Authorities poke around more travelers’ devices
ACLU raises privacy concerns about searches
WASHINGTON – International travelers, beware: Customs and Border Protection officials may want you to give them access to the files and photos on your electronic devices the next time you fly to the USA.
CBP said it increased such searches of electronics among travelers entering or leaving the country by almost
60% in 2017, though the agency said the number of searches affected a small fraction of people traveling.
CBP announced Friday that it had conducted 30,200 border searches of electronic devices during the year that ended Sept. 30. That represented an increase from the 19,051 searches during the previous year.
Despite the increase, CBP said the
29,200 searches of travelers arriving from other countries affected a small portion of the 397 million travelers arriving last year. There were 18,400 searches out of 390 million arriving travelers a year earlier.
The searches can be contentious because of privacy concerns about the personal messages or pictures that travelers store on laptops, phones or other electronics. CBP said the searches yielded evidence to combat terrorist activity, child pornography, violations of export controls and visa fraud.
“In this digital age, border searches of electronic devices are essential to enforcing the law at the U.S. border and to protecting the American people,” said John Wagner, the agency’s deputy executive assistant commissioner.
The increase in searches was announced the same day as the first update in the search policy since 2009. Acting Commissioner Kevin McAleenan reviewed the policy because of the evolution in technology since the policy was initiated.
The American Civil Liberties Union praised the policy for requiring officers to have some suspicion before copying and using electronic methods to search a device.
The Constitution still requires that the agency get a search warrant based on probable cause to search a device, according to the ACLU.
“The policy would still enable officers at the border to manually sift through a traveler’s photos, emails, documents and other information stored on a device without individualized suspicion of any kind,” said Neema Singh Guliani, legislative counsel for the ACLU. “Additionally, it fails to make clear that travelers should not be under any obligation to provide passcodes or other assistance to officers seeking to access their private information.”
The ACLU filed a lawsuit challenging the searches in September in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts. The case on behalf of 10 U.S. citizens and one lawful permanent resident argues that their devices were searched for no reason, which violated the Constitution.
The government asked the court to dismiss the case in December because other courts have upheld similar searches. The ACLU is preparing its response for late January.
CBP said the searches yielded evidence to combat terrorist activity, child pornography, violations of export controls and visa fraud.