Live data from Hacker News

Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border

nytimes.com

561–570 of 1001 posts

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

#561
post #189

For exactly the border search scenario, I wish smartphones could be imaged and restored as easily as PCs. Imagine booting the phone from a flash drive, making an encrypted image of the phone on said drive, and writing a fresh OS before reaching the border. There's no deception required to protect sensitive data or avoid the seizure of an expensive phone. Consent to unlocking the phone, refuse to unlock the drive. The…

How about every civilian banding together and refusing to comply? in before those fucking "I hAvE nOtHiNg tO hIdE" twats

I already refuse to comply with questioning at the border. Been being harassed and my non-citizen travel companions being SA’d by CBP for decades. Get with the program.

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

#562
post #431

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 dev…

" If the law is just about intent, you can never defeat it."

Yeah I think that's what people are missing. Intent is almost sufficient. Note that the officers efforts to examine your device would actually be frustrated by what you and others are proposing. So you are not just intending to obstruct but successfully doing so.

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

#564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Constitution makes no exemption for a suspension of rights at the border.

The Supreme court disagrees with you.

Have you read https://yalelawjournal.org/forum/customs-immigration-and-rig... ? Quoting from its abstract:

> While the Supreme Court has long recognized a border-search exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement, it applies to only two interests: promoting the duty regime and preventing contraband from entering the country; and ensuring that individuals are legally admitted. The government’s recent use of the exception goes substantially beyond these matters.

None of these two interests apply to his targeted search. No duty applies here. By definition, no contraband can exist on an erased phone.

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

#565
post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't give a pin, they can seize your devices (Andrew Tate on his 1st visit to Florida said that he refused to give pin and they seized phone and laptop)

They can't keep them, you'll get the devices back. Use a temp phone in the mean time. Sad that we have to accept this as a risk of international travel, but here we are.

They’ll keep them until you sue. A lawsuit costs more than the devices.

You will lose them.

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

#566
post #97

I'm not a legal expert, but all this seems to check out with US law. Americans need to remember that some of their constitutional rights don't really apply at ports of entry by design. This inconvenient truth for the land of the free has existed for a long time, this situation is just drawing attention to it. Their powers are far-reaching.

Furthermore, "the law" in this area is currently different in different Federal circuit court jurisdictions...

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

#567
post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a half-truth. In a full banana republic, technical compliance with the law will not prevent consequences for failing to do what the authorities want. In a jurisdiction with perfect rule of law, it always will. The USA is somewhere in between. One of the laws that's enforced pretty well in the USA is the protection against unreasonable search. Most of the time, a search requires showing a judge evidence that t…

I think I mostly disagree with this. "Technical compliance" is not and should not be the thing that a legal system is designed to incentivize, and should not be the criterion for "perfect rule of law."

I would disagree with you, because "technical compliance" is compliance with the letter of the law. You have complied with every explicit requirement of the law. If the law is insufficient then legislature is free to add a clause that bans whatever aspect you technically comply with that they don't like.

The alternative is complying with the spirit of the law, which is an eternal guessing game. Who knows whether it's legal or not, we have to wait for the Supreme Court to decide what Congress _actually_ meant. It implies that the law means something beyond what anybody bothered to actually write down, and nobody has any idea what that is until the Judiciary interprets it into "actual law".

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

#568

Does anyone know if this border security inspection is a goon scrolling through your photos, or do they just copy the whole memory of your phone to a real “threat detector”. When I used to work in cell phones and I was debugging them, when they crash I would analyze the OS core dump for things like repeated phone numbers or emails etc. Basically any thing that signifies a memory leak. But that core dump would be the…

There are different levels of "search" and the law (as interpreted by the courts) is not currently fully settled. The LegalEagle YouTube video on this case is excellent, as always:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2rokxux5cU

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

#570
post #456

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…

CBP/FBI could have shot or tortured him or his loved ones after he provided the bad key, but didn't his rights still did apply and do apply for now at least

I mean ICE could have arrested him and shipped him off to a foreign country too, even if a federal judge orders them not to, too.

Except, while not in this case, they've done exactly that in hundreds of cases at this point.

Post reply on HN