ACLU Files FOIA Request for Unreleased DHS Privacy Report on Laptop Searches at the Border

02/08/2013

ACLU Files FOIA Request for Unreleased DHS Privacy Report on Laptop Searches at the Border
By Katie Haas, ACLU Human Rights Program at 10:07am


Aiming to determine the impact of border searches on Americans’ civil liberties, the Department of Homeland Security has produced a report on its policy of combing through and sometimes confiscating travelers’ laptops, cell phones, and other electronic devices—even when there is no suspicion of wrongdoing. The report was completed sometime between October 2011 and September 2012, and last week DHS quietly posted only the executive summary on its website, without many people noticing.

The report draws the highly questionable conclusion that the border search policy does not violate our Fourth Amendment right to privacy, chill our First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and association, or even result in discriminatory search practices.

We know that answer can’t be right if we take our Fourth Amendment and First Amendment rights seriously—and the ACLU is working to demonstrate that in two lawsuits currently pending before federal courts. So how did the agency reach this conclusion? We don’t know, because DHS has not made the full report available to the public, and the executive summary does not explain any of the evidence or reasoning its conclusions are based on.

Today the ACLU filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act demanding the full report, called “Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Impact Assessment – Border Searches of Electronic Devices.” ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty-immigrants-rights-national-security/aclu-files-foia-request-unreleased