NEW YORK — Civil-rights lawyers sued the government Tuesday to stop authorities from snooping in the laptops, cellphones and cameras of international travelers without probable cause.
The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn against the Department of Homeland Security as well as U.S. customs and immigration authorities. It says more than 6,500 people have had their electronic devices searched as they crossed U.S. borders since October 2008. Nearly half of those searched were U.S. citizens.
The American Civil Liberties Union, the New York Civil Liberties Union and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers filed the lawsuit on behalf of the National Press Photographers Association, criminal-defense lawyers and student Pascal Abidor, a 26-year-old French-American citizen whose laptop computer was confiscated at the Canadian border.
The civil-rights groups said photographers regularly travel abroad with cameras, laptops and media-storage devices to cover global news stories and rely on their ability to communicate confidentially with sources. They said many of the defense lawyers have similar confidentiality concerns as they travel abroad with laptops, BlackBerrys and other cellphones.
