Border security
The Department of Homeland Security has reported that searches of cellphones by border agents increased five-fold in just one year, and despite protections under the Fourth Amendment against unlawful search and seizure, the practice is completely legal.
Searches of cellphones increased from fewer than 5,000 in 2015 to nearly 25,000 in 2016, and according to
NBC News, the practice, called “detaining” cellphones by CBP agents, began a decade ago during the George W. Bush administration, but at the time, it was highly focused on specific individuals.
Two senior intelligence officers told NBC that the more aggressive tactics of the last two years are a result of a string of domestic incidents in 2015 and 2016 in which the watch list system and the FBI failed to stop American citizens from conducting attacks. New abilities make it easier to extract contact lists, travel patterns and other data very quickly from phones.
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