Originally Posted by PTravel
I've never questioned the constitutionality of border searches. I was focused, solely, on the prohibition against importation of "immoral" material in the statute. Any Customs agent who seized, for example, the copy of Catcher in the Rye that I bought overseas on the grounds that it was immoral would, in my opinion, have committed a First Amendment violation, at least, and probably a Fifth Amendment violation as well (it's not "due process of law" if the standard applied is, itself, illegal).
One of my high school teachers was an older English lady. Back in her younger years, she actually had a book seized by US Customs as being "immoral". I believe it was
Lady Chatterley's Lover, but I'm not 100% certain. The immorality portion of that statute hasn't been used in decades, though, to the best of my knowledge.
BTW, I'm not sure it is a Fifth Amendment violation. The statute specifies that the article is merely detained until judicial forfeiture is obtained. Wouldn't that protect due process? (At least, that's how I read it. I'm not sure how it works in real life.)