing between the alphabet agencies, surveillance data sharing from private companies like Amazon Ring, Flock, Clearview, etc. and NSPM-7 ordering agencies to create JTTFs to target organizations like BLM
then consider the unmitigated use of force by federal law enforcement agencies like ICE
I think if this were 1995 your point might be fair but those days are unfortunately long gone
Americans aren't standing up against this, but they might have considerably more interest if the government was instead trying to ban encrypting data in cloud storage for everyone.
There's also just the fact it's ridiculous I can't have a spare phone ready to go in a few minutes and get it back exactly as I left it.