I love the ruling.<p>Unfortunately we have a 5-4 split in the Supreme Court. The liberal minority only needs a single judge to come to their side to win this. However on civil liberties the trend has been negative. I'm therefore not particularly optimistic.
Again, the 9th circuit proves to be the best circuit. I would not be willing to live in the US outside the 9th circuit until a number of split circuit issues are resolved. Fortunately the 9th is the biggest and covers all the places I'd otherwise care about.<p>Think about how much less fucked weev would be next week if he were before Alex Kozinski rather than some NJ guy.
Great quote from a dissent opinion:<p>Now border agents, instead of knowing that they may search anyand all property that crosses the border for illegal articles, must ponder whether their searches are sufficiently “comprehensive and intrusive,” to require reasonable suspicion, and whether they have such suspicion.<p>He says it as if not being able to search everything and everybody and requiring the agents to consider the privacy implication and intrusiveness of the search and if is is warranted or not - is a bad thing!
Here's the problem: even with this ruling, there is nothing preventing the border patrol people from continuing to seize and search laptops and phones.<p>In other words: there is no adequate punishment for violating a citizen's constitutional rights. At most, the evidence (if any) can't be used in a court of law. But there is never any punishment. For example: the dude who was imprisoned in solitary in NM for 2 years, without a trial or being presented before a judge (6th Amendment?). Sure, he got a boatload of money; but _no one was punished_.
I'm all for changing titles when they make the topic clear to the reader or combat hyperbolic escalation. With that in mind what was wrong with the original title?<p><i>9th Circuit Appeals Court: 4th Amendment Applies At The Border; Also: Password Protected Files Shouldn't Arouse Suspicion</i><p>Other than grammatical errors what did the change of title provide?
I was impressed with the discussion of the implication of device access when all your data is in the cloud.<p>For more detailed discussion of the cotterman case see professor kerr's most recent post:<p><a href="http://www.volokh.com/2013/03/08/en-banc-ninth-circuit-holds-that-computer-forensic-searches-are-like-virtual-strip-searches-and-require-reasonable-suspicion-at-the-border/" rel="nofollow">http://www.volokh.com/2013/03/08/en-banc-ninth-circuit-holds...</a><p>And his earlier posts:<p><a href="http://www.volokh.com/2011/03/30/ninth-circuit-decides-cotterman-case-reversing-district-court-on-laptop-seizure-at-the-border/" rel="nofollow">http://www.volokh.com/2011/03/30/ninth-circuit-decides-cotte...</a><p><a href="http://www.volokh.com/2011/01/17/update-on-united-states-v-cotterman-ninth-circuit-case-applying-the-border-search-exception-to-computers/" rel="nofollow">http://www.volokh.com/2011/01/17/update-on-united-states-v-c...</a><p><a href="http://www.volokh.com/2012/07/02/ninth-circuit-en-banc-argument-in-united-states-v-cotterman/" rel="nofollow">http://www.volokh.com/2012/07/02/ninth-circuit-en-banc-argum...</a>
According to the article, password-protected <i>files</i> aren't reasonable grounds for suspicion. What about refusing to log into your machine or give up your login password?
Does ruling impact the DHS discussion from a couple days ago?
<a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5321036" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5321036</a>
<a href="http://www.aclu.org/national-security_technology-and-liberty/are-you-living-constitution-free-zone" rel="nofollow">http://www.aclu.org/national-security_technology-and-liberty...</a>
One interesting aspect to this case is that the majority actually ruled <i>for</i> the government, in that the incriminating evidence was not be suppressed. It's just that in doing so, they clarified some points of law along the way in a way we like.<p>That matters because it means that the government will not appeal the ruling, even though it might limit border agents in the future. It also means that if the defendent does get it appealed to the Supreme Court, the government would probably be ok if the Supreme Court ruled the same way.
My guess is that this will be overturned by SCOTUS <a href="http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/a_sixth_sense_6th_circuit_has_surpassed_the_9th_as_the_most_reversed_appeal/" rel="nofollow">http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/a_sixth_sense_6th...</a><p>There's a practical problem as well: if the 4th applies, getting warrants just to check a bag is gonna be a paine. Unless they create different rules for airports, you can do this but not that.