United States v. Saboonchi
United States District Court for the District of Maryland
990 F. Supp. 2d 536 (2014)
Ali Saboonchi (defendant), a dual U.S.-Iranian citizen, was stopped entering the U.S. from Canada after his name triggered an alert that he was under investigation for exporting items to Iran; border agents briefly questioned him and his wife, released them, but seized two cell phones and a USB drive, which were later imaged and forensically analyzed at a facility in Baltimore rather than at the border itself. Saboonchi was indicted for unlawful exports to Iran and moved to suppress the evidence obtained from the forensic device search.
Whether a forensic search of electronic devices seized at the border, conducted later at an off-site facility, qualifies as a non-routine border search requiring reasonable suspicion under the Fourth Amendment, and whether such suspicion existed here.