Live data from Hacker News

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

eff.org

361–370 of 615 posts

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

#361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right. A corrupt cop is unstoppable, especially one with a corrupt municipality supporting their behavior. However, like netsec, it is a matter of lots of small steps. Asserting "I do not consent to this search" aloud may not stop the search, but it can be used it court, where it may not matter, or it might. The point is, you have to protect yourself. Maybe someone caught recording of you saying that which sho…

This is why, in a just society, the penalties for corruption and abuse of power for LEOs should be extreme. Same goes for elected officials I suppose, but abuse of the state's threat of violence is antithetical to a free society.

This is why, in a just society, the penalties for corruption and abuse of power for LEOs should be extreme. Same goes for elected officials I suppose, but abuse of the state's threat of violence is antithetical to a free society.

I don't think it would be fair nor that I think it would work.

If people are afraid to do anything, they will cover their asses than do their jobs.

I think, ultimately, the problem is multifaceted. I believe we start with decreasing the role of police and punishment in our society.

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

#362
post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. Five clicks of the sleep/wake button will disable Face ID temporarily. If you're prone to keeping incriminating stuff on the phone, you should probably have it off entirely.

There's no "if" statement required. Everyone should disable their phone when encountering law enforcement unless they're using it to record (and it's a burner). Who knows how corrupt that particular LE is and what agenda they are following.

Yes. People more likely to encounter law enforcement in surprise, break-down-the-door scenarios where the cops might have a vested interest in keeping you away from the phone should probably forgo Face/Touch ID entirely, though.

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

#363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is terrible advice.

Depends on the context. If you're not on their radar, being polite and forgettable is a great way to stay that way. If you're already in custody, anything you say while being friendly can and will be used against you in court, so your vocabulary should probably be limited to the word "lawyer."

The problem starts when being polite and forgettable puts you on their radar. Police look in your backpack, and hey - it's a bike lock just like the one that was used to assault someone down the block a few minutes ago! You look about the right height. Which direction did you say you were coming from again?

Some situations can be lose-lose. Best you can do is don't talk to the police, and if you absolutely must, say as little as possible and don't lie.

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

#364
post #128

> this case turns on one of the most fundamental protections in our constitutional system: an accused person’s ability to exercise his Fifth Amendment rights without having his silence used against him. A very interesting tidbit I learned here on HN a couple years back — the Supreme Court ruled in 1992 that you have to declare out loud an intent to invoke your Fifth Amendment rights, if you haven’t been formally arre…

> No, by 5-4 vote.

I was curious who voted which way. I was not surprised one bit.

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

#365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [D]on't most people want it to be exactly that way? The people who are not having police encounters with any regularity, who aren't drawn on when they do get pulled over, who perhaps have property or other reasons to be invested in the status quo, often want things this way. The people on the wrong side of the gun feel differently. Giving cops lethal power does not create safety. It shifts around what the danger is…

American society created this situation because of its obtuse laws, which give anyone the power to carry guns. In this scenario, police is also forced to have guns and to assume that anyone can have a gun. It is a spiral to hell.

I agree 100%. As someone who owns guns, I don't want to have them taken away. But I don't want criminals to have them. Personally I would give up mine if everyone else did, including the police, but that isn't going to happen. And at this point there are so many guns in the US that I'm not sure what a realistic solution is. Even if we could get past the politics, mass confiscation would probably be ineffective (to make it work would require the use of significantly more force than US citizens will accept and far more police than we have, or near universal compliance).

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

#366
post #52

Sortof off topic question. I've never owned a smart phone but might get one soon assuming I can find a decent one that will run grapheneOS. Is there an app that can be given permission to intercept the unlock code and upon receiving the panic/under duress code, discretely put the phone into a "parental controls" configuration that sandboxes all your data and only presents the storage you want the law enforcement chil…

I think an easier approach is not to do anything incriminating on your phone.

Look, we live in a society where drywall dust can get you jailed for 90 days because the cops think it's drugs.

https://www.wftv.com/news/local/powdered-drywall-mistaken-fo...

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

#367
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

I was offered release on my first court date if I plead guilty. Instead I spent over 8 years in a county jail waiting for justice.

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

#368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Hint: some cops are really good in the skill of inflicting pain to people without lasting medical trace to prove it afterwards. Sorry, I don't buy that this happens with any kind of frequency in the 21st century United States, such that a person could reasonably expect this to happen to them. Do you have more than ambiguous innuendo to back up this claim?

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/albertsamaha/this-teena... Oh sorry that one left evidence, are you asking people to prove something without evidence? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rough_ride_%28police_brutali... A practice so frequent it has a wiki article. https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/chavis-carter-comm... Oops, that one is a "suicide".

These examples definitely leave medical traces though

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

#369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The police in the US can point a gun at you and get you to comply, but if you think the courts are going to accept evidence collected while that gun is unholstered, then you definitely don't understand the justice system here. That's probably the single easiest win for a defense attorney in court.

In many of these cases its your word against the cop's word. Guess whose side the justice system takes...

Yes, a police officer is considered an officer of the court [1]. His exposure to consequences for lying is higher than the average citizen under oath. Given two conflicting statements that cannot be resolved with evidence, it isn't a surprise that the judge is going to defer to the cop.

[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/officer_of_the_court

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

#370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it's because I've lived in Chicago my whole life, but I've only ever dealt with cops who could be generously described as evil. The cops at my high school sat in the lobby all day harassing students, one of them was fired for starting a relationship with a student. The union contested and got his job back after he was elected president of their union. I've never had a government employee other than cops tell me…

Chicago is bad. I've suffered bad abuse in Chicagoland by the police. I just did 8 years in the county jail due to the police violating the law and violating my rights.

Don’t you mean 8 months? In Illinois you can only be sentenced to less than a year in county jail unless you are awaiting trial in which case 8 years seems a bit much.
Post reply on HN