A US-born NASA scientist was detained at the border until he unlocked his phone

["Dave Farber" <dave () farber net>]

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
Date: Sun, Feb 12, 2017 at 1:39 PM
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] A US-born NASA scientist was detained at the border
until he unlocked his phone
To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>


A US-born NASA scientist was detained at the border until he unlocked his
phone
By Loren Grush
Feb 12 2017
<
http://www.theverge.com/2017/2/12/14583124/nasa-sidd-bikkannavar-detained-cbp-phone-search-trump-travel-ban
>

Two weeks ago, Sidd Bikkannavar flew back into the United States after
spending a few weeks abroad in South America. An employee of NASA’s Jet
Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Bikkannavar had been on a personal trip,
pursuing his hobby of racing solar-powered cars. He had recently joined a
Chilean team, and spent the last weeks of January at a race in Patagonia.

Bikkannavar is a seasoned international traveller — but his return home to
the US this time around was anything but routine. Bikkannavar left for
South America on January 15th, under the Obama Administration. He flew back
from Santiago, Chile to the George Bush Intercontinental Airport
in Houston, Texas on Monday, January 30th, just over a week into the Trump
Administration.

Bikkannavar says he was detained by US Customs and Border Patrol and
pressured to give the CBP agents his phone and access PIN. Since the phone
was issued by NASA, it may have contained sensitive material that wasn’t
supposed to be shared. Bikkannavar’s phone was returned to him after it
was searched by CBP, but he doesn’t know exactly what information officials
might have taken from the device.

The JPL scientist returned to the US four days after the signing of a
sweeping and controversial Executive Order on travel into the country. The
travel ban caused chaos at airports across the United States, as people
with visas and green cards found themselves detained, or facing
deportation. Within days of its signing, the travel order was stayed, but
not before more than 60,000 visas were revoked, according to the US State
Department.
[image: Homeland Security Chief Jeh Johnson Tours TSA Security Operation At
LAX]His ordeal also took place at a time of renewed focus on the question
of how much access CBP can have to a traveler’s digital information,
whether or not they’re US citizens: in January, the Council
on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) filed complaints against CBP for
demanding that Muslim American citizens give up their social media
information when they return home from overseas. And there’s evidence that
that kind of treatment could become commonplace for foreign travelers. In a
statement this week, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said that
people visiting the United States may be asked to give up passwords to
their social media accounts. "We want to get on their social media,
with passwords: What do you do, what do you say?" Kelly told the House
Homeland Security Committee. "If they don't want to cooperate then you
don't come in."

Seemingly, Bikkannavar’s reentry into the country should not have raised
any flags. Not only is he a natural-born US citizen, but he’s also enrolled
in Global Entry — a program through CBP that allows individuals who have
undergone background checks to have expedited entry into the country. He
hasn’t visited the countries listed in the immigration ban and he has
worked at JPL — a major center at a US federal agency — for 10 years.
There, he works on “wavefront sensing and control,” a type of
optics technology that will be used on the upcoming James Webb Space
Telescope.

“I don’t know what to think about this,” Bikkannavar recently told The
Verge in aphone call. “...I was caught a little off guard by the whole
thing.”

Bikkannavar says he arrived into Houston early Tuesday morning, and was
detained by CBP after his passport was scanned. A CBP officer escorted
Bikkannavar to a back room, and told him to wait for additional
instructions. About five other travelers who had seemingly been affected by
the ban were already in the room, asleep on cots that were provided for
them.

[snip]



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