Border agents’ warrantless cellphone searches alarm civil liberties groups
The American Civil Liberties Union, Committee for Justice and Cause of Action have also filed separate briefs indicating interest in the case.
“This case presents an important question about the extent of Fourth Amendment privacy rights in the digital age, where the use of mobile devices is widespread,” wrote the ACLU in a brief filed this week. “The government’s assertion of authority to search such devices without any individualized suspicion when an individual is crossing the border — whether entering or leaving the United States — creates an end-run around Fourth Amendment protections that would otherwise apply to the voluminous and intimate information contained in those devices, and is not justified by the rationale permitting routine border searches.”
