Your setup doesn't really work. At the border you have the same right to refuse to provide the pin/password on boot of your otherwise encrypted phone as you do

Your setup doesn't really work. At the border you have the same right to refuse to provide the pin/password on boot of your otherwise encrypted phone as you do to refuse to provide the key for an encrypted USB. (That right differs slightly depending on whether you are a US citizen or not). What the subject in question of this new story did was cause the border official to inadvertently destroy the evidence on the phone and therefore indirectly destroyed the evidence himself. (I'm not making a commentary as to whether or not it's a valid charge and criticism, or not. I'm just saying that's the material difference between your scenario and the original scenario)