A federal judge ruled on Tuesday that government officials have the right to search travelers' electronics regardless of whether there was reason for suspicion.
Judge Edward R. Korman of the Federal District struck down a lawsuit originally brought to court in 2010 that disputed law enforcement officials' right to comb through devices because the plaintiffs didn't have standing for their suit, the New York Times reported. Korman said that these kinds of examinations don't happen often enough and "there is not a substantial risk that their electronic devices will be subject to a search or seizure without reasonable suspicion."
Korman continued that even if the plaintiff had showed suffering enough injury to warrant standing in the case, Fourth Amendment constitutional rights concerning unlawful searches doesn't involve the United States' border-securing efforts, according to the Associated Press.
"There's no silver lining to this decision," lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union Catherine Crump told the Times. "It's not just that we lost the case. It's that the judge decided against us on multiple alternative grounds."
McGill University graduate student Pascal Abidor first filed the lawsuit three years ago, after he was stopped at the Canadian border by American agents who took him off of the Amtrak train he was riding into New York. He was reportedly cuffed, thrown into a cell then interrogated for a number of hours. According to the Times, authorities then took him laptop and held it for 11 days.
In Korman's ruling, he expanded on how little electronic device searches actually happen, adding that some travelers don't really need to bring such items as laptops on trips.
"While it is true that laptops may make overseas work more convenient," he wrote, "the precautions plaintiffs may choose to take to 'mitigate' the alleged harm associated with the remote possibility of a border search are simply among the many inconveniences associated with international travel."
For Abidor, the ruling didn't come as much of a surprise.
"I can't say it wasn't foreseeable based on the line of questioning by the judge during the initial hearing," Abidor told the Times. "He just seemed so skeptical of the basic premise that people need to travel with devices."
The ACLU is reportedly mulling filing an appeal, but Crump said the organization has not yet decided.
