Wrong.
Department of Homeland Security policies have given customs agents unprecedented authority to seize, inspect and copy data from all electronic devices at border crossings, without warrants, probable cause, or even well formed suspicion. Devices can be held indefinitely while data is copied for further examination and you can be held without warrant or probable cause while initial examinations are made. In the last two years, over 6,500 people, approximately half of them US citizens, have had electronic devices searched at border crossings under this policy. In at least 280 of the cases, data from these devices was transmitted to other federal agencies, all without warrant or probable cause.
The ACLU, acting on behalf of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the National Press Photographers Association, and individual plaintiff Pascal Abidor has filed suit against the DHS alleging that the policies are unconstitutional. Abidor, who holds dual American and French citizenship, was stopped and searched on an Amtrak train traveling between Montreal and New York. Abidor is a graduate student in Montreal working on his thesis in Islamic studies, and his place of residency is in New York. While traveling home to visit his family, his laptop, external hard drive and other electronic devices were seized by custom agents at the border. He himself was handcuffed and detained in a cell for over five hours, questioned by customs agents and the FBI, and then released miles from the Amtrak station where he was first detained. He had to take a bus the rest of the way home as his train was long gone. His laptop and external hard drive were not returned to him at the time and it took several weeks for him to recover them. Examination of the devices showed that personal files, including letters to and from his girlfriend, photographs, records of websites he visited, along with confidential information from interviews he had conducted as part of his thesis work had all been examined and copied.
Abidor has not been accused of any wrong doing. No warrants were or have been issued to seize or search his private data, but the government continues to maintain possession of the data copied from his computer. The government has not alleged probable cause or even reasonable suspicion to detain Abidor, seize his belongings, or search his electronic data.
The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the National Press Photographers Association have joined the lawsuit in defense of their members who have also been stopped and had electronic devices seized and searched, including confidential work product and press photographs. These and other organizations and corporations have already warned members to travel without unnecessary electronic devices and to strip down laptops and PDA's.
