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Border Searches

With the number of border searches of electronic devices increasing every year, how can travelers keep their digital data safe? Our lives are extensively documented on the phones, laptops, and other electronic devices we carry. Our devices can store an unprecedented amount of highly personal information about us, including private emails and text messages, photos and videos, web browsing history, and other data that can reveal our political and religious affiliations, medical conditions, family and romantic lives, financial status, and much more. People in many professions, such as lawyers and journalists, have a heightened need to keep their digital data confidential. The U.S. Constitution generally places strong limits on the government’s ability to pry into our private lives. At the U.S. border, however, those limits are not as strong—a fact EFF is working to change. The “border search exception” to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement has traditionally permitted border agents to conduct warrantless and usually suspicionless searches on the legal assumption that travelers have negligible privacy interests in the contents of their luggage. The "border" includes ports of entry at the land borders, international airports, and seaports. But electronic devices turn this reasoning on its head: your privacy interests in your phone, laptop, or tablet are extraordinary given the vastness of storage capacity, variety of content, and personal aspects of your life that electronic devices contain. EFF argues that a warrant based on probable cause, issued by a judge, is required for border device searches. It’s past time for a new analysis of privacy at the border. EFF is working on many fronts to protect your digital rights when you cross the U.S. border: ●Read our security checklist for journalists. ●Read our one-pager conference handout for a brief summary of the issue. ●Read our comprehensive travel guide on how to protect your digital data when crossing the U.S. border, as well as our pocket guides. ●Learn the extensive facts about how CBP and ICE conduct border device searches that we uncovered during our civil case with ACLU, Merchant v. Mayorkas (formerly Alasaad v. [DHS Secretary]), where we represented 11 plaintiffs in challenging under the First and Fourth Amendments the U.S. government’s practice of conducting warrantless and suspicionless border searches of electronic devices. ●Read one of our many amicus briefs: Elsharkawi v. United States (9th Circuit) and United States v. Kamaldoss (2d Circuit). ●Read the whitepaper we wrote for the American Constitution Society and the article for the State Bar of Texas. ●Read our analysis of proposed legislation. ●Read our analysis of CBP’s current (2018) border device search policy. Check out all of our work on border searches below, and join EFF to help support our efforts.

Self-Help Options If Your Device Was Seized or You're Repeatedly Referred to Secondary Inspection

●If your device was seized, did you get the name and contact information of a CBP or ICE supervisor when you received the custody receipt (Form 6051D)? If so, try contacting them. Otherwise, try contacting the relevant port of entry or field office. ●File a complaint with the DHS Traveler Redress Inquiry Program (DHS TRIP). ●File a complaint with CBP. ●Contact ICE (e.g., Office of Information Governance & Privacy or Office of Diversity & Civil Rights). ●File a DHS civil rights/civil liberties complaint. ●Contact the DHS Inspector General. ●For U.S. persons: Contact your senatorsorcongressional representative, and ask them to contact CBP/ICE on your behalf.  ●File a Freedom of Information Act/Privacy Act request. You can submit requests via the CBP website or the ICE website. You can also use the nonprofit website Muckrock to file requests with CBPorICE.

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EFF Related Content: Border Searches

icon of a border agent examining digital devices

Press Release | June 23, 2025

New Journalism Curriculum Module Teaches Digital Security for Border Journalists

SAN FRANCISCO – A new college journalism curriculum module teaches students how to protect themselves and their digital devices when working near and across the U.S.-Mexico border. “Digital Security 101: Crossing the US-Mexico Border” was developed by Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Director of Investigations Dave Maass and Dr. Martin Shelton,... ●Read more about New Journalism Curriculum Module Teaches Digital Security for Border Journalists

Deeplinks Blog by Guest Author, Dave Maass, Sophia Cope | June 23, 2025

A Journalist Security Checklist: Preparing Devices for Travel Through a US Border

●Español We wrote this checklist to help journalists prepare for transit through a U.S. port of entry while preserving the confidentiality of your most sensitive information, such as unpublished reporting materials or source contact information. It’s important to think about your strategy in advance, and begin planning which options in this... ●Read more about A Journalist Security Checklist: Preparing Devices for Travel Through a US Border

Deeplinks Blog bySophia Cope | November 26, 2024

EFF Tells the Second Circuit a Second Time That Electronic Device Searches at the Border Require a Warrant

EFF, along with ACLU and the New York Civil Liberties Union, filed a second amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit urging the court to require a warrant for border searches of electronic devices, an argument EFF has been making in the ... ●Read more about EFF Tells the Second Circuit a Second Time That Electronic Device Searches at the Border Require a Warrant

Deeplinks Blog bySophia Cope | November 8, 2024

EFF to Second Circuit: Electronic Device Searches at the Border Require a Warrant

EFF, along with ACLU and the New York Civil Liberties Union, filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit urging the court to require a warrant for border searches of electronic devices, an argument EFF has been making in the courts... ●Read more about EFF to Second Circuit: Electronic Device Searches at the Border Require a Warrant

Press Release | May 6, 2024

EFF Zine on Surveillance Tech at the Southern Border Shines Light on Ever-Growing Spy Network

SAN FRANCISCO—Sensor towers controlled by AI, drones launched from truck-bed catapults, vehicle-tracking devices disguised as traffic cones—all are part of an arsenal of technologies that comprise the expanding U.S surveillance strategy along the U.S.-Mexico border, revealed in a new EFF zine for advocates, journalists, academics, researchers, humanitarian aid workers, and... ●Read more about EFF Zine on Surveillance Tech at the Southern Border Shines Light on Ever-Growing Spy Network

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