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Woman Sues US Border Agents Over Seized iPhone (bbc.com)
An American woman who had her phone seized by border agents as she returned home to the United States is suing the country's border protection agency. Bob the Super Hamste shares a report: Rejhane Lazoja was stopped at Newark airport, New Jersey, after returning from a trip to Switzerland in February. Her iPhone was seized by agents after she refused to unlock it for them. The lawsuit alleges that border agents took a copy of the data on her smartphone and failed to say whether it had been deleted. According to legal documents, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) kept the phone for more than 120 days before returning it to Ms Lazoja, who is a Muslim woman and wears a hijab. [...] "Neither was there probable cause, nor a warrant [to search the phone]. Therefore, the search and seizure of Ms Lazoja's property violated her rights under the Fourth Amendment," the filing says.
"Unreasonable" is a giant loophole, however, you can march a brigade of goons through it... See Border Search Exception...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
That would seem to be incorrect: Border Search Exception.
her lawyer should have told her that the border agents have that authority... as bad as it sounds...
That's debatable. Customs and Border Protection decided for themselves that they had the authority to search cell phones without a warrant, but that's being challenged in court.
The judge brought up the the similarity to a 2014 case where the Supreme Court held that police have to obtain a warrant to search a cellphone and refused to dismiss the case, so there's a reasonable chance of justice prevailing.