Major Victory for Travelers' Privacy at the Border (EFF)

[Jason]

A recent news item from the EFF has good news for those travelling to the US:

A federal court on November 12 ruled in Alasaad v. McAleenan that the government must have reasonable suspicion of digital contraband before searching your electronic devices at the U.S. border. The case was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and ACLU of Massachusetts on behalf of 11 travelers whose smartphones and laptops were searched without individualized suspicion at U.S. ports of entry.

“The government shouldn’t have the unfettered power to invade your digital privacy at the border,” said Diane Zorri, a college professor, former U.S. Air Force captain, and a plaintiff in the Alasaad case. “I’m proud to stand with EFF and the ACLU for travelers’ rights.”


The court held that the government must have reasonable suspicion of digital contraband before searching people’s electronic devices at the U.S. border. This major advance helps ensure that border agents cannot turn international travel into an excuse to rifle through your private digital information without individualized suspicion.

[ssfc72]

So it will be interesting to see if next season's Border Security tv series, shows the officials still looking through people's cell phone's, to see if visitors to the US are coming to work there, move there, have a baby there without the proper permissions.  There is no suspicion of digital contraband, in these cases.

[fox]

This is good news, although some of the complaints by Canadians against arbitrary and unfair behaviour of U.S. border agents has nothing to do with electronic devices.

[ssfc72]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/cellphone-border-searches-customs-border-1.5387612

This article points out the Canadian lawyers advice about the phone search ruling, in the US court case. In short, don't have anything on your phone, that you don't want the border agents, to see. :-)

[Jason]

I don't know. Those are two lawyers in Canada vs. teams of lawyers from the EFF and the ACLU who think differently. If the CBC interviewed more than two, I might find this article more impressive. I understand that their PR may be to boost donations but the lawyers for them aren't likely to outright lie either. I've contacted both organizations with a link to the CBC article to ask them about the Canadian lawyers' comments.

But I think the CBC article seems to suggest the ruling means nothing and I think that's far from the truth. Going from "search whenever we feel like it" to "search with probable cause" is a win. That's the generally the way it is with police. Imagine if the RCMP could randomly search your house whenever they felt like it vs. having probable cause. That's what they've stopped from the way I read the ruling. But it's not to the level that they need a search warrant - that's another fight.

[fox]

I read the article and it seems to suggest that the issue is jurisdiction in that the state that the ruling was about was Massachusetts.

[Jason]

I read the article and it seems to suggest that the issue is jurisdiction in that the state that the ruling was about was Massachusetts.

I noticed that also. But it would seem odd that the ACLU and the EFF lawyers didn't note this. The ACLU press release specifically expands it beyond Massachusetts:

In a major victory for privacy rights, a federal court in Boston today ruled that the government’s suspicionless searches of international travelers’ smartphones and laptops at airports and other U.S. ports of entry violate the Fourth Amendment.