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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

#551

Post by jmyeet »

grapheneos wrote: post #322
jmyeet wrote: post #195

I don't agree with all this and this increasingly fascist regime but... this was the most predictable outcome. Consider these two scenarios. 1. You factory reset your phone before entering the US and give it to CBP blank. There's nothing to find; 2. You have a self-destruct PIN like this guy did and give it CBP so it destroys the phone's contents. Tech people will say that these two things are functionally the same.…

A court has not yet determined whether the use of the duress PIN/password was legal. There's definitely no consensus among legal experts of it being illegal as you're portraying it. The US has strong legal protections against self-incrimination and unreasonable searches despite erosion of how much people's rights are respected. A factory reset done in anticipation of a search is not as different from using a duress f…

I used a very specific word for a very specific reason. That word was "spoliation". It is a legal word. It means destroying evidence but it means more than that.

If you're the subject of a lawful search and you destroy evidence rather than handing it over, that's spoliation. It has legal consequences. Courts are allowed to assume that whatever was destroyed was detrimental to you or your case. You can be charged with it as well. That's basically what happened here.

Consider this example: many companies have an email retention policy where emails will be automatically deleted after a period. I've heard of cases where this has been as little as 14 days. Typically though it's 1-5 years. One of the reasons companies do this is so discovery can't go and dredge up something really old in a lawsuit.

If this is a company policy then that's actually fine (ignoring any regulations or legislation tabout required retention).

Once you get subpoenaed you may get a hold on your email. The company is then required to retain it reagardless of this policy. If you then delete an email, that too is spoliation.

Do you see the difference? CBP can search your device. As soon as they request it, deleting the contents, regardless of what it contains is a crime. Wiping your phone before every border crossing as standard practice is not.

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

#552

Post by Cider9986 »

grapheneos wrote: post #333
Zak wrote: 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…

GrapheneOS has built-in encrypted backup and restore. It backs up the same data transferred by Google's device transfer feature for moving to a new phone which is nearly all app data, the data in the home directory, contacts and a bit more. Certain apps such as Signal encrypt their own data with another layer of encryption using a hardware keystore key. Signal's own backup system needs to be used for that, although i…

> He did help every GrapheneOS user by spreading awareness of the duress PIN/password. It was designed around an adversary aware of it and therefore not wanting to attempt using a PIN/password obtained via coercion.

You added it by copying Blackberry[1]? But seriously how did you think of that feature?

Genius feature when you put it like that.

[1] https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/40700-grapheneos-protection...

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

#553

Post by Brian_K_White »

Ok those who see no problem... Let's just for the sake of argument concede that you have never had any right to privacy while crossing the border and so there is no cause for outrage here. Guy did it to himself.

How was this different from deleting the same data the day before instead of on the spot?

The argument goes that the crime is essentially knowingly depriving the police of something they want.

The problem isn't that the phone was blank, it's that it wasn't blank, and then when the authorities wanted to look at it, and you caused it to be blank to thwart them.

Ok well all of those supposed key differentiating factors also apply the day before travelling.

You knew you would be crossing a border, and knew you might be searched there, and knew you would have no right to object or resist, and so as a direct response to that knowledge, took action to deprive those authorities of something you knew they might want, by wiping your phone the day before travelling and carrying no data with you into the zone of inhumanity.

This would probably still "work" today and might have worked for him this time, but that's just luck and progression. If more people do that and the jackboots start to identify it as the source of their inconvenience, what prevents them from declaring that illegal? It's all exactly the same argument.

All it needs is to become a more common practice, and then it gets a handy name like "pre-cleansing", and then you can be charged for the crime of pre-cleansing.

Maybe we should just make it illegal to own tech that you even have the power to delete yourself in the first place. If you want to wipe your device, you can't because it's not allowed to run custom software, and even if you simply physically destroy it, they at least know it happened (and where and when) from the loss of telemetry and they have the non optional cloud storage anyway.

Then we can charge people for destroying evidence by knowingly avoiding generating it in the first place. You are guilty of the crime of attempting to evade prosecution by not commiting a crime.

That's where we are already. The current case has exactly that same absurdity.

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

#554

Post by sneak »

solid_fuel wrote: post #199
Zak wrote: 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…

It may be fun to fantasize about these things some times, but there is no technical solution to tyranny. Laws are not like code, intent matters. Ultimately if the intent is that the government wants to see your private data, hiding it in any way will be charged - it doesn't matter if you jump through hoops to avoid this specific instance.

This is false. If you can image and wipe your phone on the plane before landing, and write those random bytes to a usb stick, the usb stick will appear blank, because encrypted data is noise. You land with a factory blank phone. You clear customs and get where you are going and restore your phone.

Substitute cloud storage for a USB stick if you do it at your departure hotel.

There are absolutely technical solutions to the implementations of tyranny. Otherwise we wouldn’t bother with encryption. Violence can’t solve math problems.

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

#555

Post by criddell »

someguydave wrote: post #112
tavavex wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you legally are in the US while at an American border crossing - at least if the crossing is on US land, which it was in this case. It might be more complicated for preclearance spots. It's just that normal rights are suspended there despite being in the US, even for citizens. Make of that what you will.

Your rights are not suspended, but border agents don’t need a reason to investigate you

And if you are a citizen, they can’t deny you entry. They can make it take a while, but you will be admitted.

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

#556

Post by sneak »

rootusrootus wrote: post #244
Zak wrote: 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…

I've restored iPhones before, and it does seem pretty simple. Easier than PCs for sure. It's not instant, but the basic configuration is restored pretty quickly while the bulk data restoration happens in the background while you're able to use the phone.

It is not remotely simple. So much is lost on device change.

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

#557

Post by sneak »

trencedamp wrote: post #338
Terr_ wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An increasing portion of phones are eSIM [0] only these days, and the difficulty of swapping can be weirdly-bad depending on provider. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESIM

But non esims exist still, and if you're that worried about security, you can get one.

US iPhones don’t have sim slots at all anymore.

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

#558

Post by unclebucknasty »

rootusrootus wrote: post #435
kbrannigan wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a very insidious, first you look all over your neighborhood flock cameras Hundreds of them came out of nowhere Nobody fought back . it's as long as you're not doing anything wrong you don't have to worry about it Then once changed the definition of what wrong means. If you're not a criminal you don't have to worry about it That's for your safety Then they changed the definition of what a crime is

This differentiates the US from who, exactly? If anything, US a latecomer to the public surveillance game.

>This differentiates the US from who, exactly?

What-aboutism is not a very compelling argument.

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

#559

Post by criddell »

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.

You’ll be charged, but will they be able to get a conviction?

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

#560

Post by OutOfHere »

greatgib wrote: post #403
OutOfHere wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, to my knowledge, they ask you to enter your PIN/password yourself. They don't enter it for you. I believe he entered it himself, at which point the erasure began. The erasure process was witnessed by the officer.

So the real problem in the end is that your duress system should not put a big message "erasing all data" but "loading" slowly and just look mostly empty.

You sir have nailed it. Unfortunately, GrapheneOS seems too stuck up to eagerly appreciate and address such real world nuances.
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