9/13/2017

BORDER/DHS/LEGAL: “Eleven people whose phones and laptops were searched at United States airports and at the nation’s northern border are suing the Department of Homeland Security, joining a growing chorus of critics who say the forced inspections are invasive and unlawful.
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday [9-13-17] by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, claims the plaintiffs’ First and Fourth Amendment rights were violated when United States agents searched, and in some cases confiscated, their devices without a warrant. The government has said those searches happen to fewer than one-hundredth of one percent of international travelers, and that they are authorized by the same laws that allow border agents to look through suitcases without a judge’s approval.
But privacy activists say the laws, which were crafted with luggage in mind, shouldn’t apply to digital devices that contain vast amounts of personal data related to the device owners and others they have contacted…
The searches, which began under the George W. Bush administration and became more common during the Obama administration, have sharply increased in the past year. According to the most recent data available, there were nearly 15,000 searches from October 2016 to March 2017, compared with 8,383 in the same period a year before.
David Lapan, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, said he could not comment on pending litigation but that ‘we absolutely believe the searches are lawful.’ “

-Daniel Victor, “Forced Searches of Phones and Laptops at U.S. Border Are Illegal, Lawsuit Claims,” The New York Times online, Sept. 13, 2017