“a person’s privacy interests in the personal data on a phone or laptop are extraordinarily different than their limited privacy interests in the contents of their suitcase.”
In U.S. v. Belmonte Cardozo the Fourth Circuit decided that thumbing through your phone at the border is “routine,” the same category as opening a duffel bag. Your phone holds every message, photo, and location you have generated in a decade. The court drew the line at forensic extraction, which means an agent can read all of it as long as he does not plug it into a machine first.