Appeals court upholds search of laptop at LAX
http://www.dailybreeze.com/ci_9009312By Denise Nix, Staff Writer
Article Launched: 04/21/2008 11:26:11 PM PDT
It may hold our financial records, innermost thoughts and pictures of our loved ones - but there's nothing private about a laptop computer at the nation's borders, a federal appeals court ruled Monday.
In a closely watched search-and-seizure case, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court's decision to toss evidence of alleged child pornography found on a traveler's computer at Los Angeles International Airport.
Michael Timothy Arnold was a 44-year-old Orange County math teacher when he arrived July 17, 2005, at the LAX customs counter after a three-week trip in the Philippines.
Two U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officers turned on his laptop, clicked on a file and found a photo of two nude women, according to the opinion.
Arnold was detained and his computer and other equipment were searched. Numerous images of alleged child pornography were found.
Arnold was later charged with possessing and transporting child pornography, and faces up to 30 years in federal prison if convicted.
But U.S. District Court Judge Dean Pregerson ruled that the evidence found on the laptop was inadmissible. Pregerson found that electronic storage devices are an extension of our memories and thoughts, and cannot be legally searched without reasonable suspicion.
Federal prosecutors appealed, arguing successfully that the law allows searches at the nation's borders without reasonable suspicion.
"Arnold has
failed to distinguish how the search of his laptop and its electronic contents is logically any different from the suspicionless border searches of travelers' luggage that the Supreme Court and we have allowed," wrote Justice Diarmuid O'Scannlain.
Arnold argued that a laptop is like a home - and therefore receives the same privacy protections. But O'Scannlain countered that you cannot live in a laptop and it travels with you, so there is less privacy expectation.
"The appeals court has upheld the authority of customs officials to control what enters the United States," U.S. Attorney Thomas P. O'Brien said in a statement. "The government needs to have the ability to restrict harmful material from entering the country, whether that be weapons used by terrorists, dangerous narcotics or child pornography."
A message left for Arnold's attorney was not returned.
Legal experts who have followed the case say they are not surprised by the opinion. They found it consistent with both court rulings in similar cases and the government's emphasis on border security - especially in the wake of 9-11.
"I think it will surprise people that their laptops are subject to search without any level of suspicion when they get to a border checkpoint," added Jennifer Chacon, a law professor at the University of California, Davis.
"I think it may change the way people travel," she said.
Chacon warned that people carrying laptops with proprietary business information should know that a government agent has the right to search their computers at the border.
"As people become aware of this possibility, companies may be clearer with their employees about when they should carry their laptops across borders, and people may be more cautious," Chacon said.
It's not likely the U.S. Supreme Court will hear the issue, given that another Circuit Court issued a similar ruling in a different case.
In 2005, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., upheld a conviction for a man who crossed the Canadian border with a computer holding child pornography.
denise.nix@dailybreeze.com
