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Old 05-31-2011, 04:49 PM
Ayatollahgondola's Avatar
Ayatollahgondola Ayatollahgondola is offline
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Default Scrutiny Of Legal Border Entrants Increases

If you carry a laptop with you when you enter or re-enter the US, your hardrive may be siezed and held for days. So this begs the question: How many laptops are getting into the country without scrutiny by way of illegal border crossers?



Quote:
9th Circuit
U.S. v. Cotterman, 2011 U.S. App. LEXIS 6483, March 30, 2011
In deciding the issue for the first time, the court held that the seizure of a laptop computer that began at the border and ended two days later in a government forensic laboratory, one hundred seventy miles away, fell within the border search doctrine.
The Supreme Court has recognized that the government possesses inherent authority to seize property at the international border without reasonable suspicion, probable cause or a warrant, in order to prevent the introduction of contraband into the country. Despite its name, a border search need not take place at the actual international border. The border search doctrine applies to searches that occur hundreds or thousands of miles from the physical border.
Additionally, the court stated that the border search doctrine is not so rigid as to require the government to equip every entry point, no matter how desolate or infrequently traveled, with inspectors and sophisticated forensic equipment capable of searching whatever property an individual may wish to bring into the United States. As long as property has not been officially cleared for entry into the United States and remains in the control of the government, any further search is simply a continuation of the original border search. While the initial seizure and preliminary search of Cotterman’s computer was a valid border search, the court stated that the continued detention of the computer could have become unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment if the government retained it beyond the time reasonably required to conduct a complete forensic search.
In this case, the government detained Cotterman’s computer for forty-eight hours. The court held that this was reasonable since the complexity of Cotterman’s computer, specifically password-protected files, required the government to transport it to a forensic computer laboratory so an adequate search could be conducted.
Click HERE for the court’s opinion.
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