For any traveler clearing customs at Dulles, a new Fourth Circuit ruling changes the calculus on phone privacy — no warrant, no suspicion, no explanation required. In U.S. v. Belmonte Cardozo, decided in mid-July 2026, the court held that a manual phone search at the border is “routine” under the Fourth Amendment. That means CBP officers can scroll through your texts, photos, and apps, and anything found is admissible. The ruling is binding across Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina.
What the Court Actually Said
A two-minute phone scroll at Dulles became a landmark Fourth Amendment case.
Jose Belmonte Cardozo arrived from Bolivia and was stopped at Washington Dulles International Airport. A CBP officer manually scrolled his phone for roughly two minutes and discovered child sexual abuse material. Belmonte Cardozo challenged the search. The Fourth Circuit wasn’t persuaded. Judge A. Marvin Quattlebaum Jr. wrote that “manual cellphone searches are routine border searches that do not require individualized suspicion.”
Three facts define the framework:
- Manual vs. forensic: A manual search means an officer scrolls with thumbs; a forensic search means software extracts and copies data — sometimes including deleted files and metadata.
- Prior rulings still hold: Forensic searches require individualized suspicion under Kolsuz (2018) and, when used for purely domestic investigations, a warrant under Aigbekaen (2019).
- Circuit consensus: Every federal circuit to address manual border device searches has reached the same conclusion — no individualized suspicion required.
The EFF, which filed an amicus brief alongside the ACLU and NACDL, called the ruling one that permits “extraordinarily invasive electronic device searches without any suspicion of wrongdoing, simply because the border officer chooses to search by hand rather than with a forensic tool.” Handing over your phone is the practical equivalent of surrendering your entire search history, therapy notes, and camera roll in a single swipe. The Supreme Court acknowledged that reality in Riley v. California (2014) — yet courts have consistently declined to extend Riley’s logic to the border.
The Fuzzy Line That Matters
The court anchored its reasoning to a brief search but never defined when a longer manual search crosses into non-routine territory.
That ambiguity is where future litigation lives. The court repeatedly noted the search lasted about two minutes, suggesting brevity helped classify it as routine — but no clear threshold exists for when a lengthier manual inspection demands individualized suspicion. The government’s position is that manual inspections are essentially luggage checks, a view every circuit has now endorsed. Treating a smartphone like a carry-on bag, though, is the legal equivalent of TSA comparing a Kindle to a pocket notebook — technically defensible, practically absurd to anyone who has used both.
No Supreme Court decision governs border device searches. Until one does, journalists, activists, and corporate travelers transiting through Dulles or Charlotte Douglas should treat clean travel phones and data minimization not as paranoia but as rational policy. Your thumbprint unlocks more than your phone.
