US Border Crossing Back Door to Electronic Search

[windwalker]

Newly released documents reveal how the government uses border crossings to seize and examine travelers’ electronic devices instead of obtaining a search warrant to gain access to the data.

Here is a link to the full article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/10/busin ... wanted=all

[Bob]

While I suppose that I'm generally suspicious of just about all government activities, I'm not so sure that this article is telling us anything new or that border activities have changed much at all over the last decade. The US Courts have held for decades that nobody (including a US citizen) is within the US until they pass through customs and, before that time, the usual constitutional protections don't apply. The article also notes the US Courts have ruled that customs cannot go beyond a cursory examination (whatever the hell that means) unless there is reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. And the article notes that Homeland Security handles on average 15 of detailed electronic searches a day on travelers entering the US (out of the 930,000 travelers who enter daily).

Anybody dumb enough to possess and attempt to take through border crossings illegal electronic data (e.g., child porn, financial details of drug transactions, stolen commercial information, etc.) deserves to get caught in my view.