US judge: Customs officers are not allowed to search devices without suspicion

A federal court in Boston has ruled that the US government may not just search travelers’ devices such as smartphones and laptops at the border. This is only allowed if there is reasonable suspicion against the traveler.

The ruling states that searching travelers’ electronic devices is only allowed if there is reasonable suspicion that the devices contain contraband. Without such “reasonable suspicion” or without official authorization to search anyone’s devices, these acts violate the Fourth Amendment, the judge ruled.

This part of the US Constitution protects citizens from undirected searches without a search warrant, but the US government believes it does not need a warrant to conduct searches at borders, such as at airports. In principle, such searches require authorization, but with an exception for federal services operating in US border areas. The court has now limited that exception. According to the court, this strikes a balance between the privacy of the traveler concerned and the interests of the government.

The ACLU and the EFF have filed this lawsuit on behalf of 11 travelers, a group that includes 10 Americans. One of them is a NASA engineer. He was detained at a US airport when he returned from South America and pressured to hand over his PIN from his NASA phone. Several members of this group are Muslim or belong to other ethnic minorities. Another member of the group is an American Muslim who refused to unlock his personal phone at an American airport in January 2017 after returning from Dubai, after which it and his business phone were confiscated. He didn’t get them back until two months later.

According to the ACLU, the court’s ruling confirms that the US border is not a rights-free area and that no one loses their privacy rights when traveling. The organization reports that the number of electronic devices searched at American airports has risen sharply. Last year, the US Customs and Border Protection conducted more than 33,000 searches, the ACLU says, based on figures from the US border security agency. That number has quadrupled from the number that was still there in 2015.