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Police can’t demand you reveal your phone passcode then tell a jury you refused

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Re: Police can’t demand you reveal your phone passcode then tell a jury you refused

#171

Post by [deleted] »

63 wrote: post #62
pdimitar wrote: post #53

Formally the police can't demand a lot of stuff. Informally, they'll put you in a room and tell you that they have the legal right to keep you anywhere from 24 to 72 hours in there and they definitely can make you reconsider during that period -- to put it very mildly. Hint: some cops are really good in the skill of inflicting pain to people without lasting medical trace to prove it afterwards. Until there's true acc…

It's crazy to me the amount that people who have never dealt with the cops think "I'll just show them x legal code so they can see they don't have the right to do that." Turns out, they don't care. For minor infractions, they'll use whatever intimidation and coercion they want, then make you feel lucky for letting you out because they didn't feel like prosecuting. In most circumstances, the word of the person with th…

[deleted]

Re: Police can’t demand you reveal your phone passcode then tell a jury you refused

#172

Post by singlow »

mogopugh wrote: post #88
breakingcups wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think I understand what you're trying to say. The colons aren't making it clear. What do you mean?

"X:Y :: A:B" an anachronistic way of saying "X is to Y as A is to B". Meaning, "A and B are related to one another in a similar kind of way that X and Y are related to one another".

I don't think it's anachronistic, maybe arcane. Its a formal logic symbol which was also used by standardized test writers like the SAT. The SAT removed those questions because they were ineffective at assessment, not because the notation was out of favor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colon_(punctuation)#Mathematic...

Re: Police can’t demand you reveal your phone passcode then tell a jury you refused

#173

Post by magicalist »

jjk166 wrote: post #98
pdimitar wrote: post #53

Formally the police can't demand a lot of stuff. Informally, they'll put you in a room and tell you that they have the legal right to keep you anywhere from 24 to 72 hours in there and they definitely can make you reconsider during that period -- to put it very mildly. Hint: some cops are really good in the skill of inflicting pain to people without lasting medical trace to prove it afterwards. Until there's true acc…

You don't get justice in a police station, you get justice in a courtroom. The cops may do all sorts of things to you that they're not supposed to, and there's nothing you can do to stop them. But now you have a good chance of getting the whole case, or at least any evidence they obtain as a result of these actions thrown out the window, and potentially stand to gain from a profitable civil suit. Be compliant, be qui…

> You don't get justice in a police station, you get justice in a courtroom. The cops may do all sorts of things to you that they're not supposed to, and there's nothing you can do to stop them. But now you have a good chance of getting the whole case, or at least any evidence they obtain as a result of these actions thrown out the window, and potentially stand to gain from a profitable civil suit.

Much more likely that you'll be offered a plea bargain to either end it with time served or go to trial and be threatened with 15 years or whatever. Then you have to balance just having it be done against how much you want to risk a jury having a bad day, lawyer bills, and months or years of process to maybe have a moral victory when the judge says "yeah, this evidence is inadmissible". Meanwhile you're not getting a payout unless they beat you and it's on camera.

The system knows how to take care of itself.

edit if you'd like to know more: https://www.cato.org/commentary/prisons-are-packed-because-p...

Re: Police can’t demand you reveal your phone passcode then tell a jury you refused

#174

Post by nerdponx »

LinuxBender wrote: post #37
colejohnson66 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the police are aware of this “feature”, that’s an easy contempt and destruction of evidence charge among others. I’d recommend just not doing it.

Agreed. That's why I believe it might be super handy if every or at least many phones had this in place so that you don't really stand out. At least every phone using an alternate OS. If all the mainstream operating systems had this I would expect an arms race between the OS devs and the forensics device devs. As a side note, this would not necessarily be only used for law enforcement authorities. It could be that an…

> It could be that an armed phone thief requires you to unlock your phone.

This exact scenario happened to me. They made me do a factory reset right in front of them, before handing the phone over. I didn't have any opportunity to do anything other than what they asked, and I probably would have been killed if I tried.

I don't see how I would have been able to make use of such a feature in that scenario or any similar scenario (e.g. getting arrested at a protest). It's a nice idea, but I think its usefulness might be limited to things like airport security lines.

Fortunately, they didn't realize that Find My iPhone persists through factory resets (nice!).

Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out how to use the web interface, and ended up accidentally wiping my phone, including the Find My iPhone tracing stuff, so I never managed to trace it anywhere.

Re: Police can’t demand you reveal your phone passcode then tell a jury you refused

#175

Post by gkop »

pdimitar wrote: post #159
gkop wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you say more about your employer suing you if you cave under pressure and unlock the laptop? That sounds to me like your employer is asking a lot of you! Or, if you are bluffing to security about the suing, why are you putting your personal safety on the line to protect your employer?

