Originally Posted by
bocastephen
Not so fast - Customs has the right to inspect anything being brought into the US, but they do not have the right to read private correspondence of a US citizen who is not presenting themselves for entry into the US. In fact, hopefully the Feingold initiative will pass into law and prevent Customs from these types of random infiltrations into people's privacy.
Your legal analysis is way off here.
The US citizen suffers from a significantly reduced expectation of privacy when the e-mail is sent to another person. The case law (don't ask me for references since I'm going from memory here) suggests that the sender accepts the risk that the recipient will share that e-mail with other people. Therefore, the expectation of privacy is reduced.
If we change the facts slightly...suppose I am investigating you for some federal crime. Perhaps I believe you have sent letters to a friend in which you confess to said crime. Should I not have the right to go and ask your friend for the letters? Of course. And, should I have probable cause, I could even obtain a search warrant and get them without your friend's consent.
It is the same situation as making consensually monitored phone calls. If the CBP officers had asked the Thai woman to call the US citizen and allow the call to be recorded (without the US citizen's knowledge or consent) it would have been perfectly legal, without any court order. The reasoning is the same: when having a phone conversation, you take the risk that the other party is sharing the conversation with others. If that other party chooses to share the conversation with the government, you have no recourse.
As to coercing the e-mail password, it doesn't bother me much. The way our immigration law is written, the burden of proof is upon an alien seeking admission to prove that they are admissible to the country. The alien was given the option of providing access to e-mail in order to meet that burden. And it was successful. She could have refused, but then would have been unable to meet the required burden of proof.