DHS: "We can search you without a warrant"

Constitution?  What Constitution?

Dept. of Homeland Security: Laptops, phones can be searched based on hunches without a search warrant

U.S. border agents should continue to be allowed to search a traveler’s laptop, cellphone or other electronic device and keep copies of any data on them based on no more than a hunch, according to an internal Homeland Security Department study.

The report uses potential crime as the excuse to violate the Bill of Rights.  The DHS contends the Constitutional limiting of such searches would prevent the U.S. from detecting possible child pornographers or terrorists and expose the government to lawsuits somewhere in the future. 

Pure 100% Bullshit.

The 23-page report was obtained by The Associated Press and the American Civil Liberties Union under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. 


The report provides a rare glimpse of the Obama administration’s thinking on the long-standing but controversial practice of border agents and immigration officers searching and in some cases holding for weeks or months the digital devices of anyone trying to enter the U.S. reports CBS News.

Since his election, Comrade Barack Obama has taken an expansive view of legal authorities in the name of national security.

Obama is asserting that he can order the deaths of U.S. citizens abroad who are suspected of terrorism without involvement by courts, investigate reporters as criminals and — in this case — read and copy the contents of computers carried by U.S. travelers without a good reason to suspect wrongdoing.

The DHS study, dated December 2011, said the border searches do not violate the First or Fourth amendments, which prohibit restrictions on speech and unreasonable searches and seizures. It specifically objected to a tougher standard in a 1986 government policy that allowed for only cursory review of a traveler’s documents.

The Homeland Security report was prepared by its Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.

The ACLU, National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and other groups have sued to stop the practice, saying that it violates First and Fourth amendment rights.