ACLU Mounts Lawsuit Against Baseless Border Laptop Searches [Homeland Security]

For the last two years, the dep. of Homeland Security has claimed the proper to seize and search your laptop on nothing more than a whim. Today, the ACLU and others have brought a lawsuit fixing to switch that.

There’s been some progress since the policy was put in place in August 2008. DHS volunteered to come laptops in a more timely fashion , and a judge decreed that they at the least desire a warrant if they’re going to hold your house indefinitely.

But neither of those events attack the center of the matter: that the govt. can take your stuff for absolutely no reason. That’s what the lawsuit-caused behalf of the National Press Photographers Association-hopes to remedy. Already, the ACLU notes, more than 6,600 travelers were subject to electronic device searches between October 1, 2008 and June 2, 2010, nearly half of them Americans.

These forms of cases take an exceptionally long time to play out; just examine how long it took to bring forward. But within the best case, in due time we’ll get some much-needed sanity back to look and seizure procedures. And within the worst-case, at the least there will probably be more awareness that something’s rotten at the border.

NEW YORK – The yankee Civil Liberties Union, the most recent York Civil Liberties Union and the National Association of Criminal Defense Layers (NACDL) today filed a lawsuit challenging the dept of Homeland Security’s (DHS) policy permitting border agents to go looking, copy and detain travelers’ electronic devices at the border without reasonable suspicion. DHS asserts the best to appear though the contents of a traveler’s electronic devices – including laptops, cameras and cellphones – and to keep the devices or copy the contents so as to continue searching them once the traveler has been allowed to enter the U.S., no matter whether the traveler is suspected of any wrongdoing.

” Nowadays, almost everybody carries a cellphone or laptop when traveling, and almost everyone stores information they wouldn’t wish to share with government officials – from financial records to love letters to family photos,” said Catherine Crump, staff attorney with the ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project. ” Innocent Americans mustn’t be made to feel like the non-public information they store on their laptops and cellphones is at risk of searches by government officials any time they travel overseas.”

Today’s lawsuit was filed on behalf of the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA), whose members include television and still photographers, editors, students and representatives of the photojournalism industry; NACDL, that’s a plaintiff in addition as counsel on the case; and Pascal Abidor, a 26-year-old dual French-American citizen who had his laptop searched and confiscated at the Canadian border.

Abidor was travelling from Montreal to The Big Apple on an Amtrak train in May when he had his laptop searched and confiscated by Custom and Border Patrol officers. Abidor, an Islamic Studies Ph.D. student, was questioned, handcuffed, taken off the train and kept in a holding cell for several hours before being released for gratis. When his laptop was returned 11 days later, there was evidence that lots of his personal files, including research, photos and chats together with his girlfriend, have been searched.

” As an American, I’ve always been taught that the Constitution protects me against unreasonable searches and seizures. But having my laptop searched and then confiscated for no reason at all made me question how much privacy we actually have,” said Abidor. ” This has had an extreme chilling effect on my work, studies and private life – now I am going to must go to untenable lengths to assure that my academic sources remain confidential and my personal dignity is maintained once I travel.”

Members of both NACDL and NPPA have also been subjected to the DHS search policy, which interferes with their ability to do their work. NPPA members regularly travel abroad with cameras, laptops and media storage devices to cover global news stories, including wars, protests and foreign elections, and rely upon the power to communicate confidentially with sources. Many NACDL members travel abroad with laptops, blackberries and mobile phones as component of their vigorous representation of their clients, and have an ethical duty to safeguard the confidentiality of their clients’ information.

” Unchecked government fishing expeditions into the constitutionally protected materials on an innocent traveler’s laptop or cellular phone interfere with the flexibility of many Americans to do their jobs and do nothing to make us safer,” said Melissa Goodman, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project. ” Americans do not surrender their privacy and free speech rights once they travel abroad.”

Documents obtained by the ACLU in response to a separate Freedom of knowledge Act (FOIA) lawsuit for records regarding the DHS policy reveal that more than 6,600 travelers, nearly half of whom are Americans, were subjected to electronic device searches at the border between October 1, 2008 and June 2, 2010.

The ACLU, NYCLU and NACDL filed today’s complaint against Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Alan Bersin and Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Immigration and Customs Enforcement John T. Morton within the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of recent York.

Attorneys on the case are Crump and Goodman of the ACLU, Christopher Dunn and Arthur Eisenberg of the NYCLU and Michael Price of NACDL.

Materials on the topic of the lawsuit, including the complaint and a video featuring ACLU lawyer Catherine Crump and client Pascal Abidor talking in regards to the case, is online at: www.aclu.org/bordersearches

The documents released within the ACLU’s FOIA lawsuit come in online at: www.aclu.org/free-speech/aclu-v-dhs

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This post is tagged: dep of homeland security, dept of homeland security, national press photographers, press photographers association, york civil liberties union