Is TSA now checking our phones?

No, they are not randomly checking phones, and when it does occur, it is not TSA.

Reports you have seen is individuals that were detained by ICE or other border control agents. During questioning, they ask to see phones among other information.

If you are like most on here, US Passport, white and elderly, you have nothing to worry about. If you are a well known supporter of Palestinian causes, look "Arab"?, on a visa, or fit the profile of what is now considered a rabble-rouser, then yeah, take some precautions.

First, TSA is concerned with security, not immigration or customs, before departing flights in the US.

Are you a US citizen? I returned to the US from France on Monday. No one looked at my phone.

TSA does not have the right to look at your phone. They do have the right to ask you to turn it on to make sure it is a real phone but they cannot look at its content.

While you are in the USA, no one can look at the content of your phone unless you give them permission or they have a court order. (When you first arrive in the country, you are not technically in the USA until you clear immigration. That is why CBP can look at your phone.)

As an American citizen you have the right to freedom of speech and can say anything you like about Trump except for making violent threats against his safety. That will get you a visit from the Secret Service. If you are a US citizen, CBP cannot deny you entry into the country.

I arrived in the US on Monday and all I was asked was if I had anything to declare.

The CBP website is pretty specific as to when your phone might be checked.

“On rare occasions, CBP officers may search a traveler’s mobile phone, computer, camera, or other electronic devices during the inspection process. These searches have been used to identify and combat terrorist activity, child pornography, drug smuggling, human smuggling, bulk cash smuggling, human trafficking, export control violations, intellectual property rights violations and visa fraud, among other violations.”

I’d be more concerned with it being checked at your European destination. Every country has laws relating to the searching of electronic devices.

I just flew in on Wednesday from France to the US, and did not have anyone asking for my phone.

I heard what I found an informative but not alarmist perspective on Customs and Border Patrol searches of US passport holdrs' ohones on NPR yesterday. Some of the considerations suggested were backing up any critical data you could not afford to lose, not traveling with confidential data that you might have on your phone as a journalist, doctor or lawyer, and having a plan before you get to Customs. Here is a link to the NPR story enter link description here