BREAKING: a federal judge has ruled that suspicionless searches of travelers’ cell phones, laptops, and other electronic devices when we cross the U.S. border are unconstitutional.
This is an enormous victory for privacy. https://www.eff.org/press/releases/federal-court-rules-suspicionless-searches-travelers-phones-and-laptops
@eff does this extend to foreigners or is it only for "We, The People, well, the only one for whom this Constitution is written for" ? :D
@salad_bar_breath @mmu_man @eff
Until now, the actual border crossing area was accepted as a grey area where even american citizens did not have their usual constitutional protections. That allowed border agents to demand and search any electronic devices that a person had.
Would be wonderful it this is no longer the case, better yet if the same applies to all incoming travelers, American or not.
@salad_bar_breath @mmu_man @eff It was insane indeed, and it baffled Americans returning from other countries to be subjected to searches they would not expect to happen anywhere in US soil. Border guards seemed to assert that until exiting the control area, people were not yet in US soil; neither in the country they had left, and so at the guards mercy.
Some of those agents are polite and reasonable, some are more truculent, possibly ex-military, and the treatment you will have when arriving is always unknown.
@design_RG @mmu_man @eff That's insane to me that this has been treated like a grey area, since it is definitely defined as "jurisdiction". Like I always say, it's always the people who fetishize the constitution the most that are the worst at following it.