Thread by @janawinter

Wowwww CBP now needs warrant to search electronic devices of people crossing border. Just wow— huge huge deal.

https://twitter.com/jameeljaffer/status/1816861109300711511

Ok I’m gonna go back to tweeting about this absolutely enormous court ruling on warrantless phone/computer device searches at border. This is big news obv for journalists etc but also a huge blow to the way the US tracks people —espec American DVEs tied to US extremist groups

So many investigations begin w something from search of electronic device/phone at border. I’ve seen A LOT of CBP intel bulletins over years with details on these searches re Russian diplomats, U.S. foreign fighters and Proud Boys networks —is this now fruit of poisonous tree?

The US—particularly Biden admin—relies a lot on Canada for tracking of Americans tied to extremist groups inside the US. Without a domestic terrorism statute US can’t investigate someone for being member of group (no DT statute = a good thing). Canada gonna be doing a lot more…

I could literally talk about this all day lol sorry in advance tho you all prob already know I’ve been obsessed w border device searches & how US uh encouraged Canada to designate Proud Boys, other US DVE groups as terrorist orgs so US can track them as foreign terrorist orgs etc

Here’s an example of where I think this ruling would come into play (based on CBP intel docs): CBP searches devices of US/Brit/Ru phone coming back into US and see group pic of all them at say, Charlottesville. Then people in pic are ID and passed along for further investigation

Lemme finishing reading rest of this ruling but cannot overstate how big this is (I imagine there will be an appeal, but like for now ya know)

Also I’m freelancing—who among you wants to commission an article on this based on exclusive CBP intel docs?

I haven’t even talked about Domex yet! Where they take your phone and make electronic copy of your device (like literally everything, contacts, texts, signal messages, pics etc) which feeds into CBP/FBI/Terrorist Screening Center (part of FBI) watchlisting/targeting databases

Interesting and surely not unintentional that this case from court ruling involves JFK airport —this is where CBP runs a ton of this kind of stuff/searches (I will check what it’s called but its name does not appear in google search or didn’t last I check month ago or so).

The ruling includes quotes from witness statements including from HSI folks who do these searches (HSI is investigative arm of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and is of course, like one bagillion other agencies, part of the (way too) behemoth dept that is @DHSgov).

I’ve written a ton on these issues but best example most relevant example is prob the Arianna Huffington reference in this Operation Whistlepig story yahoo.com/news/operation…

Shout-out to all my Canadian border and DT (our DT, your FT) folks who I know follow me on here —pls reach out

Recently I obtained an unclassified CBP Intel bulletin about teenagers with suspected ISIS or DVE ties w some names in footnotes. CBP report shared w a ton of agencies like FBI—all based on (northern) border phone searches court now says can’t be done w out warrant. So now what?

(Should add these internal gov (unclassified) CBP reports based on warrantless phone searches at border also get sent to not just FBI and other state and local police nationwide. Seems like all this, entire pipeline of intel/investigative leads ends w this court ruling.