ADC Urges Supreme Court to Set National Standard as Unchecked Device Searches Put First Amendment Rights in Jeopardy

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

September 15, 2026

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Washington, D.C. | The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) filed an amicus curiae brief with the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of journalist Max Blumenthal, in support of certiorari in Anibowei v. Blanche. In the brief, ADC urges the Court to resolve an irreconcilable split between several federal circuit courts of appeal over when government agents may search Americans’ smartphones and other electronic devices at the border.

The brief argues that Supreme Court intervention is urgently needed as lower courts have reached sharply different conclusions about what the Fourth Amendment requires when federal agents search travelers’ electronic devices. The result is that the rules to which a traveler is subject with respect to searches of smartphones vary, depending on where an American enters the country. Two of the circuits, the Fourth and the Ninth, allow the government to search travelers’ phones for any or no reason so long as they don’t use external electronic equipment to do so, requiring reasonable suspicion for what they call “forensic searches.” Several other searches, including the Fifth Circuit, which decided Mr. Anibowei’s case, permit boundless searches of travelers’ cell phones without any individualized suspicion of criminal activity whatsoever.

To make matters worse, U.S. Customs and Border Protection often relies on its own Directive, which appears to allow essentially limitless searches of Americans’ electronic devices. The brief describes the result as a “chaotic and unpredictable situation for travelers.”

“The Constitution cannot mean one thing when an American lands in California and something entirely different when she lands in Texas,” said ADC President and Legal Director, Jenin Younes. “Moreover, federal agencies do not get to decide what the Fourth Amendment allows. Our phones contain our most private information, and can allow someone accessing it to obtain a virtual roadmap into our minds when they look through our search queries, messages, location data, and more.”

“When I was sent to secondary screening at Dulles Intl airport, after being targeted for days by allies of the Trump administration for my journalism and my views, I was told that I did not have the same rights I enjoyed outside the airport. My phones were then confiscated without a warrant or suspicion of any crime,” said journalist and ADC client, Max Blumenthal. “I’m filing this amicus brief because the Supreme Court needs to address this issue and stop the arbitrary violations of constitutional rights to privacy and press freedom that I experienced at the hands of my government. And I’m doing so to ensure that these rights are applied evenly across the land, at our borders and in every state.”

As the brief explains, all of the federal circuit courts have not properly applied Riley v. California, in which the Supreme Court held twelve years ago that police generally need a warrant to search a smartphone because of the vast amount of personal information it contains. There, the Court held that the vast privacy interests in modern smartphones require law enforcement to get a warrant before searching it. In that case, Riley had actually been arrested, yet the Court still found a warrant was required. Yet the Circuit Courts are permitting these extremely intrusive searches for no reason other than that someone has decided to travel internationally. The Fourth Amendment questions also implicate serious First Amendment consequences. Without clear limits, officials gain broad discretion to search the electronic devices of journalists, activists, whistleblowers and ordinary Americans whose views the government does not like.

Blumenthal’s experience illustrates those dangers. His pending federal lawsuit, Blumenthal v. Mullin, challenges the government’s seizure and attempted search of his smartphones under the First and Fourth Amendments. The federal court that previously considered his motion for return of the phones raised Fourth Amendment concerns and noted that circumstantial evidence suggested the seizure may also have implicated his First Amendment rights because it appeared connected to his reporting.

ADC is urging the Supreme Court to grant review and establish a clear nationwide constitutional standard governing searches of electronic devices at the border. Twelve years after Riley, Americans should not have to rely on geography, conflicting lower-court decisions or an executive agency’s internal policy to determine whether the contents of their digital lives remain protected by the Constitution. Finally, that decision should reflect the Fourth Amendment’s promise that Americans will be secure from government intrusion in their “persons, houses, papers, and effects.”

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About ADC

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) is the largest Arab American grassroots organization in the United States, founded in 1980 by former Senator James Abourezk.  ADC’s mission is to defend and promote the human rights, civil rights, and liberties of at least 3.7 million Arab Americans residing in the United States. Through its work, ADC fights discrimination, enhances public understanding of Arab history and culture, and partners with marginalized communities globally to advance social justice.