It's a weighing of risks, really. I don't value neither airport security or my employer's secrets as highly as my own safety but will weigh in the risk as the situation develops. If I am asked to accompany them to the dark room I'll just give up, unlock the laptop, hand it to them and then quietly inform my employer's legal team that a potential security breach has occurred (after I get safely to a hotel). I really d…

Very prudent. Thanks.

Re: Police can’t demand you reveal your phone passcode then tell a jury you refused

#176

Post by giantg2 »

LinuxBender wrote: post #48
judge2020 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might not stand out but it would still be contempt of court. Not turning over evidence with a constitutional defense is easier to defend in court than malicious fake-compliance.

Possibly true in court at least, but I think the end user should have the option to make this decision. Maybe give them a disclaimer that says In bold red text .. "Depending on your jurisdiction you may have legal problems using this feature! Research this and consult an attorney before enabling. You have been warned". In the US this would only apply in courts. AFAIK this would not be the case when interacting with t…

Define "due process".

My experience is that the courts will define/apply it however they feel like, usually to your detriment.

Re: Police can’t demand you reveal your phone passcode then tell a jury you refused

#177

Post by Consultant32452 »

dTal wrote: post #160
Consultant32452 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conservatives tend to think in terms of structure and order. That is why you will hear them babble on about things being "Unconstitutional!" all the time as if that has any meaning in the real world. Liberals tend to think they can manifest reality just by saying the right thing. This causes them to be very vigilant about the words we use to describe things and they also think things like putting up a gun free zone s…

>When a cop is beating a liberal to death with a stick, the liberal understands the cop is exercising his power and will get away with it. When a cop is beating a conservative to death with a stick the conservative will righteously complain about how that's illegal and I want this bad apple's badge number. So, conservatives are the starry-eyed idealists and the liberals are the hard-nosed realists? That's an intrigui…

Now do the other side of the analogy with liberals and gun free zone signs.

Re: Police can’t demand you reveal your phone passcode then tell a jury you refused

#178

Post by voakbasda »

dTal wrote: post #141
pdimitar wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. My philosophy is to always cooperate (unless they ask for something super egregious) and show myself as friendly. This immediately reduces the alarms in their heads. I even say things like "sure guys, here are my docs, here are the contents of my backpack, hope you catch the guy you are after" and smile. Very often the mere fact that you are not trouble makes them pay less attention and the whole thing ends real…

This isn't some kind of cunning hack, it's literally what they're trying to accomplish by being bullies. Society needs people to stand up to the police when they exceed their legal remit, or they will continue to exceed it. I won't blame people for choosing personal convenience over the good of society, but we should be clear that that is the choice being made.

Standing up to a bully is asking to be punched in the face. Cops can make your life difficult. And they will.

Re: Police can’t demand you reveal your phone passcode then tell a jury you refused

#179

Post by nerdponx »

RNCTX wrote: post #163
anonymousiam wrote: post #116

I'm a long-time EFF supporter, but I am always concerned when they (or any other organization that defends civil rights) chooses to intervene in a loser of a case like this. The defendant will likely be convicted of kidnapping, and hopefully the Supreme Court will not use some form of twisted logic to rationalize what the cops did. The correct ruling here is to force a mistrial and forbid any testimony about refusing…

[flagged]

Citation needed?

Re: Police can’t demand you reveal your phone passcode then tell a jury you refused

#180

Post by dnautics »

voakbasda wrote: post #170
dnautics wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though that's not really the point of those things in the legal code; the point is not for you to stop a cop from doing it at the point of abuse, but for you to have a legal arm to sue the fuck out of them afterwards, or to get a pass out of jail because the cops violated procedure. Yeah, it sucks for you, but it's supposed to be a deterrent to prevent cops from abusing their power in the future. Now, that obviously…

The problem with expecting accountability is that system will fail you at the next step: the courts. You have to survive that process too, where the judge and prosecutor will believe the cop nine times out of ten. As a sitting federal judge once said, “truth and justice have no relevance; it is a court of law.” The law will take the side of the system.

> The law will take the side of the system

>> courts - an agent of the state - being overly deferential and siding with the state

I am highly cynical about this methodology but it DOES work for the group, even if it is inefficent at it (and progressively getting more inefficient). Over the long run cops learn that they can't do X or Y, except for a few "new" abuses (e.g. civil asset forfeiture) we are probably better off than we were 50 or 60 years ago. At some point if we get too inefficient about it (which we may have already crossed), though, the equilibrium change will move towards regression since it is a cat-and-mouse game to some degree; cops are clever and talk to each other to strategize against protections, too.

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