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Speaker 1: You're probably used to going to the airport and having

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Speaker 1: border agents go through your handbags and suitcases, perhaps even

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Speaker 1: padding you down. But what about asking for your cell

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Speaker 1: phone or laptop? A new lawsuit is challenging the Department

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Speaker 1: of Homeland Security searchers and seizures of electronic devices without

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Speaker 1: warrants as violations of the First and Fourth Amendments. The

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Speaker 1: policy allowing border agents to search or sees devices was

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Speaker 1: enacted by Homeland Security during the Obama administration, but the

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Speaker 1: number of searches of electronic devices by US Customs and

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Speaker 1: Border patrol has surged in recent years, joining us as

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg News legal reporter Eric Larson, Eric, the border search

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Speaker 1: doctrine operates as an exception to warrant and probable cause requirements,

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Speaker 1: and you don't have much expectation of privacy at an airport.

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Speaker 1: While the government has a great interest in national security.

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Speaker 1: Does this lawsuit address that? Yes, it doesn't. It really

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Speaker 1: could be one of the next big cases to eventually

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Speaker 1: or the Supreme Court. UH. With security versus privacy concerns

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Speaker 1: is always a big issue. UH. And the reason that

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Speaker 1: this exception to the Fourth Amendment at the borders is

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Speaker 1: so interesting here is because we have so much personal

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Speaker 1: information on our phones. Now. You know, it's okay to

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Speaker 1: look through luggage, through people's purses and bags, and maybe

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Speaker 1: even to open a laptop to make sure it is

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Speaker 1: a laptop, but to essentially be demanded. They demand to

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Speaker 1: turn over your phone and go through all the data.

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Speaker 1: They might copy it down using sophisticated forensic tools, demand

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Speaker 1: the password, you unlock it, they start looking through all

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Speaker 1: your photos and emails. And that's what they do. It

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Speaker 1: doesn't affect very many people, but it could happen to anyone.

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Speaker 1: Eric toss about the allegations in this lawsuit give us

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Speaker 1: a flavor of what people are saying happens to them

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Speaker 1: at the border. Well. One gentleman whose story stood out

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Speaker 1: one of the plaintiffs, said that he was coming back

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Speaker 1: over the border from Canada after doing a social event

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Speaker 1: in Toronto and they physically restrained him and pulled his

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Speaker 1: phone and out of his pocket after he refused to

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Speaker 1: turn it over. He said that he had just had

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Speaker 1: it examined at the Board of three days before. He

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Speaker 1: sort of just felt like he was being harassed. Um

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Speaker 1: and you know they did that. They demanded it. They

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Speaker 1: looked through his phone and they didn't find anything. Um,

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Speaker 1: But obviously it left this gentleman's shaken. Uh. And a

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Speaker 1: lot of other people have reported the same same type

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Speaker 1: of thing, not with violence, but being coerced in handing

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Speaker 1: over their passwords, being forced to wait while agents look

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Speaker 1: through all their private information. Um. There is no nothing

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Speaker 1: in the lawsuit about any sort of racial profiling or discrimination.

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Speaker 1: But the a c l U, the rights group that

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Speaker 1: filed the lawsuit, on behalf of these people. Uh. They

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Speaker 1: did say in their press release. They pointed out that

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Speaker 1: the plaintiffs are mostly Muslim or people of color, which

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Speaker 1: is an interesting element but isn't actually tied to any

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Speaker 1: specific claim. Eric. According to policy, the government can't compel

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Speaker 1: travelers to unlock their phones or their computers. But the

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Speaker 1: plaintiffs are claiming they were intimidated into it. Well, yes,

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Speaker 1: because if they don't open it up, they can seize it,

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Speaker 1: and they can say, fine, you can go on your way,

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Speaker 1: but you're leaving your laptop on your phone here. It

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Speaker 1: could be weeks, months or even longer before they ever

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Speaker 1: get those devices back. And you know how people are

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Speaker 1: so tied to their devices now, and they might just

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Speaker 1: hope you know what, fine, here you go have a look,

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Speaker 1: uh and hope that they just don't find anything embarrassing

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Speaker 1: or send it around to their friends. They have no

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Speaker 1: idea what they're doing with this information, because the A c. L.

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Speaker 1: You mentioned that they have asked UH to find out

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Speaker 1: what exactly they are you doing with the information that

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Speaker 1: they seize, and they don't. They don't say, and they

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Speaker 1: don't know, so that people just gamble, they hand it over,

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Speaker 1: they say fine, they cooperate. They want to be on

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Speaker 1: their way. They're in a hurry, they want to get home.

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Speaker 1: Eric is the allegation in the lawsuit that there is

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Speaker 1: some explicit or implicit Trump administration policy that they're enforcing,

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Speaker 1: or is it possible these are just isolated incidents that happened.

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Speaker 1: Happened among the millions of border crosses every year. Well,

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Speaker 1: the government's own data that is cited in the complaint

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Speaker 1: shows that there has been quite a big increase in

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Speaker 1: the these types of searches um so it is increasing

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Speaker 1: under Trump that that could just be part of the

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Speaker 1: administration's overall crackdown on various types of immigration and border

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Speaker 1: security issues. Of course, that's one of the main issues

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Speaker 1: that he ran on. Uh, So the immigration apparatus might

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Speaker 1: simply feel justified in increasing these types of searches. And again,

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Speaker 1: while there are ramping them up quite a bit, it

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Speaker 1: still does impact only a small portion of travelers. But

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Speaker 1: for those who are impacted, they feel like it is

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Speaker 1: simply against their constitutional rights that these types of data

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Speaker 1: and information that is on your smartphone is not the

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Speaker 1: same as what's in your luggage and your purse, and

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Speaker 1: it should be treated differently. Less than a minute, no

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Speaker 1: court has ruled that a warrant is necessary at US

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Speaker 1: ports of entry and airports, so this would be new law.

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Speaker 1: It would be I mean that the Ninth Circuit in

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Speaker 1: San Francisco did rule I believe in two thousand thirteen

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Speaker 1: that uh that agents needed a reasonable suspicion in order

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Speaker 1: to carry out a detailed forensic search of a phone.

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Speaker 1: But again that hasn't doesn't apply nationwide. Uh. And actually

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Speaker 1: the a c. L. You mentioned that they're not even

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Speaker 1: sure that that's being applied in the Ninth Circuit. So yes,

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Speaker 1: if if this were to go to the Supreme Court,

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Speaker 1: it would completely change how our phones and our personal

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Speaker 1: items are dealt with at the airports. I remember Judge

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Speaker 1: Kazinski during the oral arguments, and that questioning how long

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Speaker 1: the lines would be if they started seizing everyone's cell phones.

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Speaker 1: Thank you so much. As always, that's Bloomberg News Legal

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Speaker 1: reporter Eric Larson