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CA3: Border search of cruise ship cabins requires reasonable suspicion

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

Border search of a cruise cabin intrudes into an expectation of privacy, and it requires reasonable suspicion. [Following the weight of authority, but analyzing in detail on its own.] United States v. Whitted, 2008 U.S. App. LEXIS 18916 (3d Cir. September 4, 2008): We believe that these courts correctly recognize that the search of private living quarters aboard a ship at the functional equivalent of a border is a nonroutine border search and must be supported by reasonable suspicion of criminal conduct. The cruise ship cabin is both living quarters and located at the national border. As a result, one principle underlying the caselaw on border searches--namely, that "a port of entry is not a traveler's home," United States v. Thirty-Seven Photographs, 402 U...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on September 06, 2008 (boomark / email).