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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

#671

Post by xhhrudjjxud »

gpt5 wrote: post #658
gslepak wrote: post #653

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'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.

[flagged]

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

#672

Post by xhhrudjjxud »

gpt5 wrote: post #658
gslepak wrote: post #653

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'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.

[flagged]

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

#673

Post by jachee »

gpt5 wrote: post #658
gslepak wrote: post #653

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'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.

It can’t be destroying evidence if there’s no case or charge being pressed for which that material would be evidence.

“Entering the country while in possession of a device storing binary data” isn’t a crime.

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

#674

Post by sandworm101 »

az226 wrote: post #540
gblargg wrote: post #532

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.

Not guilty sets no legal precedent. For that, he needs to be found giulty at trial (no plea bargains) appeal that conviction, and then have an appelate court declare that a mistake was made. I would not wish such a process on anyone.

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

#676

Post by greesil »

shimman wrote: post #624
az226 wrote: post #540

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.

That's not going to stop authoritarians from harassing. Want an example of how this played out? United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) was the SCOTUS case that declared if you were born in the US you were a citizen. You think Mr. Ark was okay from harassment after this case was ruled in his favor? Less than 3 years later he would be held in Texas while local authorities tried to deport him under the Chinese Exclusion A…

They do slow them down a bit

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

#677

Post by refurb »

josefritzishere wrote: post #49
gruez wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Amendment 4: He was charged for destroying evidence, not refusing a search >Amendment 5: Destroying evidence isn't testimony. Moreover he would have been in the clear if he just kept his mouth shut.

Evidence of what? Destroying evidence assumes he is guilty of a crime which there be evidence of. Our system is predicated on an assumption of innocence. The normal threshold to accuse is a "reasonable, articulable suspicion." This does not meet that criteria.

> Destroying evidence assumes he is guilty of a crime which there be evidence of.

This is 100% untrue. You can be guilty of destroying evidence that includes no criminal activity whatsoever.

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

#678

Post by seanhunter »

Animats wrote: post #660

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 th…

If you want actual legal advice pay for an actual lawyer. You aren’t going to get it asking a bunch of randoms on a tech forum.

Since we’re techies we tend to think about technological nuances and have a certain literal frame of mind (eg “They can’t make it illegal for me to just type the wrong pin” is the type of thinking I’m talking about here) whereas in law weird precedents and your intent really matter so you really need expert advice and either way, you are throwing yourself at the mercy of a stochastic process that depends on a bunch of fallible humans along the way many of whom have the power to make your life extremely miserable.

Technicalities of destroying the data vs destroying the key to the data, destroying the data when you have a backup etc may matter a lot to us but may not mean anything in an actual judicial process depending on how it goes.

It seems to me if you have data you don’t want subject to seizure at a border it is best not to travel over the border carrying that data. If you have a backup (in your scenario), why not restore your phone from that backup after you have travelled, and not cross the border with anything that is likely to be a problem if seized? Then you’re not putting yourself at risk from this process.

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

#679

Post by refurb »

mcmcmc wrote: post #382
swat535 wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting you say that, because as another Canadian, I would say that the sentiment in our country is the opposite of you describe. The actions of our government reflect it. Canada is moving further from US, not closer. Canadians who support Americans are in the minority at the moment. I'm not sure how a new US president would be able to turn it around.. further more, what's to say that the president thereafter wil…

The simple answer is we need constitutional reform. Term limits on SCOTUS, codification of norms (eg releasing presidential candidate tax returns, not blocking appointee confirmations indefinitely to steal the position for the next admin), anti corruption laws with teeth. Also things like reigning in the absurd executive power bloat that’s gone on since Lincoln. POTUS was never meant to be a king. There should never…

You realize that it;'s not exactly democratic to change the rules just because you don't like who was elected democratically? That's the opposite of democracy.

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

#680

Post by refurb »

WindyTree wrote: post #483
spl757 wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has it's mid-term elections this november, and it's possible, and even likely, that the Democratic candidates will win overwhealmingly. The Democrats are not a monolith, either, the Democratic Socialists of America political group is the very progressive part of the Democratic party, they are the ones that are not accepting dark money campaign donations. I do not agree with a lot of the unrealistic things that…

People have no idea. They’re destroying old books. Just like the last time (1), and the time before that (2), and the time before that(3), which were: 1) Nazi Germany, following debt/inflationary collapse of Weimar Republic. 2) Bolshevik Revolution, following WWI induced debt collapse of Tsars. 3) French Revolution, following debt collapse of Monarchy. Now where are we? 40 trillion in debt. The interest is $1.1 trill…

AI companies are destroying old books. This has nothing to do with the government.
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