Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

781–790 of 1001 posts

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

#781

Post by thereforegrin »

qeternity wrote: post #736
dosisking wrote: post #725

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The law means nothing. The law is "interpreted" by judges. If the government wants you to be guilty, they will find a way to make that happen. They don't care about the rule of law. The US has a 99% conviction rate, highest ever in recorded history.

You are misunderstanding the conviction rate. Only ~2% of cases actually go to trial, and at trial there is ~80% conviction rate. There are ~4x as many cases dismissed by judges before getting to trial. And the vast majority (90%) of defendants enter into plea bargains. Prosecutors only bring charges when they feel they have a strong case. There are many many cases which are never pursued because of this, and people…

wouldn't you go into plea bargain if you knew there's 80% chance of conviction of you don't?

At some point the high conviction rate acts as a deterrent from not entering a plea. IMHO this is the case in the US and has been for quite some time.

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

#782

Post by shuwix »

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

It's governed by the wicked version of Anglo-Saxxon law.

In some cases it works much better than "criminal's have rights, victims doesn't" Continental law system in Europe.

In other cases, it's insanity.

In normal World, criminals have rights for any kind of defense. And that's good, because government have power to make anyone "criminal".

Total breach of privacy by US government is a mirror to shitload of problems US has.

Europe js heading same direction (both the problems & government solutions).

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

#784

Post by embedding-shape »

shuwix wrote: post #782
usern20260720 wrote: post #728

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's governed by the wicked version of Anglo-Saxxon law. In some cases it works much better than "criminal's have rights, victims doesn't" Continental law system in Europe. In other cases, it's insanity. In normal World, criminals have rights for any kind of defense. And that's good, because government have power to make anyone "criminal". Total breach of privacy by US government is a mirror to shitload of problems U…

I think even by the second word you're outside bicycling, US isn't governed by anything at this point, except some rich people.

> In some cases it works much better than "criminal's have rights, victims doesn't" Continental law system in Europe.

What on earth are you talking about, "victims" definitively have rights in most European countries, but the fact you seemingly think there is one "Continental law system in Europe" clearly shows you have zero idea what you're talking about, Europe isn't one country with one law system across the continent...

Sometimes, it's better just to say nothing :)

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

#785

Post by avazhi »

blinky81 wrote: post #768
avazhi wrote: post #758

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

This is a funny comment. What are you saying? The UN is one of the greatest achievements we've been able to do as a society. It's far from perfect. But would you rather live in a world without one?

[flagged]

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

#786

Post by shrubby »

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

Or basic humanity

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

#787

Post by debugnik »

Gabrys1 wrote: post #202
spacebanana7 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder whether it'd be better for a duress PIN to delete existing data and also create a semi plausible artificial profile to hide the deletion event.

Maybe it could cause the phone to "randomly" bootloop or something? "Oh no, my phone is broken again, last time this happened I needed to do a factory reset"

This case happened precisely because the officers noticed the phone flash and reboot when they entered the pin. IIRC they didn't make a fuss over it, but time later he got charged over the event.

So whatever a duress pin does, it has to be subtle enough that anyone looking doesn't link it to the act of entering the pin.

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

#788

Post by thiht »

hirvi74 wrote: post #545
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'd be less of a hassle to buy a burner phone to travel with. It's not a felony to not bring your main phone when leaving the country.

Until they decide it’s a felony

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

#789

Post by Gareth321 »

Animats wrote: post #660

Legal question: if you had whole-disk encryption, and the duress password just zeroized the decryption key, would that be "destroying evidence?" Especially if there was a recovery possible but not instantly available, such as a Yubikey in a safe deposit box in a bank. That would take a subpoena to get, and there is an opportunity to challenge the subpoena in court first. Not instantly at the border. Something like th…

I am not a lawyer.

1. Intent matters. If you give the password to a Customs and Border Protection agent which deletes all the data, your intent was to deceive them and either delete evidence, or at least fail to comply with their request. CBP has wide powers of search.

2. CBP has broad remit to deny entry to any non-citizen for any and no reason. Even if not illegal to provide a duress password, they can and will send non-citizens back home.

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

#790

Post by StilesCrisis »

b112 wrote: post #740
hamburglar wrote: post #727

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The interesting thing is that the "don't carry the data" scenario of wiping your phone and restoring it after you're across the border is not functionally different from the "just don't carry the keys across the border" scenario. I would be comfortable with a dd archive of my encrypted phone contents in an short-lived S3 bucket that I could restore with a simple passphrase-derived key, for example. It's hard for the…

It's immensely different. Leaps and bounds different. Why? Well, once you have been told to unlock the device, you're already in a legally binding process. The phone is at this point evidence. It was not evidence before. It was not evidence a month ago. It really is just that simple. Now, they could view prior wipe as suspicious, but as a US citizen they cannot prevent entry. And they may be able to seize your phone(…

Google could not care less; this feature does not make money and adds support burden.
Post reply on HN