US Appeals Court Rules Border Agents Need Suspicion To Search Cellphones (reason.com) 116
On Thursday, a federal appeals court ruled that U.S. border agents need some sort of reason to believe a traveler has committed a crime before searching their cellphone. Slashdot reader Wrath0fb0b shares an analysis via Reason, written by Fourth Amendment scholar Orin Kerr: Traditionally, searches at the border don't require any suspicion on the theory that the government has a strong sovereign interest in regulating what enters and exits the country. But there is caselaw indicating that some border searches are so invasive that they do require some kind of suspicion. In the new case, Kolsuz (PDF), the Fourth Circuit agrees with the Ninth Circuit that at least some suspicion is required for a forensic search of a cell phone seized at the border. This is important for three reasons. First, the Fourth Circuit requires suspicion for forensic searches of cell phones seized at the border. Second, it clarifies significantly the forensic/manual distinction, which has always been pretty uncertain to me. Third, it leaves open that some suspicion may be required for manual searches, too.
But wait, that's not all. In fact, I don't think it's the most important part of the opinion. The most important part of the opinion comes in a different section, where the Fourth Circuit adds what seems to be a new and important limit on the border search exception: a case-by-case nexus requirement to the government interests that justify the border search exception. Maybe I'm misreading this passage, but it strikes me as doing something quite new and significant. It scrutinizes the border search that occurred to see if the government's cause for searching in this particular case satisfied "a 'nexus' requirement" of showing sufficient connection between the search and "the rationale for the border search exception," requiring a link between the "predicate for the search and the rationale for the border exception." In other words, the Fourth Circuit appears to be requiring the government to identify the border-search-related interest justifying that particular search in order to rely on the border search exception. "The analysis is interesting throughout, and it would be a fairly large limitation on digital searches conducted at the border, both in requiring some articulable suspicion for digital searches and in the requirement to justify the relationship between the search and the border inspection," writes Wrath0fb0b.
But wait, that's not all. In fact, I don't think it's the most important part of the opinion. The most important part of the opinion comes in a different section, where the Fourth Circuit adds what seems to be a new and important limit on the border search exception: a case-by-case nexus requirement to the government interests that justify the border search exception. Maybe I'm misreading this passage, but it strikes me as doing something quite new and significant. It scrutinizes the border search that occurred to see if the government's cause for searching in this particular case satisfied "a 'nexus' requirement" of showing sufficient connection between the search and "the rationale for the border search exception," requiring a link between the "predicate for the search and the rationale for the border exception." In other words, the Fourth Circuit appears to be requiring the government to identify the border-search-related interest justifying that particular search in order to rely on the border search exception. "The analysis is interesting throughout, and it would be a fairly large limitation on digital searches conducted at the border, both in requiring some articulable suspicion for digital searches and in the requirement to justify the relationship between the search and the border inspection," writes Wrath0fb0b.
Shouldn't that be... (Score:2, Insightful)
Shouldn't the headline read:
"Border Patrol Agents under the Trump Administration Need Suspicion to Search Cell Phones"?
I mean, everything else is tacked on to the president... why not this?
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You killed my relatives on Omicron Theta, you crystalline bastard. You and Lore must pay.
Re:Shouldn't that be... (Score:5, Funny)
Shouldn't the headline read:
"Border Patrol Agents under the Trump Administration Need Suspicion to Search Cell Phones"?
They already have their suspicions, now they need to be valid and justifiable.
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They already have their suspicions, now they need to be valid and justifiable.
Oh, I think they'll just say:
"Being a foreigner wanting to enter the US is a valid and justifiable reason to be suspicious."
. . . as is, being a US citizen wanting to leave the US is also a valid and justifiable reason to be suspicious. The US is the greatest country in the world! Why would a US citizen want to go to any other country, which are all Hellholes?
I think the next IRS tax plan will be to "tax foreigners living and working abroad."
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Hunch != Suspicion.
The vast majority of these searches probably occur because the TSA agent "doesn't like" the intended target and this is a handy way to inconvenience and punish people. Mostly this gets used against people that assert their rights or refuse to use the full-body scanners. I remember being at LA airport one time and refusing the scanner only to have the TSA Nazi drag me aside and threaten me with an invasive search, but only after having me wait a loooooonnnng time in the TSA "sin bin". The
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The US is the greatest country in the world! Why would a US citizen want to go to any other country, which are all Hellholes?
