Crossing Borders, Crossing Rights: The Legal Battle Over Cell Phone Searches at the Border
Publication Date
2025
Presentation Length
15 minutes
College
College of Law
Department
Honors Program
Student Level
Graduate
SPARK Category
Research
Faculty Advisor
Kristi Arth
SPARK Session
Legal Scholarship
Presentation Type
Talk/Oral
Summary
The Fourth Amendment states that all people within the United States have a right “to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” As such, searches generally cannot be performed without obtaining a warrant supported by probable cause. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court of the United States has recognized certain exceptions to the warrant requirement.
The Supreme Court has taken steps to modernize the Constitution as technology evolves. In 2013, the Supreme Court held in Riley v. California that warrants are generally required before conducting a cell phone search incident to arrest because, otherwise, officers would be able to warrantlessly obtain “vast quantities of personal information” which far exceeds such information that could even be found in a home. And in 2018, the Supreme Court held in Carpenter v. United States that cell-site location information from cell phone records could not be obtained without a warrant to create a timeline of an individual’s movements because such a search is highly invasive due to the fact that carrying a cell phone “is indispensable to participation in modern society.”
Despite these rulings, the Supreme Court has not addressed the prevalent issue of the border search exception being used to circumvent the warrant requirement and search cell phones at the border. However, seven of the United States Circuit Courts of Appeals have incorrectly addressed the issue with a variety of decisions ranging from affording individuals no protection from cell phone searches at the border, to requiring at least reasonable suspicion for some. My Note utilizes the logic in Riley and Carpenter to explain why cell phone searches at the border conducted without a warrant supported by probable cause violate the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Recommended Citation
Gago, Patrick H., "Crossing Borders, Crossing Rights: The Legal Battle Over Cell Phone Searches at the Border" (2025). SPARK Symposium Presentations. 253.
https://repository.belmont.edu/spark_presentations/253
