Appeals court rules border agents can't seize/deep search without a warrant

[thewayne]

It's going to have to go higher and will need further review to clarify the language, but it's a promising step in the right direction.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/03/gadget-border-searches/

Comments

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

I really hate the concept of there being zones where certain parts of the constitution don't apply. I really liked the bit about the judges seeing that a laptop or phone contains huge amounts of personal information akin to a briefcase which would require a warrant to search.

I recently took to encrypting my backups, three of my four backup drives are now done. I also encrypt my phone backups. Haven't encrypted my hard drives yet.

[silveradept]

Other city cases, if I recall correctly, have said that law enforcement can demand you decrypt anything they want to look at, which pretty well defeats the purpose of encrypting sensitive things. This whole "must stop terrorism" thing has been horrible for the presumptions that most people are regular citizens and that everyone is entitled to constitutional protections. Maybe the next President will actually do something about reversing that trend.