Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

431–440 of 1001 posts

Re: Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border

#431

Post by zmmmmm »

If you initiate a wipe before approaching immigration, which swaps the whole phone contents to an encrypted backup that you physically can't decrypt without a key that (say) a friend knows. Then you would be offering immigration the device in an unaltered state between when they request it and when they receive it. Any request for an alternative pass code or whether the pass code given will alter the state of the device can be honestly answered.

I am curious if this is still obstruction - you still defeated their intent. If the law is just about intent, you can never defeat it.

Re: Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border

#432

Post by LastTrain »

joenot443 wrote: post #282
btbuildem wrote: post #227

The naivete of some of the comments here is astounding. It doesn't matter whether you're right, it doesn't matter whether it's the law, it's irrelevant that you have rights, etc. Those things are of the past now, for the US. I think it would be easier to understand the playing field and choose your actions accordingly, if you accept the US has entered its East Germany / late 20th century Soviet era -- except of cours…

> if you accept the US has entered its East Germany / late 20th century Soviet era -- except of course with 1000x more invasive and effective surveillance tech. I'm pretty optimistic that after the next general America will be ready to give up on the extremity of late turn over a new leaf. I fully expect a new president to be ushered in, whether R or D, and for some level of normalcy to start creeping back. The Sovie…

“Silliness” I have masked federal agents in unmarked vehicles barking orders at US citizens in my neighborhood and zip-tying minors who did nothing but run away and cry. I have neighbors cheering it on. Not silly at all when you see it up close.

Re: Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border

#433

Post by frollogaston »

IncreasePosts wrote: post #142

What I don't understand is if he just didn't give any password, he would have been fine. It's only because he gave him a duress pin that he's in trouble. So, in both cases the government wouldn't have access to the contents of the phone

They might have a way to gain access anyway. That was that case where the FBI got the locked iPhone 5C of a San Bernardino shooter suspect. Apple refused to unlock it, so the FBI paid a hacking firm to do it. If there's no known vuln to get into a phone today, I wonder if they'd hold onto it in hopes that one shows up later.

Re: Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border

#434

Post by rootusrootus »

kbrannigan wrote: post #313
deepfriedbits wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With all due respect, this is a wild take. Things aren't great in the U.S. right now, but they're not even in the same universe as what the Stasi was doing. > I think it would be easier to understand the playing field and choose your actions accordingly, if you accept the US has entered its East Germany / late 20th century Soviet era -- except of course with 1000x more invasive and effective surveillance tech.

It's a very insidious, first you look all over your neighborhood flock cameras Hundreds of them came out of nowhere Nobody fought back . it's as long as you're not doing anything wrong you don't have to worry about it Then once changed the definition of what wrong means. If you're not a criminal you don't have to worry about it That's for your safety Then they changed the definition of what a crime is

This differentiates the US from who, exactly? If anything, US a latecomer to the public surveillance game.

Re: Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border

#435

Post by siren2026 »

btbuildem wrote: post #227

The naivete of some of the comments here is astounding. It doesn't matter whether you're right, it doesn't matter whether it's the law, it's irrelevant that you have rights, etc. Those things are of the past now, for the US. I think it would be easier to understand the playing field and choose your actions accordingly, if you accept the US has entered its East Germany / late 20th century Soviet era -- except of cours…

edit: deleted because political flamewar

Re: Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border

#436

Post by lukan »

Morromist wrote: post #273
deepfriedbits wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With all due respect, this is a wild take. Things aren't great in the U.S. right now, but they're not even in the same universe as what the Stasi was doing. > I think it would be easier to understand the playing field and choose your actions accordingly, if you accept the US has entered its East Germany / late 20th century Soviet era -- except of course with 1000x more invasive and effective surveillance tech.

I mean its so much easier to do stuff the Stasi could only dream of with technology today.

The very big difference to the Stasi is, people back then were really afraid to speak their mind, as there were real consequences fast, for doing things as stating your opinion about ghe government. And not creating attention while saying, I cannot speak up anymore! while speaking up all the time.

And yes, there are also consequences today .. but on a whole different level. So the US might head into a Stasi regime (or rather Gestapo) .. but they ain't there, not even close.

Re: Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border

#437

Post by tokioyoyo »

joenot443 wrote: post #282
btbuildem wrote: post #227

The naivete of some of the comments here is astounding. It doesn't matter whether you're right, it doesn't matter whether it's the law, it's irrelevant that you have rights, etc. Those things are of the past now, for the US. I think it would be easier to understand the playing field and choose your actions accordingly, if you accept the US has entered its East Germany / late 20th century Soviet era -- except of cours…

> if you accept the US has entered its East Germany / late 20th century Soviet era -- except of course with 1000x more invasive and effective surveillance tech. I'm pretty optimistic that after the next general America will be ready to give up on the extremity of late turn over a new leaf. I fully expect a new president to be ushered in, whether R or D, and for some level of normalcy to start creeping back. The Sovie…

Counter point is, throughout history America didn’t have a competition that surpassed it across many standards. Japan got very close, but got contained in some ways. China doesn’t need to play ball.

I’ve mentioned it in the past as well - all actions look like a knee-jerk reactions and hail marys to try to regain the power.

Re: Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border

#438

Post by khriss »

btbuildem wrote: post #227

The naivete of some of the comments here is astounding. It doesn't matter whether you're right, it doesn't matter whether it's the law, it's irrelevant that you have rights, etc. Those things are of the past now, for the US. I think it would be easier to understand the playing field and choose your actions accordingly, if you accept the US has entered its East Germany / late 20th century Soviet era -- except of cours…

And to add to that, a very loyal set of voters who will literally vote for more of the same even when it directly and empirically makes their lives worse.

Re: Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border

#439

Post by nikanj »

siren2026 wrote: post #435
btbuildem wrote: post #227

The naivete of some of the comments here is astounding. It doesn't matter whether you're right, it doesn't matter whether it's the law, it's irrelevant that you have rights, etc. Those things are of the past now, for the US. I think it would be easier to understand the playing field and choose your actions accordingly, if you accept the US has entered its East Germany / late 20th century Soviet era -- except of cours…

edit: deleted because political flamewar

Say whatever you want, just don't say it on social media or border control might not let you enter the country the next time

Re: Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border

#440

Post by watwut »

psunavy03 wrote: post #134
jfengel wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original text is basically useless. They're more like a mission statement rather than directives. They set up broad aspirations, but the implementation has to be aggregated over literally millions of pages of judicial decisions. Even lawyers with extremely different ideologies will give you convergent answers in a lot of cases, even when those answers conflict with an apparently obvious reading of the original te…

> None of those words what you think they mean. And fixing that requires basically throwing out the entire system of American jurisprudence. Which would be fine with me, to be honest. The Constitution is written in plain English. And for the most part, Supreme Court decisions are written in plain English that any reasonably literate US citizen can understand. Yes, the law has technicalities and terms of art just like…

Plain language interpretation of constitution is at odds with plain language interpretation of suprem court decisions.

And practical implementation of it all, the rights that you can actual force to have are the third thing.

Post reply on HN