They are not all hellholes, I think some of them are shitholes [google.com] instead.
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If you're from one of the "sh_thole country" you're suspicious and search is justifiable.
Being non-white automatically makes you a suspect.
Re:Shouldn't that be... (Score:5, Informative)
I mean, everything else is tacked on to the president... why not this?
right, because you're not the kind of person to pin things on president.
$ for i in $(grep -ic "obama" slashdot/537106/*.html | sed "s/[^:]\+://")
> do
> sum=$(expr ${sum} + ${i})
> done
$ echo $sum
178
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God, I just love when someone proves a point and drops the mic with code !!!
rock on and live long
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"everything else is tacked on to the president... why not this"
Because the incident that lead to this case took place on February 2, 2016.
It's almost as if it isn't universal to just blame everything on Trump, as some people actually pay attention to who could be responsible for the policy in question.
Re:Shouldn't that be... (Score:5, Interesting)
Okian Warrior complained:
"everything else is tacked on to the president... why not this"
Prompting radarskiy to point out:
Because the incident that lead to this case took place on February 2, 2016.
It's almost as if it isn't universal to just blame everything on Trump, as some people actually pay attention to who could be responsible for the policy in question.
Yup.
And the policy in question goes back to the reaction by the first George W. Bush administration to the 9/11 attacks. In case you've forgotten, every vaguely-law-enforcement-related federal agency (except the FBI, which remains under the aegis of the Justice Department) was consolidated under a new Cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security. The new security behemoth was charged with protecting the USA from terrorist threats as its primary mission, and given essentially unlimited power to carry out that mission in pretty much whatever fashion the Director might fancy. (We also got the FBI's Security Letter authority in the same frenzy of shortsighted legislation, so it's not as though the general disregard of constitutional protections was exclusively confined to the DHS. But I digress.)
Obama gave the continued use of repressive and authoritarian actions - especially against foreign nationals from Middle Eastern and South and Central Asian countries - his blessing, and clamped down hard on whistleblowers from the intelligence intelligence community who spoke out against it, to boot.
Although I suspect that most of Obama's endorsement of such policies was based on the Daily Intelligence Briefing documents and presentations - which, I should note, Donald Trump notoriously avoids reading or paying attention to, unless they're couched in terms that flatter him (and only if they are heavy on photos and simple, colorful graphics) - which I assume contain information to which you and I are not now, and may never be privy.
Because Top Secret, Eyes Only is a classification that exists for perfectly valid reasons.
The thing is, despite what I regard as ill-advised (and largely party-line) endorsements of exceptions to constitutional protections by SCOTUS in the post-9/11 era, they also exist for reasons that are every bit as valid today as they were when the Bill of Rights was first ratified.
I think the Fourth Circuit's Appeals Court decision was a wise, and overdue, one. It encourages me that it dovetails so neatly with the Sixth's related decisions (because the decisions by the Sixth Circuit court are more frequently overrruled by the Roberts SCOTUS - as well as by the Rhenquist version - than those of any other circuit). It's about damned time the pendulum swung back toward bulwarking constitutionally-guaranteed protections, rather than breaching them still further.
IMsnHO, anyway ...
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I think he was being snarky, but many of the other people mentioning the President are probably implying that the current administration's actions have become so egregious that courts are starting to reign in behaviors that have been previously overlooked.
Re:Shouldn't that be... (Score:5, Insightful)
The current system has been in place for a few decades, since the courts decided that a suspension of some rights was justified at the border. INS then went further and declared that the effective border region was 100 miles wide, which did not seem to be at all what the courts envisioned. I'd rather the whole thing be rolled back and that anyone inside the borders is granted basic constitutiional rights. Over half of the population of the US lies within that region where the border patrol asserts their privilege to perform warrantless searches.
Cautiously optimistic (Score:5, Interesting)
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BORDER. BORDER.
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I wonder what the definition of "suspicion" is in this case.
In this case, the reasonable suspicious arose from the two bags of firearms they caught they guy trying to smuggle out of the country. From the appellate court's opinion:
Because the government in this case had “more than reasonable suspicion” that a forensic examination of Kolsuz’s phone would reveal evidence of both past and ongoing attempts to export firearms parts illegally, the court concluded, the forensic search was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.
