The police at London’s Luton airport worked through a list of questions. Did Broomfield consider his reporting to be objective? Did he include multiple sources in his work? How did he get paid? What was his opinion about beheadings, and did he ever send anybody a photo of a beheading? “Not answering the questions is a criminal offence, so I complied,” British journalist Matt Broomfield said about the questioning he was subject to in July. His laptop and phone were confiscated and he didn’t receive them back.
Depending on country, you don’t have rights at a border. In the US, hey can search everything you own and go through all of your private information. Border agents typically have incredibly wide latitude, up to preventing crossing entirely or detention. Their jurisdiction goes 100 miles inland from each crossing point - there’s a border checkpoint on I-15 in the mountains about 40 miles north of San Diego even. Functionally, 200 million Americans live in a “constitution-free zone”.
This isn’t a left or right issue either - both the Cato Institute and the ACLU monitor and raise awareness of this.
Terrorism laws truly put a nail in any semblance of rights or freedoms when crossing a border.