Under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, Americans are generally protected from unreasonable searches and seizures by government agents. But we generally have less privacy at the border—usually when entering the United States from abroad. At present, border agents do not have to provide a warrant or have reasonable suspicion to search your laptop—they essentially just need a hunch. For some time now, civil liberties groups have been pressing to change that policy. At the very least, these groups would like to compel the government to explain its legal rationale. Back in February 2013, the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released an executive summary (PDF) of its findings to justify warrantless border searches of laptops.
