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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

#741

Post by antonvs »

raluk wrote: post #725

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 UDHR is a non-binding declaration - in and of itself, it has no legal force.

The 4th Amendment of the US Constitution is more legally relevant, but part of the function of courts is to carve out exceptions to laws like that for law enforcement purposes, so practically speaking such provisions are much less absolute than their wording tends to imply.

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

#742

Post by Razengan »

frollogaston wrote: post #448
Razengan wrote: post #416

And you still believe you have more freedom than China and Russia.. *thumbs up emoji*

Well, yes. Imagine responding like this guy in Chinese border control, or even UK. The 1A, 4A, 5A mentioned here don't exist.

"wElL yEs, we're not completely fucked yet" - Saying that is how we got here

America didn't have an abrupt revolution like in China or Russia, just the collective populace willingly being complacent bitches for the last 26 years

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

#743

Post by astrobe_ »

raluk wrote: post #725

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…

Yes. People here imagining workarounds based on automatic wipe, encryption, etc. should rather acknowledge that their country is slowly drifting to a fascist state.

Your tech tricks are childish. Act like adults. Take responsibility, make decisions, take action, gather support.

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

#744

Post by antonvs »

lisper wrote: post #717
otterley wrote: post #697

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a lawyer (this is not legal advice) and agree with the main thrust of this comment. The law is not “hackable.” Ultimately people are making decisions about guilt and punishment. And judges really, really don’t take kindly to defendants who think they’re trying to outsmart the court.

> The law is not “hackable.” It absolutely is. The rich and powerful do it all the time.

Paying for something is not really a hack, because at least in this case, it’s the system working as intended.

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

#745

Post by willis936 »

otterley wrote: post #697
seanhunter wrote: post #677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 re…

I am a lawyer (this is not legal advice) and agree with the main thrust of this comment. The law is not “hackable.” Ultimately people are making decisions about guilt and punishment. And judges really, really don’t take kindly to defendants who think they’re trying to outsmart the court.

Then why have circumventions of the 4th amendment not been shut down immediately in court (this specific case, ALPRs contracted by police departments)? Same question for the first amendment with the FCC using license leverage to control speech?

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

#746

Post by Melatonic »

otterley wrote: post #697
seanhunter wrote: post #677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 re…

I am a lawyer (this is not legal advice) and agree with the main thrust of this comment. The law is not “hackable.” Ultimately people are making decisions about guilt and punishment. And judges really, really don’t take kindly to defendants who think they’re trying to outsmart the court.

There are also novel situations for which precedent is set and becomes defacto law. Personally I think this is a big issue with how the US works.

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

#747

Post by madaxe_again »

raluk wrote: post #725

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 U.S. is actively hostile to the UN as an entity, and to what it stands for, and has been for a long, long time - now, the mask has come off.

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

#748

Post by formerly_proven »

fluoridation wrote: post #527
formerly_proven wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US / common law jurisdictions typically only have very light self-incrimination protections. The 5th amendment in the US only protects against self-incriminating testimonial. That's it. In most other jurisdictions (i.e. civil law) it's perfectly legal for the accused to destroy evidence (assuming you're not committing any other crimes in doing so, like breaking and entering, property crime etc.), seizure being or…

That's interesting. Where can I read more about this?

Non-US-centric legal topics are surprisingly often a blind spot in enwiki, this is one of them. In civil law the core principle for this is "nemo tenetur (se ipsum accusare)", but the reifications are wildly different in the jurisdictions. Here are some examples:

- Japan (South Korea has practically the same law word-for-word): https://www.japaneselawtranslation.go.jp/en/laws/view/3581/e... ("...relating to a criminal case of another person" i.e. this is not applicable if you do it in your own case). Likewise article 103, harboring is not illegal if you're related.

- Germany: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_stgb/englisch_st... (this also includes harboring and makes it not illegal for family, which is a typical provision in civilized law)

- The usual suspects, Italy, Poland, Austria (of course), Switzerland, ... even the Russian criminal code has pretty much the same provisions

- Also the usual suspects: France ("guilletoine them all") and UK (common law) do not have this

Curiously, China quite closely matches the US.

This is essentially one aspect of Hobbesian self-preservation, I don't believe enwiki even mentions this idea anywhere. Another aspect of self-preservation is that -obviously- the mere act of escaping from prison or evading arrest can't be a criminal offense, and to varying degrees civil law jurisdictions recognize that.

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

#750

Post by mort96 »

astrobe_ wrote: post #743
raluk wrote: post #725

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…

Yes. People here imagining workarounds based on automatic wipe, encryption, etc. should rather acknowledge that their country is slowly drifting to a fascist state. Your tech tricks are childish. Act like adults. Take responsibility, make decisions, take action, gather support.

I'm not in the US, but say I was. I'm fully on board that the country is slowly (or not so slowly) drifting into becoming a fascist state. Say I needed to leave the country for some important reason and come back. Say I didn't want my phone searched. What should I do? What amount of taking responsibility, making decisions, taking action and gathering support is gonna help in that situation?

Technological workarounds which leave federal agents unable to search my phone isn't gonna fix the slide into fascism. But it might make my trip back home more comfortable. Activism against fascism isn't gonna make my trip back home more comfortable. But it might play a role in fighting the slide into fascism.

Hell, activist work to fight the slide into fascism might be the reason why I would rather not have my phone search by federal agents at the airport.

Individual problem require individual solutions, systemic problems require systemic solutions, and both kinds of solutions are valuable because both kinds of problems are real. Most people make the mistake of proposing individual solutions to systemic problems. You make the mistake of dismissing individual solutions to individual problems.

(I have also intentionally ignored here whether these solutions will actually work. I'm guessing some could, most would not. "I ran out of battery on my phone and didn't bring a laptop, sorry" would probably work. Some complicated cryptographic setup which "technically doesn't erase the data but leaves it inaccessible" probably wouldn't work; the federal agent wouldn't recognize the difference.)

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