Sunday, April 2, 2017

Crossing the U.S. Border with Electronic Devices

It used to be that when most people crossed the U.S. border, their electronic devices — computers, smartphones, tablets — were not routinely searched. This is no longer the case. As Murtaza Hussain notes at The Intercept, searches are up sharply, from 5,000 in 2015 ... to 5,000 in just last February alone.

It's not just ICE agents whose jobs are "fun" again, it's the men and women at the U.S. Border Protection service too.
Lawsuit Seeks Transparency as Searches of Cellphones and Laptops Skyrocket at Borders

A lawsuit filed today by the Knight First Amendment Institute, a public interest legal organization based at Columbia University, seeks to shed light on invasive searches of laptops and cellphones by Customs and Border Protection officers at U.S. border crossings.

Documents filed in the case note that these searches have risen precipitously over the past two years, from a total of 5,000 searches in 2015 to 25,000 in 2016, and rising to 5,000 in the month of February 2017 alone. Among other questions, the lawsuit seeks to compel the federal government to provide more information about these searches, including how many of those searched have been U.S. citizens, the number of searches by port of entry, and the number of searches by the country of origin of the travelers.

http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2017/03/crossing-us-border-with-electronic.html

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