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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

#811

Post by Taek »

usern20260720 wrote: post #728
raluk wrote: post #726

From Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) accepted by the United Nations General Assembly on 10 December 1948 -------- Article 12 No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks. https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-de…

The US is not a country governed by the rule of the law

I get that the political system could be better, but having been to places that actually are not governed by the rule of law, I can assure you that the US is doing quite well on that front. When there is actually no rule of law, consequences include:

+ entire regions / areas where merely visiting those areas invites a highly non-trivial (think, more than 10% chance) chance of being kidnapped or murdered

+ every neighborhood and business has substantial, often military-grade private security

+ if credit exists at all, it exists outside of any formal banking structure and will have interest rates that are north of 30% APR, sometimes north of 100% APR. I've genuinely seen interest rates on credit as high as 2% *per day*, and these are rates that the local population is willing to pay for certain short term expenses (like food)

+ families that maintain good social relationships with the local police/militants/whoever-has-guns live substantially better lives than people without good social connections to the local authorities.

+ Travelers are told on repeat: "it's really not safe here for non-locals, you should stay inside and also reconsider being in this part of the world at all"

+ If the travelers are there for business reasons, they are probably assigned 24/7 armed guards (as many as 4 guards per traveler, each guard carrying full-auto weapons) by the locals, provided for free.

And while the US maybe has a neighborhood here or there which might be like this, every part of every major city in the country has more rule of law than the above.

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

#812

Post by basisword »

Taek wrote: post #811
usern20260720 wrote: post #728

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is not a country governed by the rule of the law

I get that the political system could be better, but having been to places that actually are not governed by the rule of law, I can assure you that the US is doing quite well on that front. When there is actually no rule of law, consequences include: + entire regions / areas where merely visiting those areas invites a highly non-trivial (think, more than 10% chance) chance of being kidnapped or murdered + every neigh…

When you can't trust your highest court is impartial the whole system is untrustworthy. Unfortunately the US system is designed in such a way that the highest court can't be trusted (life terms, appointed by the sitting president).

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

#813

Post by rswail »

DeusExMachina wrote: post #803
usern20260720 wrote: post #728

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is not a country governed by the rule of the law

Except that the UDHR is not the rule of law. It is a mere declaration, as specified at the top of the page, that "is widely recognized as having inspired [...] the adoption of more than seventy human rights treaties" That does not make it an enforceable law. Moreover, treaties are agreements between countries, not laws, which a country can violate at will. People might create supranational organizations like the UN o…

Not necessarily the same in every nation, but any treaty ratified by Congress in the United States has the same status as any law passed by Congress.

It is subject to judicial review, but has equal standing.

So the US cannot "violate [it] at will".

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

#814

Post by guax »

sandworm101 wrote: post #674
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.

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.

A precedent is set every time an issue is judged for the first time. If you have any prior case of someone being found guilty or not for this exact case, that would be the precedent. If there is none, then this will set it, including appeal results.

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

#815

Post by deadbabe »

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.

Instead of decoy passcode why not have secret passcode to access your illicit data? Then your normal passcode looks legit, while your illicit passcode keeps data leaks, zero days, cp, state secrets, manifestos, money laundering, etc, and the partition is encrypted at rest.

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

#816

Post by beremaki »

Taek wrote: post #811
usern20260720 wrote: post #728

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is not a country governed by the rule of the law

I get that the political system could be better, but having been to places that actually are not governed by the rule of law, I can assure you that the US is doing quite well on that front. When there is actually no rule of law, consequences include: + entire regions / areas where merely visiting those areas invites a highly non-trivial (think, more than 10% chance) chance of being kidnapped or murdered + every neigh…

Rule of law is when the state's power is effectively limited by law.

Rule of law is not about order nor safety

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

#817

Post by guax »

c2h5oh wrote: post #494

I always enter US with all of my devices wiped and restore them from backup once I'm past immigration, simply because I don't trust government to maintain the security level my job requires. Now I'm worried that this will be held against me..

This is absolutely a possibility and having a clean phone might be grounds for being denied entry.

The border agent has a lot of control over your life at that point and virtually zero accountability.

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

#818

Post by inexcf »

Taek wrote: post #811
usern20260720 wrote: post #728

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is not a country governed by the rule of the law

I get that the political system could be better, but having been to places that actually are not governed by the rule of law, I can assure you that the US is doing quite well on that front. When there is actually no rule of law, consequences include: + entire regions / areas where merely visiting those areas invites a highly non-trivial (think, more than 10% chance) chance of being kidnapped or murdered + every neigh…

Man while reading your points i was thinking your last sentence will be a sarcastic note that implies that these points all do actually apply to the US. Of course the US as a whole is not comparable to other parts of the world where these points absolutely apply but points 1,2,4 and 5 seem to apply to a significant extent.

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

#819

Post by guax »

kypro wrote: post #523
tbrownaw wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. They'd probably have kept the device for a while, but he wouldn't be in legal trouble.

That's crazy. Here in the UK border police can question you for any reason (no need for suspicion) and if you refuse to answer questions or give them access to your devices you'll be charged under terror legalisation.

Whats more crazy is that this is partially false: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/powers-and-operat...

Under normal circumstances, you don't have. BUT there is schedule 7 powers: https://www.counterterrorism.police.uk/what-we-do/counter-te...

> Under Schedule 7, a police officer with the mandated accreditation does not need prior authority or suspicion to stop, question, search, or if necessary, detain someone. However, they may only stop and question a person for the purpose of allowing a determination of whether that person appears to be someone who is or who has been concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism.

How this is abused on the other hand, I presume, might depend on your skin shade.

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

#820

Post by jckahn »

usern20260720 wrote: post #728
raluk wrote: post #726

From Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) accepted by the United Nations General Assembly on 10 December 1948 -------- Article 12 No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks. https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-de…

The US is not a country governed by the rule of the law

Also the legal system is not autistic. It's based on vibes more than anyone wants to admit.
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