{"id":803,"date":"2012-06-30T21:41:27","date_gmt":"2012-06-30T21:41:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ncjolt.org\/\/?p=803"},"modified":"2020-06-04T20:54:08","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T20:54:08","slug":"border-searches-and-the-first-amendment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/blogs\/border-searches-and-the-first-amendment\/","title":{"rendered":"Border Searches and the First Amendment"},"content":{"rendered":"
Monday, April 2nd 2012 by\u00a0Tony S. Botros<\/strong><\/div>\n
\nReturning from a vacation in Mexico,\u00a0Davis House was questioned and briefly detained<\/a>\u00a0at Chicago\u2019s O\u2019Hare Airport.\u00a0 House\u2019s bags were searched and Custom Agents ordered House to turn over all of his electronics, including his laptop.\u00a0 House was also ordered to give up his\u00a0passwords and encryption keys<\/a>, which he refused.\u00a0 After refusing, House was taken to a detention room where he was questioned about his association with Bradley Manning.\u00a0 Manning, a WikiLeaks suspect, was arrested in Iraq on\u00a0\u201csuspicion of having disseminated restricted material\u201d<\/a>\u00a0to the website.\u00a0 The agents questioned House about an Internet support group he had set up condoning the government\u2019s treatment of Manning.\u00a0 During the interrogation, the agents informed House that they were seizing his laptop along with other electronics.\u00a0 House\u2019s laptop and other items were held for\u00a049 days<\/a>\u00a0before being returned.
\n\"\"
\nIn May of 2011, the ACLU, on behalf of House, filed a federal lawsuit claiming that the search and seizure of House\u2019s laptop violated his\u00a0\u201cFirst Amendment rights of speech and political association\u201d<\/a>\u00a0and his Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures.\u00a0 Under the\u00a0\u201cborder exception rule,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0those reentering the United States can be searched without a warrant and courts have allowed searches of laptops without any reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing.
\nIt would appear that the border exception rule would alleviate the government for any civil liability concerning its conduct of House\u2019s laptop.\u00a0 However, on March 28 of 2012,\u00a0U.S. District Court Judge Denise Casper denied the government\u2019s motion to dismiss<\/a>\u00a0House\u2019s case.\u00a0 The judge found that the government\u2019s search and seizure may have violated House\u2019s First Amendment rights, regardless of the border exception rule.\u00a0 Specifically the judge found that even though a border search did not require particularized suspicion, it did not \u201cnecessarily follow that the agents . . . may seize electronic devices containing expressive materials, target someone for their\u00a0political association<\/a>\u00a0and seize his electronic devises\u201d to review his association with Manning and others.
\nThe ruling means that House\u2019s lawsuit may have some legs.\u00a0 The case may answer questions about the reach of the border exception rule.\u00a0 It appears that ordinary border searches and seizures of laptops are permitted and should remain constitutional.\u00a0 However, a future court may decide that if a border search is motivated by a person\u2019s particular political association, his First Amendment rights may be violated regardless of border agents lack of need for particularized suspicion.\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Monday, April 2nd 2012 by\u00a0Tony S. Botros Returning from a vacation in Mexico,\u00a0Davis House was questioned and briefly detained\u00a0at Chicago\u2019s O\u2019Hare Airport.\u00a0 House\u2019s bags were searched and Custom Agents ordered House to turn over all of his electronics, including his laptop.\u00a0 House was also ordered to give up his\u00a0passwords and encryption keys, which he refused.\u00a0 …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[51],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=803"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7714,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803\/revisions\/7714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}