Customs and Border Protection (CBP) insists that it has the right to search Americans' private data without a warrant when entering the country. But ordered to explain one of these searches by a judge, the agency is now trying to wiggle out from under the microscope, invoking its own data privacy.

On Friday, Judge Leonie M. Brinkema in the Eastern District of Virginia ordered CBP to explain the seizure of a local psychiatric nurse's phone and laptop at Washington Dulles International Airport. CBP argued that the court should seal this information from both the public and the nurse himself in order to protect "privileged law enforcement information."

Brinkema initially agreed to let CBP file parts of its response "sealed and ex parte," meaning that neither the public nor the nurse would get to look at them. After reading the filings, the judge declared on Tuesday afternoon "that most of the redacted information is not privileged law enforcement information and should not be sealed." She gave CBP until Thursday at noon to object to unsealing the documents.

"Without knowing what happened, we cannot assess the extent of CBP's violation of our clients' rights. This raises serious concerns about government improperly invoking privilege to cover up wrongdoing," says Jenin Younes, a civil libertarian lawyer and president of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee, who is representing the nurse. "The court was right to unseal most of the redacted material so we can assess the extent to which the government behavior was improper."

Younes has stacked up a series of victories against CBP's electronic searches. Over the past few months, she sued on behalf of lawyer Jalal "Jay" Shehadeh and (non-Arab) journalist Max Blumenthal, both of whom had their phones seized at the airport by CBP without explanation. CBP tried to preempt a legal battle by giving their phones back almost immediately. Younes is still pressing to get information about what happened to their data.

Although CBP policy states that the agency will delete all data within 21 days unless there is "probable cause to believe the information contains digital contraband or evidence of a violation of law that CBP is authorized to enforce or administer," a 2018 lawsuit seemed to show that CBP was holding onto the data until someone bothered to demand its return.

Psychiatric nurse Muhammad Numaan Imam's case started similarly to Shehadeh's and Blumenthal's cases. CBP agents demanded to open his phone at the airport without explanation. He refused, arguing that patient emails and case-management software were protected by privacy laws. CBP then confiscated all of his and his wife Khadijah Mansoor's electronics. Almost immediately after Younes filed the suit on his behalf, CBP tried to argue that the case was moot because it was giving back the phone.

But Brinkema immediately agreed with Imam and Mansoor's "legitimate concerns about what was done with their electronic devices," ordering CBP to "explain why the devices of both plaintiffs were seized" and to provide sworn statements from "each person who handled any of the devices" describing exactly what was done to them.

On Monday night, the court published heavily redacted declarations from CBP Assistant Port Director Lauren Colgan, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) technician Caige McCabe, and CBP technician Ashlie Fisch.

"Mr. Imam and Ms. Mansoor presented valid, un-expired travel documents to CBP Officers in the primary inspection and were referred for secondary inspection," Colgan's declaration states. The next few sentences are blacked out. The declaration then recounts the couple explaining their early return from their anniversary vacation in Turkey and states that the CBP officer asked to open their electronics, without explaining why.

"Because of Mr. Imam's and Ms. Mansoor's refusal to provide access to their electronic devices, CBP informed Mr. Imam and Ms. Mansoor their devices would be detained to continue the border search," Colgan continues, noting that Port Director Christine Waugh signed off on holding the devices for more than five days, as CBP policy requires.

On October 17, a day after CBP seized the phones, it asked DHS headquarters for "technical assistance" with Imam's devices according to McCabe. "My examination of Mr. Imam's phone was limited to device specifications and high-level file-system structure," he states in the declaration. The next few sentences are blacked out. "I did not access or view the contents of Mr. Imam's laptop," McCabe continues. The next few sentences after that are also blacked out. "I did not access any medical information" on either the phone or laptop, McCabe concludes, stating that the devices were in his custody until he handed them back to CBP on October 21.

Fisch then received Imam's devices at CBP Laboratories and Scientific Services. Everything of substance in her declaration is redacted, beyond taking the devices on October 21 and sending them back to Washington Dulles Airport the next day. There is no unredacted explanation of what happened to Mansoor's devices.

Brinkema argued in her Tuesday order that only two sentences, both from Colgan's declaration, were legitimately blacked out. "Accordingly, the Court will unseal all other redacted information in the Declarations unless the defendants can show good cause why such information should not be unsealed," she wrote.

U.S. law gives border officers much wider authority to search for contraband in situations where normal police would need a warrant or probable cause under the Fourth Amendment. CBP argues that its powers extend to searching and seizing travelers' electronics without any explanation at all. Courts have given contradictory rulings on how far those searches can go, and the Supreme Court hasn't weighed in yet, leaving a gray area that CBP is happy to take advantage of.

Imam's case has resulted in "the most detailed explanation of what the government did with our clients' electronic devices—or it would be if so much wasn't redacted," Younes tells Reason. "I look forward to seeing the unredacted versions."

The post CBP Really Doesn't Want To Reveal What It Does to Americans' Phones appeared first on Reason Magazine.

