As the country looks ahead to the resumption of regular international travel after the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. Supreme Court has an opportunity to clarify a crucial constitutional right for the digital age: the right to keep our electronic data private and free from the prying eyes of border officers. The Supreme Court should affirm that the Fourth Amendment right to privacy is still meaningful in our era of rapid technological change.

For more than a decade now, federal government policy has claimed the authority to search our phones, laptops and other electronic devices, without a warrant or even any suspicion of wrongdoing, simply because we travel internationally. The consequences of this policy are alarming. Border officers claim the prerogative to search the phones of journalists, business people, medical professionals, lawyers, or anyone else carrying sensitive or privileged materials, without any judicial oversight. They also assert they can search a traveler's phone for information about other people, meaning they could search the phone of a U.S. citizen for information about their undocumented family members or friends, or search the phone of a business executive for information about their business partners.