Comment by hinata08

The french cybersecurity agency (ANSSI) used to share leaflets to tell you to do just that. The US government wasn't named, but it's part of the ones that like to do some economic intelligence and no euro who read the news would trust it more than a banana republic when it comes to crossing the border.

Now having a corporate device with little data is no longer outstanding. Everything is in the cloud these days.

As for personal devices, you can explain you're taking a dumb cheap laptop for your holiday as you're working on a desktop PC at home. You're not taking your entire house when you're on a trip, just a laptop to check tourism information and post blog posts

I myself bought a crap laptop on ebay to shove it in bags and backpacks and go to conferences and not be sad the day it's broken.

but above all, he's a citizen so shouldn't care about looking "suspect". He has a right, not a privilege, to cross that border. They can explain a judge how he looked sus if they really want to search his home.