DHS Watchdog OKs ‘Suspicionless’ Seizure of Electronic Devices Along Border
Via Wired:
The Department of Homeland Security’s civil rights
watchdog has concluded that travelers along the nation’s borders may
have their electronics seized and the contents of those devices examined
for any reason whatsoever — all in the name of national security.
The DHS, which secures the nation’s border, in 2009 announced that it
would conduct a “Civil Liberties Impact Assessment” of its
suspicionless search-and-seizure policy pertaining to electronic devices
“within 120 days.”
More than three years later, the DHS office of Civil Rights and Civil
Liberties published a two-page executive summary of its findings.
“We also conclude that imposing a requirement that officers have
reasonable suspicion in order to conduct a border search of an
electronic device would be operationally harmful without concomitant
civil rights/civil liberties benefits,” the executive summary said.
The memo highlights the friction between today’s reality that
electronic devices have become virtual extensions of ourselves housing
everything from e-mail to instant-message chats to photos and our papers
and effects — juxtaposed against the government’s stated quest for
national security.
The President George W. Bush administration first announced the
suspicionless, electronics search rules in 2008. The President Barack
Obama administration followed up with virtually the same rules a year
later. Between 2008 and 2010, 6,500 persons had their electronic devices searched along the U.S. border, according to DHS data.
According to legal precedent, the Fourth Amendment — the right to be
free from unreasonable searches and seizures — does not apply along the
border. By the way, the government contends the Fourth-Amendment-Free
Zone stretches 100 miles inland from the nation’s actual border.
Civil rights groups like the American Civil Liberties Union suggest
that “reasonable suspicion” should be the rule, at a minimum, despite
that being a lower standard than required by the Fourth Amendment.
“There should be a reasonable,
articulate reason why the search of our electronic devices could lead to
evidence of a crime,” Catherine Crump, an ACLU staff attorney, said in a
telephone interview. “That’s a low threshold.”
The DHS watchdog’s conclusion isn’t surprising, as the DHS is taking
that position in litigation in which the ACLU is challenging the
suspicionless, electronic-device searches and seizures along the
nation’s borders. But that conclusion nevertheless is alarming
considering it came from the DHS civil rights watchdog, which maintains
its mission is “promoting respect for civil rights and civil liberties.”
“This is a civil liberties watchdog office. If it is doing its job
property, it is supposed to objectively evaluate. It has the power to
recommend safeguards to safeguard Americans’ rights,” Crump said.
“The
office has not done that and the public has the right to know why.”
Toward that goal, the ACLU on Friday filed a Freedom of Information Act request demanding to see the full report that the executive summary discusses.
Meantime, a lawsuit the ACLU brought on the issue concerns a New York
man whose laptop was seized along the Canadian border in 2010 and
returned 11 days later after his attorney complained.
At an Amtrak inspection point, Pascal Abidor showed his U.S. passport to a federal agent. He was ordered to move to the cafe car, where they removed his laptop from his luggage and “ordered Mr. Abidor to enter his password,” according to the lawsuit.
At an Amtrak inspection point, Pascal Abidor showed his U.S. passport to a federal agent. He was ordered to move to the cafe car, where they removed his laptop from his luggage and “ordered Mr. Abidor to enter his password,” according to the lawsuit.
Agents asked him about pictures they found on his laptop, which
included Hamas and Hezbollah rallies. He explained that he was earning a
doctoral degree at a Canadian university on the topic of the modern
history of Shiites in Lebanon.
He was handcuffed and then jailed for three hours while the
authorities looked through his computer while numerous agents questioned
him, according to the suit, which is pending in New York federal court.
No comments:
Post a Comment