One of the unfortunate quirks of the American system is that you can't lie to the government, but the government can lie to you. Samuel Tunick found himself on the receiving end of this setup last year at Atlanta International Airport. When agents from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) asked for his phone password, he allegedly gave them a self-destruct code that wiped his data. Tunick now faces five years in prison for destroying evidence.

It turns out that the feds were lying to Tunick the entire time. A new court filing, first reported by 404 Media, shows that the DHS had sent out an order to seize Tunick's phone over his involvement in environmentalist protests in Atlanta. When he landed at the airport, however, agents told Tunick that they were looking for "kiddie porn" and he would be allowed to leave with his phone if he cooperated. They also repeatedly denied him access to his lawyer when he asked.

"There can be no real debate that if law enforcement had acted similarly elsewhere in Atlanta, their actions would be unconstitutional. But the government says it was entitled to act this way because Mr. Tunick was returning from an international vacation" in the Dominican Republic, his lawyers wrote in the filing, which includes internal DHS communications and excerpts from his interrogation video.

U.S. law recognizes a "border exception" to Fourth Amendment privacy rights, allowing federal agents to search incoming travelers for contraband. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) claims that this exemption also allows them to hold travelers for questioning and search their electronic data. Tunick's case reveals just how widely the agency stretches this loophole.

A few hours before Tunick landed, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agent Travis Mcghie emailed the CBP station in Atlanta with his photo and information, stating that he is under investigation for "suspected terrorist activities." (Tunick is involved in Save the Atlanta Forest, also known as Stop Cop City, a protest movement against a local police training center.) The email asked CBP to "conduct a 100% baggage exam, retain all electronics and collect passcodes," stating that the HSI will be at the airport to conduct an interrogation.

Pulled into the secondary screening room, Tunick "almost immediately" told CBP officers that "I don't really want to speak without a lawyer any more," according to the filing, which cites the interrogation tape. He would ask for a lawyer multiple times.

The agents asked Tunick if he had "kiddie porn" on his phone and stated that "because you're refusing to talk, we have the authority to go through your phone to see what we're looking for." One of them, Latoya Castro, told Tunick that "either you can give us your password so that we can go through it no problem, or you can refuse to do that, unfortunately, we will have to seize your phone."

Both of those statements were a lie, of course. The HSI's email had asked CBP to take Tunick's phone, whether or not he cooperated.

The lie about child porn may not only have been meant to intimidate Tunick. While there are contradictory lower court rulings about the border search exemption, some courts have ruled that the CBP can only search electronics for "digital contraband," or files that are themselves illegal. A search for child sex abuse material would be on stronger legal ground than a search for mere evidence of other crimes.

Tunick was using GrapheneOS, a secure phone system that allows users to set both a real password and a "duress password" that wipes out all data when entered. The interrogation tape shows his phone appearing to reset after he gave the officers a passcode. HSI agent Nathan Burnham and FBI agent Andrea Coble then entered the room.

"You are not under arrest. Once these gentlemen are done with you, pursuant to your entry into the country, you're free to leave," Burnham said, referring to the CBP officers.

Tunick's lawyers argue that the judge should throw out the phone password Tunick provided and everything that resulted from entering it as an "involuntary" response made under "unlawful interrogation," because the CBP agents did not read Tunick his Fifth Amendment rights and ignored his multiple requests to consult with his lawyer before answering their questions.

The CBP claims that secondary screening at the border doesn't count as a criminal investigation, so detainees don't have the same rights as criminal suspects. "Since the international arrivals inspection is an administrative function, CBP policy and federal regs do not permit the presence of lawyers during secondary examinations," a spokesman told Reason earlier this year.

But Tunick's lawyers insist that his experience was "far outside" a normal border crossing: He was accused of a serious crime to his face, faced an investigation for a different serious crime he didn't know about, and clearly could not leave the situation until he gave information to government agents.

"I hope people understand that the charges against me are meant to intimidate people against protecting their data and their privacy, and the government hopes to set a precedent that no one has the right to privacy," Tunick told 404 Media. 

Defend the Atlanta Forest, the movement that Tunick is involved with, has been a major nuisance for authorities in Georgia. Protesters attacked and burned construction equipment throughout 2022, and police shot a protester in 2023 under unclear circumstances, claiming that they were fired at during a raid.

The Trump administration has brought down the federal government against the movement. In June 2026, the Department of Justice brought federal charges against two alleged arsonists, citing National Security Presidential Memo 7, which directs the feds to go after left-wing domestic terrorism.

But beyond the email line about "suspected terrorist activities," there is no indication of what specific crimes the feds suspected Tunick of, or why they suspected him. And the whole setup of the interrogation was designed to hide those answers. In fact, instead of charging Tunick under typical obstruction or evidence-destruction laws, federal prosecutors chose a rarely-used statute that doesn't require them to disclose what the underlying investigation was about.

"Many times the government wants to highlight what it was trying to investigate because that ups the stakes on what the defendant was doing," former prosecutor Daniel Richman told The New York Times. "This is a case where I think they're trying to avoid exactly that by focusing only on the destruction, and not what the investigation was about." 

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