CBP conducted more device searches at the border in Feb than in all of 2015

Cory Doctorow 6:56 am Wed Mar 15, 2017

There's been precious little litgation about the Customs and Border Protection Agency's far-reaching policy of invasively searching devices at the US border, so it's a legal greyzone (but you do have some rights).

As CBP has shaped up to be the shock-troops of Trump's anti-migrant, anti-civil-liberties agenda, they have operated with increasing capriciousness and opacity, and few metrics are more telling than the eye-popping stat that CBP conducted more than 5,000 searches in February 2017, more than were conducted in all of 2015. But this isn't a Trump-only phenomenon: these policies began in 2016, when, under Obama, CBP searched five times more devices than they did in all of 2015.

Brisley declined further comment. He referred follow-up questions to the Department of Homeland Security, its parent agency, which has not responded to Ars’ request for comment.

As Ars reported previously, there is a very broad exception to the Fourth Amendment at the border that allows officials to conduct warrantless searches. If your device is locked or encrypted and you refuse to assist agents’ attempts to open it, the device can be seized.

There were more device searches at US border last month than all of 2015
[Cyrus Farivar/Ars Technica]

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