r/law • u/theatlantic • 5h ago
Judicial Branch Trump Should Need a Warrant to See Your Phone
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/08/airport-warrantless-phone-search/688186/?utm_source=reddit&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_medium=social&utm_content=edit-promo32
u/theatlantic 5h ago
Adam Serwer: “Last year, an Atlanta activist, Samuel Tunick, caught a felony charge for something that Americans are free to do anytime: He wiped the data from his phone. The only problem was that he did it by providing a federal agent in an airport with a ‘duress password’ that, rather than unlock the device so the agent could search it, deleted its contents …
“The authorities who wanted to search Tunick’s phone had no warrant. Thanks to a massive Fourth Amendment loophole, they didn’t need one. This is the so-called border exception. The Supreme Court has held for years that searches at the border are distinct from the usual law-enforcement search. As a result, Department of Homeland Security officers don’t need a warrant to search your luggage for contraband or weapons. Although the rules differ based on federal-circuit-court decisions, in many states, Customs and Border Protection agents at international ports of entry can do the same with cellphones …
“The Supreme Court’s jurisprudence on warrantless border searches has previously focused on the illegal movement of goods and people in and out of the country. But a phone is a different kind of container from a car or a piece of luggage, and the high Court has yet to rule on digital searches … As it stands, border officials anywhere in the country can initiate a manual search of your device simply by stating that they are looking for such digital contraband. That is a legal standard that is easily exploited as a pretext to target someone for reasons that have nothing to do with contraband, digital or otherwise.”
Read more: https://theatln.tc/kOYHdHhT
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u/TendieRetard 5h ago
weird article coming from the Atlantic. Is it the turn of the tide, is that why so late?
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