I think your speculation is probably going to be fairly close to reality, but that makes their case very difficult to prove. If the FBI comes to my house and tells me that they’re investigating a crime and then I delete data, then probably I have broken the law. And I would have known it. So I would get convicted. But Border Patrol loves to go on fishing expeditions and search digital devices when there is no evidence that a crime has been committed. And if that’s the case, then I don’t have any obligation to preserve the data. And it doesn’t even matter what Border Patrol claims later because the legal standard is going to be what I believed at the time that they tried to go on their fishing expedition.

I think we can safely conclude that there was no warrant because no one has reported there was a warrant and that is the kind of thing that they would have reported. And if they had one they would have seized the phone itself. So we can reasonably conclude that this is a situation where they told the guy, unlock your phone or we’re going to keep you locked up or we’re going to take your phone.