9 Horror Stories From People Who Had Their Electronic Devices Searched at the Border
The border agents are extremely aware of how our rights are set aside near the border. The stories in the article are about people entering the country. But a more accurate take is you don’t need to be entering. You can be just transiting along the border on highway 8, and have all the same issues.
With the anti immigration anti brown people supremacist in the oval office this will get far worse.
Traveling to the United States can be a huge hassle. Even if you’re an American citizen, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) can pull you aside for extensive and invasive “secondary screening.” And by all accounts, this process has gotten worse since Donald Trump was elected. But it was horrible even before Trump gained power.
How horrible? I filed a Freedom of Information Act request (FOIA) back in April of 2016 for complaints lodged by average people against CBP. Specifically, I was interested in traveler complaints filed with CBP for searches of electronic devices during border crossings. So I asked for precisely that. And a year and a half later, I finally got some of the complaints. Exactly 163 pages worth, stretching back two years.
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