A lawyer representing a pro-Palestinian protester was detained Sunday at the Detroit Metro Airport on his way back from a spring break trip abroad with his family ― and federal agents tried to force him to turn over his phone.
Amir Makled says he stood his ground amid the ensuing 90-minute quarrel, as he argued that the sheer volume of privileged, work-related material on the phone prevented him from turning it over voluntarily.
He agreed to let the agents see his contact list, but he refused to provide any information about who the contacts were.
“I don’t know if it was a fishing expedition or not,” he told HuffPost. “My gut tells me they were trying to see who I was associating with. But there’s no real way to tell.”