Both the lower and appellate courts repeatedly note that this was more than enough to clear the "reasonable suspicion" threshold in this case, and thus there was no need to debate exactly where the threshold might be.
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JUST two bags of firearms? In America?
I get more dangerous things in my breakfast cereal.
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I'm cautiously optimistic on this. While it sounds like progress toward restoring our rights at the boarder, I wonder what the definition of "suspicion" is in this case.
If it's anything like the definition of the border (most of the US), then it'll probably be something like "cellphone belongs to a person".
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You know what would look really suspicious is someone trying to bring illegal information into the country via mobile a phone on a plane with a return flight. This instead of downloading an encrypted file from where ever you wanted to, or smuggling a thumb nail size memory card. It would look very suspiciously like they are a complete moron.
The reason to search the phone away from the eyes of it's owner, is not to look at the data on the phone it is to add spyware applications to the phone, a permanent onl
Suspicion shows up... (Score:4, Insightful)
...by the reluctance to spontaneously give the phone to the customs agent.
Phones need multiple passwords (Score:4, Insightful)
Phones need to ship with multiple passwords that store multiple environments.
Some of these can be "duress" passwords that open the "duress" environment and wipe the content of all others.
Example:
Password 123ILoveAmerica opens enivornment 1, the main environment. This is your normal everyday work environment.
Password 456GoTeamGo opens environment 2, a "show me your papers" environment that looks "normal."
Password 678TeamAmerica is the duress password, it opens environment 2 and destroys environment 1.
How to set up a way to manage environments and having a way to make the police officer think you gave him the password to open up the "manage environments" tool is something that will need to be worked out.
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Phones need to ship with multiple passwords that store multiple environments.
Some of these can be "duress" passwords that open the "duress" environment and wipe the content of all others.
Example:
Password 123ILoveAmerica opens enivornment 1, the main environment. This is your normal everyday work environment.
Password 456GoTeamGo opens environment 2, a "show me your papers" environment that looks "normal."
Password 678TeamAmerica is the duress password, it opens environment 2 and destroys environment 1.
How to set up a way to manage environments and having a way to make the police officer think you gave him the password to open up the "manage environments" tool is something that will need to be worked out.
I'm surprised this has not already been implemented, but . . . .
If it is a readily available consumer "product", a threat to kill someone or their family to NOT give the duress password seems likely.
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"If it is a readily available consumer "product", a threat to kill someone or their family to NOT give the duress password seems likely."
First off, professional police in first world countries don't do strong-armed tactics like that. Not routinely anyways. This isn't the 1970s and the United States isn't a country where police corruption is endemic. They might get away with it once but they are under a lot of scrutiny and their luck will run out quickly if they make it a routine practice.
Second, a duress
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Re:Phones need multiple passwords (Score:4, Insightful)
Police corruption is endemic in the US. It's just given a veil of legality and called "civil forfeiture."
They won't say "we'll kill your family." They'll say "we'll take your kids for their own protection, if you don't sign over the cash we found in your car."
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'Sign over' cash ...? What do you think this the US is, some kind of first world country?
No. In America, we just seize the cash then file charges [wikipedia.org] against it that can't be defended against without incontrovertible proof it wasn't used in a crime.
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I would find no choice for myself but to hunt down and kill every cop involved had it happened to me.
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Cops free to beat your brains out on the street (Score:2)
Literally. [wikipedia.org] And this guy was even white and the son of a police officer. Cops have been given absolute power over the citizenry when they can claim to have felt threatened, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Cops in the United States absolutely will commit perjury in court and falsify evidence. If not for their own cases, they'll do it to help out their "bad apple" buddies on the force.
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Suicide Linux - is that the add-on that auto-corrects all mispellings to
rm -rf / ; echo LOL
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This kind of deception can get you into trouble. A better option is easy and perfect backups. To their credit, Apple does this really well.
Just wipe the phone back to factory upon reaching the airport, restore it when you get to your hotel. Let border security search all they want.
Backup - Wipe - Restore (Score:2)
It blows my mind that everyone, let alone all criminals, do not do this.
Virus Checkers honeypot? (Score:2, Interesting)
Terrible Rulling (Score:5, Insightful)
The 4th Amendment does not provide any exceptions to its rules. Search and Seizure requires a warrant. It does not say except on the border or except when there is suspicion. As long as we are okay with ignoring what the constitution says under the guise of "safety" then all of it will be ignored. Kinda like it has already been for a long time now.
