Suspicionless searches of electronics at the border ruled unconstitutional

Your entire life is on your phone, and that merits some basic privacy protections.

So ruled the United States District Court of Massachusetts on Nov. 12, declaring that Customs and Border Protection or ICE officials can no longer search the electronics of travelers at the border without individualized suspicion. In other words, it's officially unconstitutional for authorities to seize and search your smartphone or laptop at the border just because they feel like it.

This, it should go without saying, is a good thing — a fact emphasized by EFF senior attorney Sophia Cope.

"This is a great day for travelers who now can cross the international border without fear that the government will, in the absence of any suspicion, ransack the extraordinarily sensitive information we all carry in our electronic devices," observed Cope in an statement emailed to Mashable.

This, of course, has not always been the case. It was just this past April the ACLU revealed that, under oath, border officials admitted to searching whatever electronic devices they felt like.

"The government cannot use the pretext of the 'border' to make an end run around the Constitution," the ACLU wrote at the time. "The border is not a lawless place."

Well, it seems that the courts agree.

Today's decision was the result of a lawsuit brought on behalf of 11 people whose phones or computers were searched without individualized suspicion at the U.S. boarder. The ACLU, the EFF, and the ACLU of Massachusetts filed the suit in September of 2017.

Importantly, this debate is not merely an academic one. In 2017, CBP conducted 30,200 searches of electronic devices at the border. That number was up last year, with the ACLU noting approximately 33,000 searches.

According to the ACLU, "Border officers must now demonstrate individualized suspicion of contraband before they can search a traveler’s device."

In other words, border officials can still search devices — they just have to have a valid reason. As such, definitely still consider encrypting the contents of your phone and laptop.

And then, the next time you're traveling internationally, you can breathe a deep sigh of relief knowing that your dank digital memes — or private legal, medical, or financial records — are both legally and technically protected against arbitrary boarder guard snooping.