U.S. court allows searches of laptops

By Julia Cheever

April 21, 2008

A federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled today that travelers entering the United States at borders or airports don’t have a right to expect their laptop computers won’t be searched.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said customs agents can search the contents of computers of people entering the country even if the agents have no suspicion of wrongdoing.

A court panel issued the ruling in the case of Michael Arnold, whose laptop computer was searched at Los Angeles International Airport in 2005 when he arrived after a trip to the Philippines.

After agents allegedly found child pornography on the computer, he was indicted on charges of transporting and possessing the material.

Arnold sought to have the charges dismissed on the ground the search was unconstitutional. He argued that a laptop should have greater protection from searches than other types of luggage because a computer is “like the human mind” in its capacity to record ideas.

A federal trial judge in Los Angeles agreed and suppressed the findings of the search, saying that “electronic storage devices function as an extension of our own memory.”

But a three-judge panel of the appeals court overturned that ruling and reinstated the charges against Arnold.

Circuit Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain wrote in the decision that computers are similar to other closed containers, such as suitcases, wallets and pockets.

The U.S. Supreme Court and other federal courts have held that because of the importance of border security, customs agents can search closed containers without having a particular suspicion of wrongdoing.

O’Scannlain wrote, “Arnold has failed to distinguish how the search of his laptop and its electronic contends is logically any different from the suspicionless border searches of travelers’ luggage that the Supreme Court and we have upheld.”

The ruling could be appealed to an expanded 11-judge panel of the appeals court.

FCJ Editor

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