Has your laptop been searched at the US border?

The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Jennifer Granick is looking for people who’ve had their laptop hard-drives searched at the US border:

In U.S. v. Arnold we fought for a requirement that customs agents have some reason before searching your computer and in our FOIA work on border searches, we have pushed the government to reveal its policies and practices in this area.

Now, another civil rights group, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers is seeking potential plaintiffs for a lawsuit challenging suspicionless laptop searches. As a first step in this effort, NACDL is seeking to identify defense lawyers who have had their laptops searched at the border and are willing to serve as individual plaintiffs. In order to demonstrate the effect of this policy on members of the criminal defense bar and to support the constitutional challenge, NACDL plans to assemble a group of individual plaintiffs who will develop affidavits describing the harm they suffer by having their electronic information exposed to government officials.

This lawsuit will not seek monetary damages for individuals who have been searched; instead, it will focus exclusively on fixing the unconstitutional policy. Participating members will be represented at no charge by NACDL and ACLU attorneys.

Have You Been Subjected to Suspicionless Laptop Search or Seizure at the Border?

(Image: Laptop freecycling a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike image from arvindgrover’s photostream)