Legal News

9th Circuit says searching laptop files at border isn't unreasonable

By Jason Siegel

The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that it wasn't an unreasonable for border control agents to search the contents of a traveler's laptop, The Recorder reported.

The court's opinion was that reasonable suspicion wasn't needed for searching personal electronic storage devices at the border, reversing the earlier decision by U.S. District Judge Dean Pregerson of Los Angeles that "electronic storage devices function as an extension of our own memory."

The case stems from a man who was charged with possessing and transporting child porn and traveling to a foreign country with the intention of having sex with children after custom agents at Los Angeles International Airport found child pornography on his laptop in 2005.

Maye McLane's Marilyn Bednarski, who represented the man, plans to seek an en banc review by the 9th Circuit.

The ruling is at least the second to uphold computer searches by border guards - the first being a 2005 decision by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals regarding a man who was driving into the U.S. from Canada with child porn on his computer.

U.S. Attorney Thomas O'Brien provided a prepared statement to media praising the decision. "The government needs to have the ability to restrict harmful material from entering the country, whether that be weapons used by terrorists, dangerous narcotics or child pornography," he said.

"It may change the way people travel," U.C. Davis law professor Jennifer Chacon told The Daily Breeze.

"As people become aware of this possibility [of being searched], companies may be clearer with their employees about when they should carry their laptops across borders, and people may be more cautious," Chacon said.

Full post as published by Legal Pad | LA on April 22, 2008 (boomark / email).