Obama to Continue Bush Policy of Searching Travelers' Personal Effects Without Cause

Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet at 8:44 AM on August 28, 2009.

WaPo:

The Obama administration will largely preserve Bush-era procedures allowing the government to search -- without suspicion of wrongdoing -- the contents of a traveler's laptop computer, cellphone or other electronic device, although officials said new policies would expand oversight of such inspections.

The policy, disclosed Thursday in a pair of Department of Homeland Security directives, describes more fully than did the Bush administration the procedures by which travelers' laptops, iPods, cameras and other digital devices can be searched and seized when they cross a U.S. border. And it sets time limits for completing searches.

But representatives of civil liberties and travelers groups say they see little substantive difference between the Bush-era policy, which prompted controversy, and this one.

"It's a disappointing ratification of the suspicionless search policy put in place by the Bush administration," said Catherine Crump, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union. "It provides a lot of procedural safeguards, but it doesn't deal with the fundamental problem, which is that under the policy, government officials are free to search people's laptops and cellphones for any reason whatsoever."

Doesn't Catherine Crump, staff attorney for the ACLU, know that there are dangerous terrorists out there who hate us for our freedoms?

Tagged as: bush, obama, due process, civil liberties, travelers

Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer at AlterNet.