US border agents must obtain a warrant, at least in New York, to search someone's phone and other electronic devices as they travel in or out of the country, another federal judge has ruled.
Can Border Patrol Search Your Phone Without Authorization? [POLICYbrief]
Judge Nina Morrison of the Eastern District of New York issued a ruling [PDF] last week that Customs and Border Patrol (CPB) officers need a warrant to search citizen and non-citizen electronics in all but the most exceptional circumstances.
"It is one thing for courts to give border officials the power to briefly detain and question air travelers and search their physical belongings," Judge Morrison said. "But it is quite another matter for courts to exempt these agents from the Fourth Amendment's probable cause and warrant requirements in the far more intrusive context of a cell phone search."
The case in question involved the detention and questioning of naturalized US citizen Kurbonali Sultanov at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport in March 2022 on suspicion of possessing child sexual abuse material (CSAM). After being told by CBP officers that he had no choice but to give them access to his phone, Sultanov gave his password and allowed officers to search his device.
