{"id":193,"date":"2017-09-15T19:42:32","date_gmt":"2017-09-15T19:42:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ielrblog.com\/?p=193"},"modified":"2018-10-04T20:11:04","modified_gmt":"2018-10-04T20:11:04","slug":"aclu-and-eff-challenge-warrantless-searches-of-electronic-devices-at-the-border","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ielrblog.com\/index.php\/2017\/09\/15\/aclu-and-eff-challenge-warrantless-searches-of-electronic-devices-at-the-border\/","title":{"rendered":"ACLU and EFF Challenge Warrantless Searches of Electronic Devices at the Border"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Wednesday, attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a complaint<\/a> against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on behalf of 11 travelers whose electronic devices had been searched without warrants by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The case, Alasaad v. Duke<\/em>, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.<\/p>\n

According to the complaint, the plaintiffs are ten U.S. citizens and one lawful permanent resident who \u201cregularly travel outside the country with their electronic devices, and intend to continue doing so.\u201d Among the plaintiffs are a NASA engineer, an international security and journalism graduate student, and an independent filmmaker. Several of them are Muslim or people of color.<\/p>\n

All of the plaintiffs have been at one time subject to search and seizure of their devices by border agents, based on the suspicion that the devices contained \u201ccontraband or evidence of a violation of immigration or customs laws.\u201d In addition, four of the plaintiffs had their devices confiscated and seized for period of weeks or months.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit alleges that the searches and seizures constituted violations of the Fourth and First Amendments.<\/p>\n

The \u201cBorder Search Exception\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

We do not have the same rights at the border that we have elsewhere in the United States. In the United States, the Fourth Amendment usually prohibits the government from conducting \u201cunreasonable searches and seizures.\u201d \u201cA search or seizure is generally considered \u201cunreasonable\u201d if it is conducted without a warrant or probable cause. Several decades ago, however, the Supreme Court recognized a \u201cborder search exception,\u201d permitting government officials at the border to bypass the warrant requirement. According to the EFF<\/a>, the exception was intendent \u201conly for the narrow purposes of enforcing immigration and customs laws, including ensuring that duties are paid on imported goods and that harmful people (e.g., terrorists) and harmful goods such as weapons, drugs, and infested agricultural products do not enter the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

So if border agents can search someone\u2019s physical luggage without first obtaining a warrant, why are the ACLU and EFF arguing that the electronic devices should be exempt from the border search exception?<\/p>\n

What\u2019s So Special about Electronic Devices?<\/em><\/p>\n

The plaintiffs\u2019 argument for the unconstitutionality of the searches in question rests on what it considers the unique nature of electronic devices. In the preliminary statement of the complaint, the plaintiffs\u2019 counsel states that \u201c[t]oday\u2019s electronic devices contain troves of data and personal information that can be used to assemble detailed, comprehensive pictures of their owners\u2019 lives.\u201d In essence, the sheer scope of personal information contained on our smartphones and personal computers — from location data, to financial information, to private communications \u2013 renders the search of these devices uniquely intrusive.<\/p>\n

Indeed, as the complaint notes, the Supreme Court has previously acknowledged that electronic mobile devices implicate unique privacy interests. In Riley v. California (2014)<\/em>, the Court rejected the government\u2019s assertion that a search of the data stored on a cell phone is \u201cmaterially indistinguishable\u201d from the search of physical items on the basis that \u201cmodern cellphones\u2026 hold for many Americans the \u201cintricacies of private life.\u201d<\/p>\n

The defendants thus violate the Fourth and First Amendments, the plaintiffs\u2019 counsel argues, not only by seizing and searching the devices without probable cause, but also by failing to specify or describe the particular documents to be searched. When someone searches a piece of physical luggage, the search is limited to the contents of that particular storage container. When someone searches the contents of a smartphone, however, they access a vast trove of personal information, much of which is not even stored on the physical device, but on remote servers. The sheer scope as well the personally-identifiable nature of the data on an electronic device render searches of electronic storage devices more invasive than those of physical storage devices.<\/p>\n

Watch this case \u2013 new and emerging technologies, such as smartphones, infrared sensors, and GPS \u2013have raised questions regarding the proper scope and application of the Fourth Amendment (and, to a lesser extent, the First). Is the search of the contents of a personal computer analogous to the search of the contents of a house? Or does the vast quantity, as well as the uniquely personal quality, of information stored on electronic devices require more robust Fourth Amendment protections?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Wednesday, attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a complaint against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on behalf of 11 travelers whose electronic devices had been searched without warrants by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The case, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-193","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"yoast_head":"\nACLU and EFF Challenge Warrantless Searches of Electronic Devices at the Border | IELR Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/ielrblog.com\/index.php\/2017\/09\/15\/aclu-and-eff-challenge-warrantless-searches-of-electronic-devices-at-the-border\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"ACLU and EFF Challenge Warrantless Searches of Electronic Devices at the Border | IELR Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"On Wednesday, attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a complaint against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on behalf of 11 travelers whose electronic devices had been searched without warrants by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). 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