Here’s the @snowden tweet (well, retweet) that caught my eye:
ICYMI: Courts are chipping away at the USG view that laptops are merely “containers” to search freely at borders. https://t.co/ezUpnCf8lp
— Barton Gellman (@bartongellman) November 4, 2015
I mentioned this after our Citizenfour screening last night: The laws governing search and seizure at US borders aren’t the same as the laws that apply within the country. Specifically, searches and seizures at borders don’t require warrants. The tweet above references a recent course case that pushes back on this policy. The judge in the case ruled that the US government should not have seized (and searched) a laptop belonging to a South Korean businessman while he traveled through an LA airport, since they didn’t have a warrant.
Given all the time Snowden spent between borders in a Moscow airport in 2013, perhaps he has a personal interest in this story, in addition to a policy interest.
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