Privacy Complaints Mount Over Phone Searches at U.S. Border Since 2011<br />The Department of Homeland Security, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, has released several hundred complaints filed since 2011 by<br />people whose phones, laptops or other electronic devices were searched without a warrant at the United States border as they entered the country.<br />While the officers were cordial, she said, "the line between security screening<br />and blatant search and seizure without cause or explaining is not." American courts have long permitted government agents who protect the borders to search, without a warrant or any specific basis for suspicion, the possessions carried by people as they cross.<br />In 2013, the appeals court in San Francisco ruled that border agents in the states it oversees — including California, Washington<br />and Arizona — must have "reasonable suspicion" to conduct forensic searches of devices.<br />phone, my university owned laptop, and all electronic devices," he wrote, adding, "My family<br />and I feel belittled, ashamed, humiliated and disgraced." On Twitter, follow Charlie Savage @charlie_savage and Ron Nixon @nixonron. that my<br />Midway through fiscal year 2017, Customs and Border Protection was on pace to search 30,000 travelers’ electronics — more than tripling the annual number by<br />that agency since 2015, when it searched 8,503 people’s devices.<br />Grievances over lost privacy run through a trove of roughly 250 complaints by people whose laptops<br />and phones were searched without a warrant as they crossed the United States border.
