KQED: Traveling Internationally? What to Know About Airport Phone Searches at the US Border

This means that if government officials — like your local police department or a federal agency — want to search your home as part of an investigation, they would need a warrant, usually provided by a judge. “But at the border, that changes,” said Tom McBrien, counsel at the nonprofit Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). 

For decades, the federal government has argued that certain privacy protections should be waived in situations where national security may be at risk — and many courts have been receptive to this argument, McBrien said. 

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