ACLU, Other Groups Sue U.S. Government Over Border Laptop Searches

[Newsjock]

Source: PC World

The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups have filed a lawsuit challenging the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) practice of searching laptops and other electronic devices at U.S. borders.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday by the ACLU, the New York Civil Liberties Union and the National Association of Criminal Defense Layers (NACDL), challenges a 2008 CBP policy that allows border agents to search electronic devices of any traveler, without suspicion of wrongdoing. In some cases, border agents have copied the contents of the devices or confiscated them. The lawsuit asks the court for an order prohibiting searches of electronic devices at borders without a warrant and probable cause or reasonable suspicion of criminal activity.

The groups filed the lawsuit to "protect the rights of all Americans to cross the border free from intrusive government searches," said Catherine Crump, staff attorney with the ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project.

... Documents obtained by the ACLU in response to a separate Freedom of Information Act lawsuit for records related to the CBP policy showed that about 6,600 travelers had their electronic devices searched at the U.S. border between Oct. 1, 2008, and June 2 of this year, the ACLU said.



Read more: http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/204944/aclu_other_groups_sue_us_government_over_border_laptop_searches.html

[Warpy]

1. Fishing expeditions to incriminate people who have no

probable cause to be suspected of anything are illegal per the fourth amendment. While the drug war has largely gutted that amendment, we still have vestiges of it left.

This crap has got to stop.

[mike r]

2. Travel photos and Powerpoints

can be very dangerous tools for terrorists. :sarcasm:

[Pab Sungenis]

3. Sadly, they don't have a leg to stand on.

No one is guaranteed unhampered entry into the U.S., not even U.S. Citizens. If someone leaves the country for any reason, they don't necessarily have the right to re-enter, and outside the borders their Constitutional rights don't apply.

Not the way it should be, but the way it is.

[Vincardog]

4. The Constitution covers what the Government can and can't do EVERYWHERE

[geardaddy]

5. I posted something about this from a blogger who's a union borother of mineblogger

last week or two weeks ago.

http://hasbrouck.org/blog/archives/001887.html