{"id":5360,"date":"2011-12-28T07:30:50","date_gmt":"2011-03-29T04:44:59","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-03-29T04:44:59","slug":"en-US","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=5360","title":{"rendered":"CA11: Cruise ship passenger cabin was subject to Custom’s search"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cruise ship passenger\u2019s cabin was subjected to a Customs search on arrival at Port Everglades, and apparently the crew of the cruise ship provided additional information to justify it. It is also apparent that CBP knew a lot about the defendant before the search. Reasonable suspicion was not required, but here they had it. United States v. Williams<\/a>, 419 Fed. Appx. 902 (11th Cir. 2011) (unpublished)*:<\/p>\n

Officer Bradley testified that Costa Rica is \u201ca source country\u201d for narcotics and child exploitation. Williams traveled to Costa Rica alone, using his middle name, and had previously taken flights and cruises to Costa Rica. Two of Williams\u2019s prior flights to and from Costa Rica were shortly before he took cruises there, which Bradley had seen other cruise ship passengers do to arrange drug deals. Williams had a criminal history, and Bradley learned that when Williams traveled using his middle name, he was not stopped by Customs. Prior to searching Williams\u2019s cabin, Bradley had also learned that Williams declined to have his room cleaned the day he came back onto the ship from Costa Rica. These circumstances demonstrate that Williams traveled to \u201ca source country for narcotics and child exploitation\u201d in a manner that drug traffickers had been known to use, he used the name which would allow him to pass Customs officers without being questioned about his criminal history, and he declined to have his room cleaned after returning from a drug source country. We find no error in the district court\u2019s conclusion that these seemingly innocuous acts nevertheless constituted reasonable suspicion to an officer trained in investigating the travel patterns of cruise passengers.<\/p>\n

In any event, 19 U.S.C. \u00a7 1581<\/a> permits Customs officers \u201cat any time [to] go on board of any vessel or vehicle at any place in the United States or within the customs waters … and examine, inspect, and search the vessel or vehicle and every part thereof and any person, trunk, package, or cargo on board.\u201d 19 U.S.C. \u00a7 1581(a)<\/a>. Although reasonable suspicion may be required for \u201chighly intrusive searches of a person\u2019s body such as a strip search or an x-ray examination,\u201d we have held that the suspicionless search of a crew member\u2019s cabin on a foreign cargo ship while it was docked on the Miami River was not a violation of the Fourth Amendment. United States v. Alfaro-Moncada<\/a>, 607 F.3d 720, 729, 732 (11th Cir. 2010).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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