We are not even pretending to follow the constitution, we just pretending that we have not become a police state.
"Constant apprehension of War, has the same tendency to render the head too large for the body. A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence agst. foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home."
~Madison
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"Even if you want to set that aside, we don't allow citizens to have missiles, nuclear bombs, flame throwers and tanks either. So obviously we draw the line somewhere. The only argument now is over where exactly that line is."
Yes, we do allow citizens to own those things. There are privately owned tanks, and flame throwers are liquid projectors and regulated differently (but also completely legal at the federal level). Missiles are destructive devices, are larger than some specific size (I forget what tha
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Wow, so much to work with in all the replies.
Lets talk about it and follow it precisely. Arms in the 2nd amendment means weapons of any kind without exception. Everything that is a weapons is a constitutionally protected weapons. To prevent people from having them we must actually amend the constitution to say take those rights away.
As long as we allow "fear" to justify our saying no one can have a nuke but the government without amending the Constitution first then we are only opening the doors to destr
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Your entire post is based on one basic confusion that renders it completely wrong:
Not all rights are compatible with each other.
Every single right spelled out in the Constitution can conflict with another right, and when it does, the government has to decide which one gets priority.
In your example, gag orders are a violation of the First Amendment... but they serve to protect the Due Process rights of others. If gag orders were not permitted, then the Due Process rights of many people would be violated ins
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Wow, spoken like a true, I have to trample your rights to protect you member of law enforcement.
Welp, can't say you have not been warned. Remember what you just said the next time your rights are trampled, it's only for your own good and protection.
With fellow citizens like you, who needs an invading army?
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You're making the other AC's point. The government will weasel any wording in pursuit of the its goals, if you let them.
also..
Even if you want to set that aside, we don't allow citizens to have missiles, nuclear bombs, flame throwers and tanks either.
I'm not sure that any of those are actually specifically forbidden.
Elon Musk famously gave away a bunch of what he called flame throwers in a recent marketing gimick, and I'm fairly certain that anyone who can afford to produce a nuclear bomb would be able to buy enough congressoids to get an exception to any such laws if they wanted to own one. That's the real barrier to those part
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"I'm not sure that any of those are actually specifically forbidden."
You are correct, they are not against the law. A missile is just an object forcibly propelled and includes things like rocks you have thrown, an arrow you have shot with a bow and yes, engine mounted and propelled machines fitted with explosives are all missiles. But if you fire anything that damages another persons property or invades a restricted airspace... good luck. Remember, even those little NASA shoot your own rockets 50 feet in
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The 4th Amendment does not provide any exceptions to its rules. Search and Seizure requires a warrant.
No, the word is "unreasonable". If they meant "warrantless" they probably would have written that.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated
If you're caught during a crime and put under arrest the pat-down you get is considered reasonable. You're free to argue that it's not, but it's been that way from 1789 to 2018 and not some modern "it doesn't mean what it says" reinterpretation. Same with a bunch of other absolutist interpretations, for example threatening to kill someone has never been covered by the 1st amendment. Only in overly literal readi
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"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
"No, the word is "unreasonable". If they meant "warrantless" they probably would have written that."
I put the WHOLE amendment in there because you are now in engaging in intentio
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This is how it usually goes. It does not matter that I am right, it only matters that I present my case according to certain dogmatic requirements.
If someone tells me to stop being an asshole and not jump off a cliff to my death does that mean that I should go ahead and jump off the cliff in defiance of their admonition because... ad hominem?
If you would like an apology, then I offer it! My intention is not to insult, but to emphasis the exasperation I feel when so many people are somehow able to misinter
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Nah, don't apologize. 'You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into' so sometimes all that's left is flaming the motherfucker so hard they are less likely to trot out their BS in the future least they be publicly humiliated again.
