April 22, 2008
Creeping Totalitarianism Department
A Hard Drive Across the Border
New York Criminal Defense Lawyer Scott Greenfield has some comments about a disturbing Fourth Amendment ruling.
The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution protects everyone in the United States from unreasonable searches. And I'm pretty sure that the U.S. government can't conduct arbitrary searches of U.S. citizens outside the country either. But when we cross the border, anything goes.
In the interest of fighting smuggling and preventing the spread of diseases, government agents at a border crossing can search the affects of anyone---even a U.S. citizen---without having to justify the search. Crossing the border is justification enough.
It's getting even worse. The 9th Circuit has just ruled that the government can even search computer hard drives at the border, treating them as just another container entering the country.
As Scott explains in considerable detail, this is an absurd decision. First of all, unlike diseased agricultural products or radiological weapons, there's nothing inherently dangerous about letting hard drives full of data into the country. Vast amounts of unregulated data already enter the country all the time over transoceanic network trunks.
Second, many people have lots of very private data on their hard drives. As Scott puts it,
Judge Pregerson got it when he concluded that computers are like diaries, holding our personal secrets.
If you think you might ever transport a computer over the border, read Scott's post and write your representatives.
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