A federal appeals court has handed border agents sweeping new authority to search the contents of travelers’ cellphones without a warrant and without any individualized suspicion of wrongdoing.
In a decision issued Thursday, a divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that a manual cellphone search at the border is a “routine” search. Under the majority’s rule, federal officers do not need probable cause, reasonable suspicion or even a particularized hunch before scrolling through a traveler’s device.
The ruling is limited to manual searches, but that is cold comfort. A phone can expose years of private messages, photographs, medical information, financial records, contacts, political activity and other details that no suitcase could ever contain.
NEW: The Second Circuit ruled that federal officers may manually search travelers’ cellphones at the border without a warrant, probable cause, reasonable suspicion, or any individualized suspicion, holding that such searches are “routine” border searches.
— SCOTUS Wire (@scotus_wire) September 17, 2026
The case is United States v. Alisigwe. The defendant is a lawful permanent resident who was convicted on fraud-related charges.
Federal agents manually examined his phones during encounters at John F. Kennedy International Airport in 2019 and 2021.
The Second Circuit said the government’s longstanding authority to conduct suspicionless searches at the international border extends to manual searches of electronic devices. The majority also rejected the argument that the First Amendment requires a separate warrant or heightened-suspicion rule when a device contains expressive or associational material.
The district judge had treated cellphone searches as nonroutine and required reasonable suspicion, but concluded that agents had enough suspicion in this particular case. The appeals court majority went much further: it ruled that no suspicion was required at all.
That distinction matters. The panel could have affirmed the conviction on the narrower ground that officers had reasonable suspicion to search Alisigwe’s phones.
Instead, the majority announced a broad constitutional rule that applies to every traveler within the Second Circuit, including people who have done nothing to attract suspicion.
The court did leave one major question unresolved. It did not decide whether a more intrusive forensic search—using specialized software to recover, copy or analyze data—would require reasonable suspicion.
The court left open whether more intrusive forensic searches of electronic devices may require reasonable suspicion. The ruling applies to manual searches like those here, where officers scrolled through the phone and photographed information they found.
— SCOTUS Wire (@scotus_wire) September 17, 2026
But the line between “manual” and “forensic” does not solve the constitutional problem. An officer who opens a device and scrolls through private conversations, photographs, notes and account information can still learn an extraordinary amount about a person’s life.
In our view, this is a dangerous ruling, and it feels fundamentally incompatible with the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches.
The border-search exception has always given the government unusually broad power to inspect people and property entering the country. A smartphone, however, is not ordinary luggage. The Supreme Court recognized that basic reality in its 2014 Riley v. California decision, which required police to obtain a warrant before searching a phone seized during an arrest.
The majority distinguished Riley because this case arose at the border. Yet the core privacy concern does not disappear when a traveler reaches an airport inspection area.
The result is a troubling rule: merely crossing a border can expose the digital record of a person’s life to a government search, even when officers have no reason to suspect that traveler of wrongdoing.
Judge Eunice Lee concurred in the judgment but rejected the majority’s suspicionless-search rule. She argued that the court did not need to resolve the broader constitutional question because the district court had already found reasonable suspicion, and Alisigwe did not challenge that finding on appeal.
Judge Lee concurred only in the judgment and rejected suspicionless cellphone searches, arguing that phones are too privacy-invasive to be “routine.” She agreed no warrant or probable cause was required but would leave open what level of individualized suspicion is necessary.
— SCOTUS Wire (@scotus_wire) September 17, 2026
Lee’s separate opinion is the strongest sign that the majority’s reasoning is vulnerable. She warned that an unrestricted rule for manual phone searches wipes away Fourth Amendment protection in this setting and undermines essential privacy principles.
The Knight First Amendment Institute filed a friend-of-the-court brief because border device searches can expose far more than contraband. Phones can reveal confidential reporting, legal communications, political affiliations and the identities of sources or associates.
After Thursday’s decision, the institute said the panel had left that sensitive information open to government inspection without any reason to suspect wrongdoing. It warned that the rule threatens freedoms of speech, press and association alongside the Fourth Amendment privacy interests at the center of the case.
The institute also emphasized that suspicionless device searches can burden journalists and other travelers whose work depends on confidential digital records. Those concerns make the majority’s manual-versus-forensic distinction less reassuring: a simple scroll through messages, contacts and photographs can still expose protected relationships.
Bloomberg Law reported that the panel affirmed Alisigwe’s conviction and rejected his First Amendment challenge along with his Fourth Amendment claim. The immediate result is that the conviction stands and suspicionless manual searches remain permitted under the panel’s rule.
Still, this may not be the final word. Alisigwe can seek rehearing before the full Second Circuit and, after that, ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case.
I believe this sweeping no-suspicion rule is likely to be narrowed or overturned on further review. It is broader than necessary to decide this case, it rests on a strained attempt to treat a modern cellphone like an ordinary container, and it drew a constitutional warning from a member of the panel itself.
The defendant’s conduct is not the point. Constitutional limits are tested in hard cases, and the rule announced here does not stop with one fraud prosecution.
It gives federal officers power over the private digital lives of innocent travelers, journalists, lawyers, political activists, business owners and families.
That is too much power to grant without a warrant, without suspicion and without a compelling reason tied to the person being searched.
This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.
