Border Security and Technology

Border control officers must always walk a thin line between thorough, effective security practices and invasive searching. We all want our borders to be safe, but we also don’t want our privacy invaded when we travel; one could argue these two desires are mutually exclusive. Thus the government has become increasingly reliant on new security technologies like full-body scanners to balance these privacy and security concerns. For whatever reason, people feel more comfortable when a machine invades their privacy than when a human does so directly. When it comes to security, however, technology can be its own worst enemy.

As security measures become increasingly stringent, those who wish to transport contraband into the United States have resorted to increasingly radical techniques to achieve their aims. Balloon swallowers like Montoya de Hernandez are just one sort of the many desperate people who are willing to do anything, literally anything, to make it past airport security unnoticed. When suspicious individuals are caught in the act, however, border control is placed in the untenable position of having either to detain the individual for a more extended period of time than a normal Terry stop, or to apply expedient but potentially invasive investigative techniques.

In US v de Hernandez, as often happens in 4th Amendment cases, the court resolved to accept evidence obtained by arguably intrusive means, lest an obviously guilty drug smuggler go unpunished. Yet Brennan’s dissent raises legitimate concerns that detention based only on the “‘reasonable’ suspicions of low-ranking enforcement agents” is more characteristic of a police state than a free society. In my opinion, “Reasonable” suspicions are too often incorrect for invasive searches to not first be subject to some sort of judicial approval. In particular, Brennan cites one physician who claimed that in only 15-20% of the body cavity searches he performed did the customs officials’ suspicions turn out to be correct. Such a statistic is frightening.

So what are we to do? As people become increasingly creative about the ways in which they transport contraband, border control has little other option but to rely on new technology in order to protect our national security; this is a much more palatable alternative than full body cavity searches for more and more people. Yet until our security technology is perfect – and I, for one, doubt that this will ever be the case – reliance on increasingly invasive technology will only necessitate even more invasive practices in the future. I can only hope that at some point the government will draw a line.