New DHS Standards For Electronic Border Searches

The Washington Post reports that the “Obama administration will largely preserve Bush-era procedures allowing the government to search — without suspicion of wrongdoing — the contents of a traveler’s laptop computer, cellphone or other electronic device, although officials said new policies would expand oversight of such inspections.”  The news is no real surprise for when it comes to the border this administration has to this point has come to stand for “enforcement now, enforcement forever.”

The ACLU is critical and state that the new DHS “privacy standards for border searches of electronic devices today which, while a welcome first step, do not go far enough. The new standards fail to address the fundamental constitutional problems of suspicionless searches that have been occurring at the border.”

For analysis of the legal issues surrounding border searches of electronic data, click here.

KJ