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It's actually more basic than that. "Warrant" is just a term for the legal authority to search or seize someone's property. In the absence of a legally issued warrant, law enforcement personnel have no more actual authority to search or seize anyone's property than other other group of private citizens. A "warrantless search" is, by definition, an illegal search: one knowingly and openly conducted without any claim to legal authority. What we have here is not a warrantless search, precisely, but rather one
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The SCotUS has consistently ruled [findlaw.com] that the U.S. Constitution only applies to U.S. soil [constitutioncenter.org]. That's why Bush put a prison in Guantanamo. The Marine base there is on Cuban soil, leased since 1903. Any prisoners sent there would technically not be on U.S. soil, and thus not gain U.S. Constitutional rights. (A later SCotUS decision ruled that although it wasn't U.S. soil, the U.S. had administrative authority over it making it essentially the same
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I am not disputing that, you are correct that SCOTUS has constantly ruled that way. I am just saying that it is wrong.
"So no, if you're trying to enter the U.S. at a border, you're not protected by the 4th Amendment."
You are if you are a Citizen, but like you have already established, the constitution means nothing anymore.
"The answer is muddied a bit by air travel,"
Not really, nothing other than the usual "going through the motions" occurs there, just like this pointless ruling.
"Some extremists at CBP hav
Constitutional jurisdiction as a convicted felon (Score:5, Interesting)
Interestingly, that question has already been decided, and I think they got it wrong both ways.
The law already applies to residents/citizens of foreign countries. I was locked up for several years with many foreign nationals who exported cocaine that wound up in America. Some of them did not even have a direct connect to anyone in the US. Just, bang! Midnight arrest, short plane flight, handover to federal agents, and next thing they knew a public defender was telling them they were in the US and they would be seeing a judge in a couple of days.
Somehow, though, it does NOT apply to American citizens overseas. I have read cases of the FBI conducting/leading searches of Americans' property and residences overseas with no warrant and no judicial oversight. Obama even had a citizen assassinated overseas after making the determination that he was a terrorist. That's not how that's supposed to work.
Um, full disclosure, FWIW. I am a convicted felon, served 9 years for armed bank robbery and carjacking. I am a liberal and I align much more closely with the Democratic Party than with the Republican Party.
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Which was a million megatons of fascist BS crammed into a five pound sack, as "as long as you're on US soil" is completely absent from the bill of rights. Otherwise the government would be free to take your arrested ass across the border and beat a confession out of you.
Actually the fourth DOES say "reasonable" (Score:4, Informative)
> The 4th Amendment does not provide any exceptions to its rules. Search and Seizure requires a warrant. It does not say except on the border *or except when there is suspicion.*
Here's the exact wording of the fourth amendment, with my comments on each of its two parts:
--
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated
--
The fourth says we have a right to be secure against UNREASONABLE searches. There is a legal principle that if the sign says "No parking on Sundays", that implies that parking is allowed at other times. Otherwise the sign would just say "No parking". When the Constitution says no "unreasonable searches", that means that *reasonable* searches are allowed. Courts have ruled that in order for a search to be reasonable, it must be based on reasonable suspicion.
Whenever I point out what the law says, somebody gets mad at me and starts arguing "so you think ...". I actually didn't write the Constitution, I only read it. Secure "against unreasonable searches" isn't what I think the Constitution SHOULD say, it's what the Constitution DOES say.
If I was writing it today, I might say something more specific than "unreasonable". As it is, it's up to the courts to decide if a search is "reasonable" based on principles laid out by the Supreme Court. Courts have two ways to look the reasonableness of a search. They can determine if a search WAS reasonable based on the circumstances, or if time allows they can rule on whether a particular search of a particular place WILL BE reasonable in the future. The fourth amendment addresses one of those two specifically.
Continuing now with the rest of the fourth amendment:
--
and
--
Just one little word, but it's worth pointing out that the framers wrote AND, not "or", not a comma, not "therefore". The use of "and" means the above is true, and separately the next part is also true.
Continuing:
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no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized
--
If a court is going to issue a ruling that a future search will be reasonable (a warrant), those requirements must be met. This also gives a hint on how to define "reasonable" when looking at searches that already occurred - they need to have probable cause.
If a person is arrested and put I'm jail, it's reasonable to avoid allowing contraband into the jail by search them during booking. No need for them to spend a day in quarantine waiting for a search warrant that will definitely be issued. Where there is probable cause to believe a person has evidence of a crime AND that evidence will disappear if you let them go and come back tomorrow with a warrant, a search with probable cause may be reasonable. A court can decide whether it was reasonable.
The fourth doesn't say that all searches must be pre-approval, with a warrant. It says they must be reasonable. A warrant is one way of handling the determination of reasonableness.
