The Infinite Brief

The government has vigorously defended the searches, which rose to 33,295 in fiscal 2018, as a critical tool to protect America.

CBP and ICE policies allow border officers to manually search anyone’s smartphone with no suspicion at all, and to conduct a forensic search with reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing.

Travelers who have had their electronic devices searched at the border run increased odds of being subject to future device searches as they can be flagged in government databases for additional scrutiny on that basis.