Border Agents Can Search Laptops Without Cause

[Jack]

Via Wired:

Federal agents at the border do not need any reason to search through travelers' laptops, cell phones or digital cameras for evidence of crimes, a federal appeals court ruled Monday, extending the government's power to look through belongings like suitcases at the border to electronics. The unanimous three-judge decision reverses a lower court finding that digital devices were "an extension of our own memory" and thus too personal to allow the government to search them without cause. Instead, the earlier ruling said, Customs agents would need some reasonable and articulable suspicion a crime had occurred in order to search a traveler's laptop. On appeal, the government argued that was too high a standard, infringing upon its right to keep the country safe and enforce laws. Civil rights groups, joined by business traveler groups, weighed in, defending the lower court ruling. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the government, finding that the so-called border exception to the Fourth Amendment's prohibition on unreasonable searches applied not just to suitcases and papers, but also to electronics. The 9th's ruling did not, however, clarify whether a traveler has to help the government search his computer, by providing the login information, or what would happen when the government decided to search a laptop with encrypted data on the drive. The defendant in the case can appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the Court is unlikely to take up an issue that two separate appeals courts have agreed upon. In the meantime, travelers should be aware that anything on their mobile devices can be searched by government agents, who may also seize the devices and keep them for weeks or months. When in doubt, think about whether online storage or encryption might be tools you should use to prevent the feds from rummaging through your journal, your company's confidential business plans or naked pictures of you and your-of-age partner in adult fun. The case is Arnold vs. USA.

America: Bringing you better security through diminished privacy since 2001.

Reasonable or unreasonable? Acceptable or unacceptable? Sign of the times or sign of the future?

[Chaossaber314]

Not really that surprising. Border agents have incredible power and exemptions that law enforcement doesn't have elsewhere. Some of their other searching allowances are much scarier than this.

[Compugasm]

So what if said device needs a password to be opened, and that password is in my memory?

[Chaossaber314]

I'm not quite sure but I believe there is enough precedent to say that if a device is password protected it would constitute a similar situation to a closed container in a car for regular police but border patrol might be exempt from that requirement.

[caphis]

Quote by: Compugasm So what if said device needs a password to be opened, and that password is in my memory?

Check out United States v. Boucher.

On November 29, 2007, U.S. Magistrate Judge Jerome Niedermeier of the United States District Court for the District of Vermont stated "Compelling Boucher to enter the password forces him to produce evidence that could be used to incriminate him."[1] Accordingly, Niedermeier quashed the subpoena.

It's under appeal from the US Government now.