Here's something that's just my opinion. It's not in the Constitution. I'd like to see better consequences for officers who violate this and other Constitutional rights in a clear way. If an officer knew, or should have known, that their actions violate Constitutional rights, penalties should be imposed on the officer. It should happen regularly enough that officers expect they'll likely get busted if they do that sort of thing, especially if they do it often they'll get busted before long. I also think that courts should continue to be free to disagree with an officer's determination of reasonableness and disallow the evidence, without penalizing the officer if they reasonably thought their actions were okay under the circumstances. Only idiots would become cops if cops go to jail the first time a court disagrees with them on a judgement call. YouTube has plenty of examples of cops who knew they didn't have probable cause, though, or should have known.
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If I was writing it today, I might say something more specific than "unreasonable". As it is, it's up to the courts to decide if a search is "reasonable" based on principles laid out by the Supreme Court. Courts have two ways to look the reasonableness of a search. They can determine if a search WAS reasonable based on the circumstances, or if time allows they can rule on whether a particular search of a particular place WILL BE reasonable in the future. The fourth amendment addresses one of those two specifically.
You've made a common oversight in assessing the Bill of Rights.
It's an open-ended document. James Madison deliberately made it this way to address the concern that the wording wouldn't be adequate to protect all individual rights. For that reason, he added protected for any rights the people might wish to assert. It's such an important principle that it appears twice: the 9th Amendment retains unspecified right to the people, the 10th Amendment reserves to unspecified rights to the people.
In short, it is
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If an officer knew, or should have known, that their actions violate Constitutional rights, penalties should be imposed on the officer.
18 U.S. Code  242 - Deprivation of rights under color of law [cornell.edu]:
Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or to different punishments, pains, or penalties, on account of such person being an alien, or by reason of his color, or race, than are prescribed for the punishment of citizens, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if bodily injury results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include the use, attempted use, or threatened use of a dangerous weapon, explosives, or fire, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.
Let's strike the need to prove racist thoughts (Score:2)
That law is good and all, but not enough until it's amended to remove a few words. Right now we have:
Cops can be punished if they violate your Constitutional rights and the prosecution proves proves that they did it because you're black or Mexican.*
How about we take out the part and just have:
Cops can be punished if they violate your Constitutional rights.
* I'm not actually kidding about the "black or Mexican part. Shockingly, the federal code also includes the words "discrimination against Caucasian perso
For the rest of us. (Score:1)
Those who are not US citizens do not have any rights, period. That is so axiomatic in US law and culture that it is not even mentioned this only applies to US citizens.
And then they wonder why so many people dislike the US.
The problem with these lower court rulings (Score:2, Insightful)
The problem with these lower court rulings is that they are immaterial and irrelevant. The Supreme Court has already ruled that border searches of any kind do not require suspicion of any kind. They can be routine as a matter of national security, as long as the subject of the search is within 100 miles of the boundary of the United States.
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By that reasoning 200 million people have no rights because they live within 100 miles of the border...
https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-zone
I quote:
"The Supreme Court has upheld the use of immigration checkpoints, but only insofar as the stops consist only of a brief and limited inquiry into residence status".
Searching electronic devices won't pass muster just like the Appellate court is ruling in this case in the article as they should. Illegal immigrants might be one thing, warrant
Exactly why I don't travel with a cell phone (Score:1)
Whenever I travel to a foreign country, I buy a burner when I get there and destroy it before I come home (usually with fire).
Does this apply to visitors? (Score:3)
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I bet that it will have no effect. Considering previous supreme court rulings they have no reason to change what they are doing.
Non-American visitors (Score:2)
IANAL. If I remember correctly, that due process requirement was explicitly tied to presence in the territory of the U.S. I also think the searches at the border are associated with the extra-territoriality of the ports and airports (i.e., you're not "in" the U.S. until you clear Customs, or some such)?
I think it's a wash. They'll probably be treated the same as citizens, except that they'll be way more likely to be denied entry.
FWIW, it is weird to see this come out of the 4th Circuit. Usually those gu
Going to make more work for the US gov (Score:1)
The kinds of images that show support for groups of interest to the US gov.
Its like entering the US with a roll of film and saying the US gov cannot develop the film to see the images.
Missing that he WAS LEAVING the US (Score:2)