Phone and laptop searches at US border 'quadruple'

guest · May 1, 2019

Phone and laptop searches at US border 'quadruple'
Searches of travellers' laptops and mobile phones at the US border have nearly quadrupled since 2015, digital rights groups have claimed in a federal lawsuit.
May 1, 2019
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-48118558

The searches are often warrantless and therefore "unconstitutional", allege the plaintiffs.
The lawsuit says that border agents are attempting to enforce laws beyond their purview of customs and immigration.
'Fellow travellers targeted'
It is also alleged that friends, relatives or associates of travellers targeted for searches were often told to surrender their devices.
"The government cannot use the pretext of the 'border' to make an end run around the Constitution," the ACLU said in a statement.

Government agencies appear to be taking a different view of the situation.
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guest · May 23, 2019

New Bill Would Require Agents to Actually Have Probable Cause to Search Electronic Devices at the Border
May 21, 2019
https://gizmodo.com/new-bill-would-require-agents-to-actually-have-probable-1834960457

Customs officials at the border don’t need a warrant or probable cause to search your electronic devices, an invasive practice that has only spiked in the last few years [...]
But two US senators want to change that, introducing a bill on Wednesday that would create a more consensual and reasonable system.

Senator Ron Wyden and Senator Rand Paul introduced the Protecting Data at the Border Act which would require border agents to either have a warrant or written consent in order to access the digital contents of someone entering or leaving the United States.

“The border is quickly becoming a rights-free zone for Americans who travel,” Wyden said in a statement, CNET reported. “The government shouldn’t be able to review your whole digital life simply because you went on vacation, or had to travel for work.”

This bill would serve as a pretty basic protection for people traveling in and out of the country, and based on the aforementioned statistics, one that would ensure that tens of thousands of people a year are afforded a reasonable expectation of privacy.
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guest · Aug 24, 2019

Ninth Circuit Goes a Step Further to Protect Privacy in Border Device Searches
August 22, 2019
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/...urther-protect-privacy-border-device-searches

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a new ruling in U.S. v. Cano[.pdf] that offers greater privacy protection for people crossing the border with their electronic devices, but it doesn’t go as far as we sought in our amicus brief.

While we still believe that electronic devices should fall outside the border search exception and thus require a warrant for search, limiting the scope of all device searches under the border search exception to looking for digital contraband is a good pro-privacy rule.

The Cano court emphasized that border agents may not conduct warrantless, suspicionless border device searches “for evidence of past or future border-related crimes.”
This is striking because we know from our civil case against the government, Alasaad v. Nielsen, that CBP and ICE agents do regularly conduct device searches (under the border search exception, they argue) to look for mere evidence of border-related crimes and in support of general law enforcement.
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hawki · Nov 12, 2019

Federal Court Rules Suspicionless Searches Of Travelers' Phones And Laptops Unconstitutional

"Government Must Have Reasonable Suspicion of Digital Contraband Before Searching Electronic Devices at the U.S. Border

In a major victory for privacy rights, a federal court in Boston today ruled that the government’s suspicionless searches of international travelers’ smartphones and laptops at airports and other U.S. ports of entry violate the Fourth Amendment. The ruling came in a lawsuit, Alasaad v. McAleenan, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, Electronic Frontier Foundation, and ACLU of Massachusetts, on behalf of 11 travelers whose smartphones and laptops were searched without individualized suspicion at U.S. ports of entry...."

https://www.aclu.org/press-releases...ionless-searches-travelers-phones-and-laptops

deBoetie · Nov 13, 2019

Still only citizens/lawful residents are covered by these protections.

guest · Jun 12, 2020

EPIC to Fifth Circuit: Do Not Allow Warrantless Cell Phone Searches at the Border
June 9, 2020
https://epic.org/2020/06/epic-to-fifth-circuit-do-not-a.html

EPIC has filed an amicus brief that urges the Fifth Circuit to decline to extend the border search exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement to searches of cell phones.

The case, Anibowei v. Wolf, is a civil suit brought by a U.S. citizen attorney to challenge the warrantless searches of his cell phones at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. EPIC argued that the court should “follow the reasoning of Riley and Carpenter and decline to extend the border search exception to cell phones.”
EPIC filed amicus briefs in the U.S. Supreme Court concerning the privacy interests in cell phone data in both Riley v. California and Carpenter v. United States. The Chief Justice cited EPIC’s brief in his majority opinion in Riley.
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Anibowei v. Wolf

Summary
George Anibowei, the plaintiff in this case, is a U.S. citizen attorney who represents foreign clients in proceedings against the United States. Mr. Anibowei is a frequent international traveler whose cell phones have been searched without warrant upon re-entry to the United States on several occassions.

Mr. Anibowei sued the Department of Homeland Security ("DHS"), U.S. Customs and Border Protection ("CBP"), and Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("ICE") to challenge the practice of warrantless searches of his cell phone at the border. The district court in Texas denied Mr. Anibowei's motion for a preliminary injunction. Mr. Anibowei appealed to the Fifth Circuit.
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Legal Background
[...] To the extent that digital contraband might be on a cell phone, the privacy interests outweigh the government's interests because digital contraband does not have a direct nexus to the border (it primarily enters the United States through the internet, not customs), and a search for digital contraband necessarily subjects the entire device to an invasive search.
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hawki · Sep 15, 2022

"Customs officials have copied Americans’ phone data at massive scale...

U.S. government officials are adding data from as many as 10,000 electronic devices each year to a massive database they’ve compiled from cellphones, iPads and computers seized from travelers at the country’s airports, seaports and border crossings...

The rapid expansion of the database and the ability of 2,700 CBP officers to access it without a warrant — two details not previously known about the database — have raised alarms in Congress about what use the government has made of the information, much of which is captured from people not suspected of any crime. CBP officials told congressional staff the data is maintained for 15 years..."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/ne...80-99-phone-data-at-massive-scale/ar-AA11RUoO

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