2nd Circuit: Border Agents Can Search Your Phone Without Any Suspicion
Border agents can search cellphones without a warrant or reasonable suspicion
A federal appeals court ruled that Customs and Border Protection agents may manually search a traveler's cellphone at the border without a warrant, probable cause, or even reasonable suspicion. The 2nd Circuit upheld Chinwendu Alisigwe's conviction but rejected the lower court's reasoning, likening a phone to luggage and declining to extend the Supreme Court's warrant requirement for cellphones seized during arrest. The panel left open whether forensic data extraction might demand more.
Routine searches at the border are reasonable simply because those searches occur at the border. Because the search of Alisigwe's cellphone was a routine search, the government was entitled to conduct the search without suspicion.
- mmh0000
It is insane to me that judges consistently rule that the constitution doesn't apply because there's a "border" within 100 miles.
The 4th Amendment says, exactly:
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.
I do not know how that could be unclear. My cellphone is my effect, and arguably, also a "paper". Which SHALL NOT BE VIOLATED. But apparently, I'm too dumb to understand the sentence[1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Amendment_to_the_United...
- fsiefken
This happened to me last month in Halifax Canada, I wanted to board a transfer flight to Amsterdam, going through Boston. I was stopped as I had salts with me from a buddhist relic I couldn't exactly identify. The machine said it contained a primary explosive (silver azide). I was ordered to give my access code to my iphone and 3 suspicious screenshots were found I made 2 years ago about the Iran/Israel war. I said I'm interested in geo-politics and watched the news.
I was barred from the US for life - it was said that it could have been much worse. When I wanted to go to the main airport hall a number of canadian police officers arrested me and drove me handcuffed to a cell.
I was asked if I wanted a lawyer and they arranged a phone call. The lawyer said I would spend to nights in a cell and then she would come to prepare my case and was strongly advised not to talk to people before that.
I was released from my cell 7 hours later that evening after a thorough and friendly conversation with the canadian special police.
I can understand that security don't want to take any chances with people carrying supposed explosive powders on an airport, so the system was doing it's protective job. That day there was a threat alert I heard later.
A week later I heard from the person who gave me the relic (I was on retreat) that the border guard contacted them and said it was a false positive (what I suspected at the time, but I didn't dare argue against the machine results).
- petcat
Customs has always been able to search everything without a warrant or suspicion when crossing the border. I guess this is saying that they can search the digital contents of physical devices/media as well?
- ramesh31
The best time to delete all social media accounts and never post anything online with your name attached ever again was 10 years ago. The second best time is right now. This stuff can and will be used against you out of context 10, 20, 30 years into the future.
- andix
Anyone still crossing US borders with electronic devices that aren't fully wiped? This is company policy for some European companies for a long time. Even during the Biden administration.
Most employees just receive a wiped phone/laptop for the duration of the trip. Depending on the country its either a device that only has access to the bare minimum of Services, or for countries like Russia they issue a dumb phone that can only call and text.
- LeBit
Land of the … laugh … free!
- 0xbadcafebee
The problem with these laws isn't that they can search you at the border. It's that they can search you within 100 miles of the border (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_search_exception). The total number of people who live within that zone is 213 Million people, or 2/3 of the total population (https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/border-zone).
- righthand
So carry a separate device while traveling. Or wipe your phone, then restore after the border. This is just going to lead to a service that does this for you and the overreaching feds won’t be able to do anything about it.
And as far as I can tell you still don’t have to give them your pin code.