Approximately 2 hours to complete
Earn a record of completion
Full video production format
Course Overview
This six-module course builds on Constitutional Law and Homeland Security and focuses on how technology has impacted the Fourth Amendment in two homeland security contexts: searches of electronic devices at the border and TSA checkpoint searches. Specifically, this course will discuss the border search exception to the Fourth Amendment and the evolving jurisprudence concerning whether Customs and Border Protection (CBP) can (and should) subject electronic devices to suspicionless and warrantless searches. This course will also analyze how the administrative search doctrine applies to TSA checkpoints and how technology has impacted the analysis.
Learning Objectives
- Students will learn what constitutes a “search” and “seizure” under the Fourth Amendment and how technology has affected the analysis.
- Students will learn what is a “reasonable” search under the Fourth Amendment and exceptions to the warrant requirement.
- Students will learn about the border search exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirements and how it applies to searches of electronic devices at the border.
- Students will appreciate that the courts have not agreed on how to apply the border search exception to electronic devices at the border and how CBP has responded to these inconsistencies.
- Students will analyze whether technology should affect the Fourth Amendment analysis at the border.
- Students will learn how the administrative search doctrine and “special needs” exceptions to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirements apply to TSA checkpoint searches.
- Students will analyze whether technology has and should affect the analysis of checkpoint searches.
- Students will ponder whether the administrative search doctrine is the appropriate test to be used when analyzing TSA checkpoint searches or whether another exception should be created.
Module 1: Introduction to Course and 4th Amendment Principles
Module 2: What is a 4th Amendment “Search” and Technology’s Role in that Analysis
Module 3: Searches of Electronic Devices at the Border Part I
Module 4: Searches of Electronic Devices at the Border Part II
Module 5: TSA Checkpoint Searches, Part I
Module 6: TSA Checkpoint Searches, Part II
About the Instructor
Stephanie Blum is an attorney and author who has worked for the federal government for over 20 years in various roles with the Intelligence Community, Department of Homeland Security, Transportation Security Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the National Security Division of the Department of Justice. She is currently Associate General Counsel at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. She has also clerked for three federal judges and taught several courses on national security and constitutional law. In 2008, she turned her thesis on the preventive detention of terrorists into a book and has since written numerous articles on constitutional law and homeland security. She has a B.A. from Yale University, a J.D. from The University of Chicago Law School, and a M.A. in security studies from the Naval Postgraduate School.
The views expressed in this course are the author’s and do not imply endorsement by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Intelligence Community, or any other U.S. Government agency.