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A few months ago I wrote about how you can encrypt your entire life in less than an hour. Well, all the security in the world cant save you if someone has physical possession of your phone or laptop, and can intimidate you into giving up your password.

And a few weeks ago, thats precisely what happened to a US citizen returning home from abroad.

On January 30th, Sidd Bikkannavar, a US-born scientist at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory flew back to Houston, Texas from Santiago, Chile.

On his way through through the airport, Customs and Border Patrol agents pulled him aside. They searched him, then detained him in a room with a bunch of other people sleeping in cots. They eventually returned and said theyd release him if he told them the password to unlock his phone.

Bikkannavar explained that the phone belonged to NASA and had sensitive information on it, but his pleas fell on deaf ears. He eventually yielded and unlocked his phone. The agents left with his phone. Half an hour later, they returned, handed him his phone, and released him.

Were going to discuss the legality of all of this, and what likely happened during that 30 minutes where Bikkannavars phone was unlocked and outside of his possession.

But before we do, take a moment to think about all the apps you have on your phone. Email? Facebook? Dropbox? Your browser? Signal? The history of everything youve ever doneeverything youve ever searched, and everything youve ever said to anyoneis right there in those apps.

We should treat personal electronic data with the same care and respect as weapons-grade plutoniumit is dangerous, long-lasting and once it has leaked theres no getting it back.Cory Doctorow

How many potentially incriminating things do you have lying around your home? If youre like most people, the answer is probably zero. And yet police would need to go before a judge and establish probable cause before they could get a warrant to search your home.

What were seeing now is that anyone can be grabbed on their way through customs and forced to hand over the full contents of their digital life.

Companies like Elcomsoft make forensic software that can suck down all your photos, contactseven passwords for your email and social media accountsin a matter of minutes. Their customers include the police forces of various countries, militaries, and private security forces. They can use these tools to permanently archive everything there is to know about you. All they need is your unlocked phone.

If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged.Cardinal Richelieu in 1641

Whats the worst thing that could happen if the Customs and Border Patrol succeed in getting ahold of your unlocked phone? Well

The fourth amendment protects you against unreasonable search and seizure. The fifth amendment protects you against self-incrimination.

If a police officer were to stop you on the street of America and ask you to unlock your phone and give it to them, these amendments would give you strong legal ground for refusing to do so.

But unfortunately, the US border isnt technically the US, and you dont have either of these rights at the border.

Its totally legal for a US Customs and Border Patrol officer to ask you to unlock your phone and hand it over to them. And they can detain you indefinitely if you dont. Even if youre a American citizen.

The border is technically outside of US jurisdiction, in a sort of legal no-mans-land. You have very few rights there. Barring the use of excessive force, agents can do whatever they want to you.

So my advice is to just do whatever they tell you, to and get through customs and on into the US as quickly as you can.

Its only a matter of time before downloading the contents of peoples phones becomes a standard procedure for entering every country. This already happens in Canada. And you can bet that countries like China and Russia arent far behind.

Never say anything in an electronic message that you wouldnt want appearing, and attributed to you, in tomorrow mornings front-page headline in the New York Times.Colonel David Russell, former head of DARPAs Information Processing Techniques Office

Since its illegal in most countries to profile individual travelers, customs officers will soon require everyone to do this.

The companies who make the software that downloads data from your phones are about to get a huge infusion of money from governments. Their software will get much fastermaybe requiring only a few seconds to download all of your most pertinent data from your phone.

If we do nothing to resist, pretty soon everyone will have to unlock their phone and hand it over to a customs agent while theyre getting their passport swiped.

Over time, this unparalleled intrusion into your personal privacy may come to feel as routine as taking off your shoes and putting them on a conveyer belt.

And with this single new procedure, all the hard work that Apple and Google have invested in encrypting the data on your phoneand fighting for your privacy in courtwill be a completely moot point.

Governments will have succeeded in utterly circumventing decades of innovation in security and privacy protection. All by demanding you hand them the skeleton key to your lifeyour unlocked phone.

When you travel internationally, you should leave your mobile phone and laptop at home. You can rent phones at most international airports that include data plans.

If you have family overseas, you can buy a second phone and laptop and leave them there at their home.

If youre an employer, you can create a policy that your employees are not to bring devices with them during international travel. You can then issue them loaner laptops and phones once they enter the country.

Since most of our private data is stored in the cloudand not on individual devicesyou could also reset your phone to its factory settings before boarding an international flight. This process will also delete the keys necessary to unencrypt any residual data on your phone (iOS and Android fully encrypt your data).

This way, you could bring your physical phone with you, then reinstall apps and re-authenticate with them once youve arrived. If youre asked to hand over your unlocked phone at the border, there wont be any personal data on it. All your data will be safe behind the world-class security that Facebook, Google, Apple, Signal, and all these other companies use.

Is all this inconvenient? Absolutely. But its the only sane course of action when you consider the gravity of your data falling into the wrong hands.

If you bother locking your doors at night, you should bother securing your phones data during international travel.

This may upset Customs and Border Patrol agents, who are probably smart enough to realize that 85% of Americans now have smart phones, and probably 100% of the Americans who travel internationally have smart phones. They may choose to detain you anyway, and force you to give them passwords to various accounts manually. But theres no easy way for them to know which services you use and which services you dont use, or whether you have multiple accounts.

We live in an era of mass surveillance, where governments around the world are passing terrifying new anti-privacy laws every year.

Those who are willing to surrender their freedom for security have always demanded that if they give up their full freedom it should also be taken from those not prepared to do so.Friedrich Hayek

With a lot of hard work on our part, enlightenment will triumph. Privacy will be restored. And we will beat back the current climate of fear thats confusing people into unnecessarily giving up their rights.

In the meantime, follow the Boy Scouts of America Motto: always be prepared. The next time you plan to cross a border, leave your phone at home.

This post originally appeared on Medium. Follow Quincy on Twitter @ossia. Learn how to write for Quartz Ideas. We welcome your comments at ideas@qz.com.

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I'll never bring my phone on an international flight againneither should you - Quartz