Court Rules No Suspicion Needed for Laptop Searches at Border

Plaintiffs must be drinking the Kool-Aid if they think that a reasonable suspicion threshold of this kind will enable them to “guarantee” confidentiality to their sources ... or to protect privileged information. The United States border is not the only border that must be crossed by those engaging in international travel. “Carrying an electronic device outside the United States almost always entails carrying it into another country, making it subject to search under that country’s laws.” Cotterman, 709 F.3d at 977 n.8 (Callahan, J., dissenting). Surely, Pascal Abidor cannot be so naïve to expect that when he crosses the Syrian or Lebanese border that the contents of his computer will be immune from searches and seizures at the whim of those who work for Bashar al-Assad or Hassan Nasrallah. Indeed, the New York Times recently reported on the saga of David Michael Miranda who was detained for nine hours by British authorities “while on a stop in London’s Heathrow airport during a trip from Germany to Brazil.” Miranda was carrying documents intended to be passed to a British journalist. Id. Those documents were stored on encrypted thumb drives—a data storage device—and were seized. The stop and search were undertaken pursuant tothe United Kingdom Terror Law Schedule 7, which authorizes such searches without reasonable suspicion. This is enough to suggest that it would be foolish, if not irresponsible, for plaintiffs to store truly private or confidential information on electronic devices that are carried and used overseas.

Click to expand...

gamer_jim said:

Use encryption.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

Click to expand...

MigraineMan said:

There's a whole section on "quick peek" versus "detailed forensic evaluation." There's an expectation that some DHS flunky can "peek" at your hard drive and extract a meaningful interpretation of your intentions.

I have 2TB of hard drive in my laptop. Good luck with that. Besides, I don't keep sensitive information in a root-directory folder labeled "/Plans_for_World_Domination" or "/associates/terrorists." (all the good stuff is in /home/mm/medical/stupid_cats/jeebus/2012_cyst_removal)

I'm waiting for them to throw a tantrum over encrypted volumes, claiming that use of encryption constitutes reasonable suspicion.

Click to expand...