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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

#51

Post by jeroenhd »

bdangubic wrote: post #20
jeroenhd wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Knowingly providing a PIN that would erase evidence is going to get tough in court. But the man was also hated by the cops because of his activism. They were going to catch him for something, some day. This incident just provided the necessary excuse to lock him up.

> They were going to catch him for something, some day. This incident just provided the necessary excuse to lock him up funny reading this (don't disagree) and then also reading on HN how China is "bad" this is some gestapo shit but not surprising that it is getting normalised ...

China is strictly worse than the USA when it comes to border controls. That doesn't mean the USA is good or acceptable in any way; these laws are part of the reason why I don't plan on visiting the country. The USA also has much worse laws on the books, like having to give the authorities your social media passwords to check if you're secretly a terrorist (though that doesn't apply to citizens).

Excessive border patrol power has been around in the USA for ages now, it's all part of the post-9/11 package. I don't think many Americans even know they live in a zone where the border police can do shit like this, even if they haven't left the country, as international airports are usually near big cities, and they have a wide border zone around them. This stuff only really makes it into the news when it happens to one of the "good guys".

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

#52

Post by GJim »

Sharlin wrote: post #14
jmclnx wrote: post #12

Yet another case that will waste the court's time and money. All this is doing is keeping defense lawyers pocket's lined. At this point, people should buy a burner phone when going to/from the US. In that phone only have a couple of phone numbers and that's it.

Oh, they may well give you bad time if your phone looks like a burner with too little content.

> Oh, they may well give you bad time if your phone looks like a burner with too little content.

Issuing 'burner phones' and laptops to staff visiting countries such as China or the USA is now SOP for many companies handling sensitive data, including mine.

Don't think this isn't unusual.

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

#54

Post by Humorist2290 »

gruez wrote: post #50
Varelion wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Please try again with an actual argument rather than attacking people based on which "side" I'm on.

Is there any question the person who was baselessly charged with CSAM, then terrorism when they realized it was so obviously untenable, as a pretense to detain him would've been treated differently if he were on a different "side"?

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

#57

Post by myrmidon »

jeroenhd wrote: post #9
pjc50 wrote: post #4

Paywalled, but what is the actual charge? Is it some extremely generic "obstructing an investigation" one? The US is quite good about making court documents available on line, if someone can find it.

Knowingly providing a PIN that would erase evidence is going to get tough in court. But the man was also hated by the cops because of his activism. They were going to catch him for something, some day. This incident just provided the necessary excuse to lock him up.

There is no duty to keep a copy of messages and private data on your phone for the FBI to peruse at its leisure. Quite the opposite, actually (according to the constitution).

It is pretty clear to me that law enforcement conspired to abuse a border crossing to effect basically an unconstitutional search ("fishing expedition"), which it would never have gotten a warrant for.

This is them being spiteful after that whole thing failed. Note how law enforcement basically admits this on the record. The whole thing is a disgrace; every decisionmaker involved in this should be sacked immediately.

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

#58

Post by gruez »

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.

Well that's the thing with destroying evidence. If you destroyed it, it becomes harder (or impossible) to prove you did the crime. That's why it's not uncommon for people to be only charged with stuff like "obstruction of justice" rather than the actual crime they allegedly did.

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

#59

Post by LoganDark »

mc32 wrote: post #28
hamper653 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a difference between exploding a bomb and deleting your data. One is a crime.

Intentional destruction of evidence is also a crime. Now, whether this applies to this scenario I suppose will have to be determined by the courts. Destroying potential evidence before suspicion is not a crime. Destroying it once under suspicion is a crime. So anyone can destroy their data at their hotel room even just before entry even if the data contains evidence of crimes. Of course the courts could take that int…

Destroying potential evidence before suspicion is a crime if done with intent to impede a future investigation, even if the investigation hasn't yet started. Your example would be a crime if it could be proven that there would likely have been evidence in what you deleted.
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