United States v. Karl Touset, 890 F.3d 1227

Customs and Border Protection detained Karl Touset’s luggage and seized nine electronic devices after a "look-out” based on Western Union records showing three small payments from an account listing Touset to a Philippine account tied to an email that contained child pornography.
Agents conducted manual inspections of two iPhones and a camera (returned) and then detained two laptops and two external hard drives for forensic analysis; forensic searches revealed child pornography.
A magistrate judge and the district court found reasonable suspicion supported the detention and forensic searches; Touset pleaded guilty to transporting child pornography but reserved the right to appeal the suppression ruling.
On appeal the Eleventh Circuit considered whether the Fourth Amendment requires reasonable suspicion (or any suspicion) for forensic searches of electronic devices at the border and, alternatively, whether reasonable suspicion existed here.
The panel held that (1) the Fourth Amendment does not require suspicion for forensic searches of electronic devices at the border, and (2) alternatively, reasonable suspicion existed to justify the searches in this case.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether the Fourth Amendment requires reasonable suspicion for forensic searches of electronic devices at the border	Touset: Riley’s privacy concerns mean reasonable suspicion is required for forensic border searches of devices	Government: Border-search doctrine allows suspicionless searches of property at the border	Court: No suspicion required for forensic searches of electronic devices at the border (but also upheld search on alternative ground of reasonable suspicion)
Whether the border searches here were supported by reasonable suspicion	Touset: Evidence of three small payments ~1.5 years earlier was stale and did not particularize possession of child pornography on devices	Government: Payments to Philippines account linked to an email containing child pornography, travel with multiple devices, and known patterns of low-value transfers provided particularized suspicion	Court: Even under reasonable-suspicion standard, the aggregated information was sufficiently particularized and not stale; reasonable suspicion existed

United States v. Vergara, 884 F.3d 1309 (11th Cir. 2018) (border-search precedent for electronic devices)
Riley v. California, 134 S. Ct. 2473 (2014) (privacy risks of cell-phone searches; limited to search-incident-to-arrest context)
United States v. Flores-Montano, 541 U.S. 149 (2004) (no suspicion required to disassemble vehicle fuel tank at border)
United States v. Ramsey, 431 U.S. 606 (1977) (border searches ordinarily do not require probable cause or a warrant)
United States v. Thirty-Seven Photographs, 402 U.S. 363 (1971) (Congress may treat child pornography as contraband at the border)
United States v. Montoya de Hernandez, 473 U.S. 531 (1985) (suspicionless routine border searches reasonable; heightened scrutiny for highly intrusive bodily searches)
United States v. Cotterman, 709 F.3d 952 (9th Cir. 2013) (contrasting view: reasonable suspicion required for forensic device searches)
United States v. Alfaro-Moncada, 607 F.3d 720 (11th Cir. 2010) (discussing diminished privacy at the border and property searches)
Corbett v. Transp. Sec. Admin., 767 F.3d 1171 (11th Cir. 2014) (airport screening as reasonable administrative search)