PRIVACYCan Border Patrol Go Through Your Phone? A Legal Expert Explains What Rights Travelers Have Entering the U.S.
A Northeastern legal expert explains the complexities involved with searches of phones and social media and what rights citizens and visitors have when entering the country.
In March, a French scientist was reportedly denied entry to the U.S. based on comments border agents had found on his phone that were critical of the Trump administration’s policies.
With the Trump administration ramping up its approach to immigration, more visitors have started to face similarly intense scrutiny when traveling to the country, especially with phone and social media searches.
That has raised a question visitors and U.S. citizens alike are increasingly facing at the nation’s borders: What rights do you have when entering the U.S., especially when it comes to your electronic devices?
Kyle Courtney, who teaches about cybersecurity and cyberlaw at Northeastern University, says the question of legality and rights is complex at the border.
“Crossing a border means crossing into a zone where the government’s power to search is at its strongest — and an individual’s privacy rights, in many ways, are at their weakest,” says Courtney. “You lose more privacy the closer you get to the border.”
What About the Fourth Amendment?
Normally, government agents searching someone’s property would be restricted under the Fourth Amendment, which provides the right to be free from “unreasonable searches and seizures.” That includes a search of your body, home and other property. But as soon as someone approaches the U.S. border, things start to work differently, Courtney explains.
Under the border search doctrine, Customs and Border Protection agents have broad power to search people or property at the border. Any search at the border is considered “reasonable,” meaning no warrant or probable cause is required. That’s further complicated by the fact that the “border” can be broadly defined as a border-functioning location like an international airport or even within 100 miles of the U.S. border as drawn on a map.
In effect, it means that border and customs officers don’t need a specific reason to search your luggage or electronic devices.
“The power of the border agents is not clear to you or I when we’re just coming through, but when we stop at that desk and we show our papers … those folks actually have pretty broad powers that are outside what normally would be [allowed by] the Fourth Amendment,” Courtney says.
