San Francisco Chronicle reports
Customs agents at U.S. airports don't need any evidence of wrongdoing to search the contents of passengers' laptop computers, a federal appeals court ruled Monday.
Reinstating child pornography evidence against a passenger at Los Angeles International Airport, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said a computer is no different from a suitcase, a car or any other piece of property subject to search at an international border.
Although police need probable cause - specific evidence of criminal activity - to search someone on the street, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that no such evidence is necessary for a border search. Courts have also ruled that an international airport is the equivalent of a border.
Border agents would need grounds for suspicion before conducting a body search, but a "piece of property simply does not implicate the same dignity and privacy concerns as highly intrusive searches of the person," the court said. Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain wrote the 3-0 decision.
The ruling overturned a federal judge's decision barring the computer evidence and has implications for a suit filed in San Francisco two months ago by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy-rights group, and the Asian Law Caucus.
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