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posted by Fnord666 on Friday December 21 2018, @05:47PM   Printer-friendly
from the 1984-is-not-a-guide-book dept.

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984

A Southern California man has become the latest person to sue the federal government over what he says is an unconstitutional search of his phone at the Los Angeles International Airport.

According to his lawsuit, which was recently filed in federal court in Los Angeles, Haisam Elsharkawi had arrived at LAX on February 9, 2017 and was headed to Saudi Arabia to go on a hajj, the Muslim religious pilgrimage.

After clearing the security checkpoint, Elsharkawi, an American citizen, was pulled aside from the Turkish Airlines boarding line by a Customs and Border Protection officer, who began questioning him about how much cash he was carrying and where he was going. Elsharkawi complied with the officer's inquiries and dutifully followed him to a nearby table.

"As the questioning continued and became increasingly aggressive, Mr. Elsharkawi asked if there was a problem and whether he needed an attorney," the complaint states. "Officer Rivas then accused Mr. Elsharkawi of hiding something because of his request for an attorney."

Soon after, another agent, Officer Rodriguez, began searching Elsharkawi's pockets and discovered his phone. Rodriguez asked Elsharkawi to unlock his phone, which he declined to do. He then also refused to answer further questions without having an attorney present.

Another officer told Elsharkawi that he was not under arrest and as such had no right to an attorney—at which point he asked to be released.

Source: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/12/man-sues-feds-after-being-detained-for-refusing-to-unlock-his-phone-at-airport/


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 22 2018, @01:20AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 22 2018, @01:20AM (#777395)

    and has this ever happened?

  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 22 2018, @02:05AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 22 2018, @02:05AM (#777405)

    Jose Padilla.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 22 2018, @04:32PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 22 2018, @04:32PM (#777557)

      The wikipedia [wikipedia.org] entry on this guy is quite a read. The federal courts debased themselves over and over again for years dealing with this guy. And unfortunately we are still operating under the same rules because there has been no end to hostilities.