Assuming you politely refused while informing the cops running the thing that they’re being recorded(*), can they do much to you?
Is CA really worse than many East Coast states? I’ve heard that CA doesn’t have safety inspection, only smog, and you can tell from some of the hunks of junk running around SD. CA isn’t a major auto producing state, so I don’t see why there would be any grand conspiracy — though there should be an interest in keeping the air clean.
(*)- recorded and uploaded to the cloud, of course, so confiscation of cell phone would just add to evidence, not destroy it.
