Draft law to require warrants for border device searches

Much like many of us in the tech industry, coming up with a basic framework for automation in a 24 hr period can be done.

Obviously in both cases more work needs to be done but the basics are there. And researching egregious border guard incidents is a quick internet search away. One hour of that will have you fuming.

No, I think on less than 24 hours, he's directed his staff to do so, and they have.

> Or maybe is it the case that this work has been ongoing for months...?

It may leverage background work that has been done in the past without being directed at a specific legislative outcome; finding that existing work, presenting a summary and recommended course of action, and then following through with drafting a bill is fairly routine legislative staff work, and there's certainly lots of work that's been done and is available on the issue from both government and non-government sources that staff could readily find, summarize, and present as the basis for an action decision.

Well, okay. Ideally, in the case of non-citizens, we would figure out the ones we wanted to exclude before issuing them visas, but that process can't be perfect, and a case can be made for allowing CBP agents to take a closer look at them and exercise their discretion.

Two points about that. First, as koenigdavidmj points out, this can't apply to citizens. The only possible reason for examining information carried by citizens is to make the CBP an extension of the police, and once you've done that, Fourth Amendment protections have to apply. (Obviously this is my personal opinion only, not something the courts have said; but the argument seems very straightforward to me.)

And secondly, there are reasons to think this is not going to be a very effective filter, to the point that it's probably not even worth doing. Once word gets out among America's enemies, as it surely has long ago, of the need not to carry incriminating information across the border, sophisticated adversaries simply won't do it. You might catch some low-level criminals, but really, what do you think the false negative rate is? By their own admission, the CBP are searching a small fraction of electronic devices, so the chance of them catching even a stupid miscreant seems under 10%; for the smart ones it's probably under 1%. This is particularly true if all they profile for is dark-skinned men with strange names -- like Sidd Bikkannavar.

Such is undoubtedly why bills of this nature are smothered in committee by politicians who are so secure in their gerrymandered districts that they could bite the head off of a baby on live television the day before election day and still win the seat.