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by snowwrestler
3207 days ago
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EDIT: I'll leave my comment below up for the record, but I'm probably wrong, and Canada above is probably right. CBP is not clear about what kind of "searches" they are counting in these stats, and they could well be only counting forensic searches, not cursory (the quick scroll through). --------- That number sounds reasonable to me. CBP has no reason to hide their activities because they believe they are faithfully enforcing the law. Electronic searches are not something agents do casually; federal agents do very few things casually on the clock. They're far too busy. Typically it has to be either a decision in advance (targeting a specific person) or a big set of warning signals at once that create a suspicious profile. I could be wrong about this; I don't have personal experience. But I've discussed these sorts of cases with friends who are federal agents and prosecutors. |
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If one "searches" a safe, and finds inside a paper with some random characters on it, the safe has been searched. The paper was there, it was discovered, the interior of the safe was viewed. The meaning of the characters may not be understood, but the safe was searched.
If one "searches" a phone, and finds inside some random pattern of bits, why is the search "not completed" until the bits are deciphered into something the agent understands?
It seems to me that the act of searching doesn't imply understanding what was found, yet for some reason all the public discourse - including legal analysis! - is predicated on the idea that "searching" a phone means deciphering its digital contents.