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More on Airport Border Searches:
Editor's note: For additional information on CBP policy re lap top searches, see CBP Policy Statement July 16, 2008.
A search by customs officers at an American airport, does not require reasonable suspicion, according to the Ninth Circuit in USA v Arnold.
"The Supreme Court has stated that: The authority of the United States to search the baggage of arriving international travelers is based on its inherent sovereign authority to protect its territorial integrity. By reason of that authority, it is entitled to require that whoever seeks entry must establish the right to enter and to bring into the country whatever he may carry. Torres v. Puerto Rico, 442 U.S. 465, 472-73 (1979)......... Courts have long held that searches of closed containers and their contents can be conducted at the border without particularized suspicion under the Fourth Amendment. Searches of the following specific items have been upheld without particularized suspicion: (1) the contents of a traveler’s briefcase and luggage, ....... In any event, the district court’s holding that particularized suspicion is required to search a laptop, based on cases involving the search of the person, was erroneous....... Therefore, we are satisfied that reasonable suspicion is
not needed for customs officials to search a laptop or other personal electronic storage devices at the border. "
