Legal News

Ninth Circuit: No Fourth Amendment Violation in Laptop Search

By Ashby Jones

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals handed down a fascinating and provocative ruling on Monday, finding that border-control agents who found child pornography on a traveler’s laptop did not violate the traveler’s Fourth Amendment rights. Here are stories from the Recorder and San Francisco Chronicle. Click here for the opinion.

The backstory: In July of 2005, Michael Arnold, who was 43 at the time, was pulled aside for secondary questioning upon arriving at LAX from the Philippines. Customs agents checked out his laptop and, according to the ruling, found “numerous images depicting what they believed to be child pornography.”

Arnold was later charged with possessing and transporting child porn and with traveling to a foreign country with the intention of having sex with children. But lower court Judge Dean Pregerson of Los Angeles suppressed the evidence after finding that customs agents didn’t have reasonable suspicion to search the contents of Arnold’s laptop.

The Ninth Circuit, in an opinion penned by Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain, reversed on Monday, holding that “reasonable suspicion is not needed for customs officials to search a laptop or other personal electronic storage devices at the border.”

Los Angeles-based U.S. Attorney Thomas O’Brien praised the decision in a prepared statement.

Marilyn Bednarski, a partner in Pasadena, Calif.-based Kaye, McLane & Bednarski, said she plans to seek an en banc review of the case. Bednarski said she could see the point in turning on a laptop computer to make sure it’s not a bomb or a container full of illegal substances. But opening files bothered her. “What this decision allows [border agents] to do without limits,” she said, “is keep opening up and keep reading forever.”

LB readers, we’d love to hear from you on this. Does Bednarski have a point — that officials should have the right to turn on a computer without particularized suspicion, but not look through files?

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on April 22, 2008 (boomark / email).