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Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border

nytimes.com

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

#651

Post by TechDebtDevin »

JSR_FDED wrote: post #603
gblargg wrote: post #531

The decoy passcode feature should boot into a separate partition that looks like a normal phone setup, and during that time quietly erase the user's actual data. They would never have known if it worked like this.

No recent messages and no recent email would be a pretty big giveaway. It’s a lot of work to make the decoy part of the phone look genuine. Does the GPS trail of your running app show you were at a protest site? Better remember to remove that as well. What about all the photos you took on your trip - there’s location metadata in there. Maybe the messenger app stripped that out, but what about the one picture you sent…

[dead]

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

#652

Post by gslepak »

az226 wrote: post #539
gblargg wrote: post #531

The decoy passcode feature should boot into a separate partition that looks like a normal phone setup, and during that time quietly erase the user's actual data. They would never have known if it worked like this.

Probably, but it will be more valuable for society for him to be tried and found not guilty, setting a legal precedent.

It turns out there already is a legal precedent for this. It's called the 4th Amendment:

> The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

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

#653

Post by lrvick »

Cider9986 wrote: post #634
lrvick wrote: post #575

I hope some day border agents ask for my phone, because I have not used one or even had a cell phone plan in over 5 years. Checkmate, assholes.

Do you still have a phone number(you can use something like jmp.chat on desktop)? If not, how do you navigate services like banks or utilities that demand one?

Ported my old cell phone number to voip so I can access it from a laptop without a cell network.

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

#654

Post by cute_boi »

gslepak wrote: post #652
az226 wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably, but it will be more valuable for society for him to be tried and found not guilty, setting a legal precedent.

It turns out there already is a legal precedent for this. It's called the 4th Amendment: > The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seiz…

I assumed all these amendment don't apply at border.

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

#655

Post by stouset »

jmyeet wrote: post #641
az226 wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably, but it will be more valuable for society for him to be tried and found not guilty, setting a legal precedent.

Except that's not going to happen because evidence spoliation (legal term) is a crime. And that's what he did. You can say it shouldn't be but it is. This is slam dunk and it happens all the time. It's the same crime as destroying evidence that's been subpoenaed or that it has a preservation hold on it. And the court gets to assume that whatever was on that phone hurts your case, regardless of whether or not it did.…

Independent of the merits of this case, is there legally a distinction between deleting a secret key that decrypts an encrypted blob (maybe not spoilage?) vs writing over the blob itself (spoilage?).

I could see arguments for both, either, or neither but I imagine both are considered spoilage.

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

#656

Post by Retric »

cute_boi wrote: post #654
gslepak wrote: post #652

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It turns out there already is a legal precedent for this. It's called the 4th Amendment: > The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seiz…

I assumed all these amendment don't apply at border.

There’s nothing in the constitution that makes that separation, only people deciding the constitution isn’t actually important

“The border” has similarly been extended to cover the majority of the US population. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_search_exception#/map/0 Yes, according the the US government warrantless border searches apply in West Virginia. (Map from here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_search_exception)

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

#657

Post by gpt5 »

gslepak wrote: post #652
az226 wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably, but it will be more valuable for society for him to be tried and found not guilty, setting a legal precedent.

It turns out there already is a legal precedent for this. It's called the 4th Amendment: > The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seiz…

I'm sorry, but the Fourth Amendment does not protect against the intentional destruction of evidence.

He could have refused search without a warrant, intentionally destroying evidence is a different legal matter.

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

#658

Post by sixothree »

JSR_FDED wrote: post #603
gblargg wrote: post #531

The decoy passcode feature should boot into a separate partition that looks like a normal phone setup, and during that time quietly erase the user's actual data. They would never have known if it worked like this.

No recent messages and no recent email would be a pretty big giveaway. It’s a lot of work to make the decoy part of the phone look genuine. Does the GPS trail of your running app show you were at a protest site? Better remember to remove that as well. What about all the photos you took on your trip - there’s location metadata in there. Maybe the messenger app stripped that out, but what about the one picture you sent…

Messages and email they could have gotten with a warrant. Everything on this phone was obtainable with a warrant.

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

#659

Post by Animats »

Legal question: if you had whole-disk encryption, and the duress password just zeroized the decryption key, would that be "destroying evidence?" Especially if there was a recovery possible but not instantly available, such as a Yubikey in a safe deposit box in a bank. That would take a subpoena to get, and there is an opportunity to challenge the subpoena in court first. Not instantly at the border.

Something like that should be a standard feature of a secure phone.

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

#660

Post by mjevans »

rootusrootus wrote: post #251
TheqO wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As everything on your phone should be backed up, you could just wipe your phone to new. Then log in with another temp account and use that for border pass etc, and then after border checks log back into your normal account?

Just get a boarding pass from the counter old school style. They still print them.

Laser printed boarding passes are so much more reliable anyway and you never have to worry about recharging them.
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