The authorities may seize laptops, cameras and other digital devices at the U.S. border without a warrant, and scour through them for days hundreds of miles away, a federal appeals court ruled.

The 2-1 decision (.pdf) Wednesday by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals comes as the government is increasingly invoking its broad, warrantless search-and-seizure powers at the U.S. border to probe the digital lives of travelers.

Under the "border search exception" of United States law, international travelers, including U.S. citizens, can be searched without a warrant as they enter the country. Under the Obama administration, law enforcement agents have aggressively used this power to search travelers' laptops, sometimes copying the hard drive before returning the computer to its owner.

Courts have ruled that such laptop searches can take place even in the absence of any reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing, and more than 6,500 persons have had their electronic devices searched in this manner since October 2008.

The issue has gained renewed attention in recent months as American computer geeks connected to WikiLeaks, or who know people connected with WikiLeaks, have found themselves repeatedly singled out for the searches.

At issue in the case decided Wednesday was the prosecution of a California man on child pornography charges. In 2007, ICE agents seized three laptops and a camera from convicted child molester Howard Cotterman, and transported them 170 miles away for a two-day search that uncovered hundreds of child porn images.

A lower court judge threw out the evidence, finding that the border exception did not apply when the search went beyond the border area.

The government appealed. Cotterman's lawyers argued that law enforcement should only be allowed to search digital devices at points of entry where they have the necessary equipment and personnel on hand.

"We find this position simply untenable," 9th Circuit Judge Richard Tallman wrote for the majority, reinstating the evidence. Limiting searches "would only reward those individuals who, either because of the nature of their contraband or the sophistication of their criminal enterprise, hide their contraband more cleverly or would be inclined to seek entry at more vulnerable points less equipped to discover them."

The court also affirmed that "particularized suspicion" was not required for a border search.

In dissent, Judge Betty Fletcher wrote that the government should have had a better reason to search Cotterman other than him being a convicted in 1992 of child molestation.

"I add my voice to the chorus lamenting the apparent demise of the Fourth Amendment," Fletcher wrote.

Photo: BenKulbertis/Flickr

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