Trump Should Need a Warrant to See Your Phone
Federal officers can too easily comb through the most intimate details of your life.
TL;DR
- An activist faced a felony charge for using a duress password to delete his phone's data when approached by federal agents at an airport.
- Federal agents can search cellphones at international borders without a warrant, a practice allowed by the 'border exception' and upheld by some court decisions.
- This loophole bypasses the Supreme Court's 2014 ruling in *Riley v. California*, which requires warrants for cellphone searches by police.
- Critics argue that phones contain vast amounts of personal data, making warrantless border searches a significant privacy violation.
- There are concerns that this practice, which saw an increase under the Trump administration, could be used to target activists and political opponents.
- Legislation has been proposed to close this loophole, requiring warrants for most border searches of electronic devices.