Activists want to know why feds are searching more devices at the border

Enlarge (credit: William Hook)

A free speech advocacy organization sued the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Monday, seeking "statistical, policy, and assessment records regarding the government's searches" of digital devices at the United States border.

The group, the Knight First Amendment Institute based at Columbia University, said on Twitter that the lawsuit came about as a result of recent journalism on the issue.

We're suing after @cynthiamcfadden & @nbcnews reported on a dramatic increase in border device searches since 2015. https://t.co/iIZS3ABKM2 pic.twitter.com/h0GTKMLAqW

- Knight 1st Amendment (@knightcolumbia) March 27, 2017

Ars and other media reported that there has been a rapid uptick in the number of such incidents: February 2017 alone had more border searches of phones, tablets, and computers than all of 2015.

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