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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

#751

Post by mort96 »

astrobe_ wrote: post #744
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…

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.)

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

#752

Post by noisy_boy »

otterley wrote: post #698
seanhunter wrote: post #678

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.

> The law is not “hackable.”

The point the sibling comments miss is that for the hoi polloi, this one-weird-trick does not work because such laws has been written to broaden the scope as much as possible by heavily relying on intent instead of the micro mechanics (which keep changing) AND the enforcers focus on the intent. For the rich and wealthy, the law may be the same but the enforcement is wildly different because they absolutely have the enforcers on their side. I bet such people don't get strip searched like the unwashed masses as they roll off their private jets.

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

#753

Post by hx833001 »

Legally speaking, if he had written the code down somewhere and they had entered it, he would not be facing charges. He knowingly gave them a “delete all the evidence” command, as he explained to the newspaper. He could not have been compelled to provide the decryption code.

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

#754

Post by astrobe_ »

mort96 wrote: post #751
astrobe_ wrote: post #744

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Fair enough. It's fine as long as people don't forget that fixing individual problems won't fix systematic problems; it would be like curing the symptoms, not the root cause.

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

#755

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

blurbleblurble wrote: post #720
otterley wrote: post #698

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.

If the law isn't hackable what do you call what these billionaires and religious fundamentalists are doing to it right now?

You've answered your own question. The law is hackable for certain kinds of people. If you're not one of the protected categories, it's prudent to consider it unhackable.

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

#756

Post by enaaem »

rangerelf wrote: post #479
deepfriedbits wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With all due respect, this is a wild take. Things aren't great in the U.S. right now, but they're not even in the same universe as what the Stasi was doing. > I think it would be easier to understand the playing field and choose your actions accordingly, if you accept the US has entered its East Germany / late 20th century Soviet era -- except of course with 1000x more invasive and effective surveillance tech.

You'd be surprised. I also do find americans to be utterly naive regarding this slide towards fascism, and I live here so don't bother trying to explain it to me. You only saw the end result regarding the "universe as what the Stasi was doing", obviously you didn't pay attention to the road getting there.

At this moment there are right wing conspiracies from people like Owens and Tucker that Charlie Kirk was killed by Israel because he was getting critical of them and would be against the war.

I am not saying that these conspiracies are true, but this is how fascism looks like. Putin doesn't arrest all of his political challengers, but he gets rid of the ones that are viable opponents. In case of Kirk, he is popular enough to make it big in politics and in the short term he could break the party narrative.

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

#757

Post by attila-lendvai »

antonvs wrote: post #742
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 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.

such documents are worth only as much as the population wants to, is willing to, and is able to enforce them.

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

#758

Post by avazhi »

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…

[flagged]

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

#759

Post by KoolKat23 »

antonvs wrote: post #742
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 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.

Generally you can't carve out from a constitution, it is all encompassing. You can reinterpret perhaps but "carve outs" are only by amendment to the constitution. It's a concept called constitutional supremacy. There's generally ranking to laws. Think of a venn diagram with subset circles inside bigger circles.

Constitutional Law > Statutory/Legislative Law > Administrative/Regulatory Law > Case Law/Common Law

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

#760

Post by avazhi »

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

[flagged]
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