FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - What's in a Laptop? Court Ponders Legality of Border Searches
Old Jun 21, 2007 | 8:05 am
  #16  
Deeg
 
Join Date: May 2005
Posts: 628
Originally Posted by AArlington
Can they seize the equipment (absent any articulable probable cause or reasonable suspicion) if I tell them to pound sand when they ask for the password?
Nope. With the appropriate level of suspicion, it can be detained until they are able to access it. If you use good encryption and refuse to give up the password, I guess that detention would last forever. As far as I know, that has never happened. The legal challenge would be interesting. I expect the court would consider it a seizure at that point and require probable cause to sustain it.

Laptops have been previously held to be similar to a file cabinet. I think the analogy is fair. Both are capable of holding both private thoughts and contraband. If you are crossing the border by car and have a locked file cabinet in it, CBP should certainly have the authority to open it, with or without the passenger's cooperation.
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