The photocopying of a traveler's document by Customs and Border Protection officers who have a reasonable belief the person entering the United States is engaged in criminal activity is legal under the border search doctrine, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has ruled.

Affirming the conviction of stock manipulator David Levy, the circuit said that border officers can act on the reasonable suspicion of another federal agency when they go beyond inspection of a document, copying it for possible use in a criminal trial.

The decision came in United States v. Levy, 14-338-cr, where Judges Peter Hall and Raymond Lohier and Judge Jeffrey Meyer of the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut said Levy's constitutional rights were not violated by the copying of the spiral-bound notebook Levy was carrying at Miami International Airport when he was returning to the United States from Panama on Dec. 17, 2011.