A federal judge just told the FBI that he did not care what the NSA’s illegal searches discovered, they cannot use a warrantless search: (Ok, the NSA bit was me)

Remember the 4th Amendment? We hear it’s making a comeback. Back in May, we had a story about another court explaining to the government that, contrary to popular belief within Homeland Security, the 4th Amendment does still apply at the border, and thus Border Patrol can’t just take someone’s laptop without a warrant.

The case involved a guy named Jae Shik Kim, who the government suspected was shipping items to China that were then being forwarded to Iran. Because of that, DHS grabbed his laptop as he was leaving the US (on a flight to Korea). The DOJ argued that the laptop was a “container” subject to search at the border. The court disabused the DOJ of this notion:

After considering all of the facts and authorities set forth above, then, the Court finds, under the totality of the unique circumstances of this case, that the imaging and search of the entire contents of Kim’s laptop, aided by specialized forensic software, for a period of unlimited duration and an examination of unlimited scope, for the purpose of gathering evidence in a pre-existing investigation, was supported by so little suspicion of ongoing or imminent criminal activity, and was so invasive of Kim’s privacy and so disconnected from not only the considerations underlying the breadth of the government’s authority to search at the border, but also the border itself, that it was unreasonable.

Given an opportunity to respond, the DOJ has dropped the entire case.

Good.  I hope that whoever instigated this search is writing parking tickets now.

What part of, “Fruit of the poisoned tree,” don’t you get?