A U.S. appeals court ruled that border agents in states covered by the Fourth Circuit can manually search travelers’ phones without any suspicion. In U.S. v. Belmonte Cardozo, the court said the lower constitutional standard for routine border searches applies when officers inspect a device by hand, while more intrusive forensic searches using extraction tools remain subject to stricter rules under earlier Fourth Circuit cases such as Kolsuz and Aigbekaen.
Why it matters: This expands the government’s ability to inspect sensitive personal data at the border, affecting travelers, journalists, activists, and anyone carrying private communications on a device. People crossing U.S. borders should assume manual phone searches may occur without suspicion and consider travel-data minimization, separate devices, or stronger device-hygiene practices.
Sophia Cope
2026.07.22
100% relevant
The article reports a specific new Fourth Circuit ruling that changes the practical privacy standard for manual border phone searches and is not the same event as any listed tracked story.
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