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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

#911

Post by rmah »

Taek wrote: post #811
usern20260720 wrote: post #728

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I get that the political system could be better, but having been to places that actually are not governed by the rule of law, I can assure you that the US is doing quite well on that front. When there is actually no rule of law, consequences include: + entire regions / areas where merely visiting those areas invites a highly non-trivial (think, more than 10% chance) chance of being kidnapped or murdered + every neigh…

You will never convince those who think the US is a state of lawlessness that the US is (mostly) a lawful, free and prosperous place. They literally cannot comprehend what living in a corrupt and mostly lawless society is like. They've never experienced anything even remotely close to it. It's like someone who grew up in the tropics and complains that they're "freezing to death!" because it's 50F. Someone from the arctic tells them about what real cold is like... they literally cannot understand.

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

#912

Post by shuwix »

embedding-shape wrote: post #784
shuwix wrote: post #782

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 E…

"Sometimes, it's better just to say nothing"

You should make this as your life credo. Change "sometimes" into "always" till you learn something.

It's called Continental law system, because main principles are same. And above that, there's EU legislation which is mandatory to all member states and is always to be adopted in national laws.

And your bullshit about law working for the rich in US is really stupid. Extremly rich are almost untouchable everywhere in the World. Rich have a fighting chance of getting better outcome. And poor people have chance tk seek justice against roughly equal opponent. This is not about US, this is about how World works.

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

#913

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

unreal37 wrote: post #548
floathub wrote: post #2

According to the article, he was actually using GrapheneOS and gave the border official the Duress PIN. So I guess technically it was the official that erased the data :-)

He is charged with obstruction. Not "erasing data". Was he intentionally trying to hinder a search that was being legally conducted? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obstruction_of_justice_in_the_...

> Was he intentionally trying to hinder a search that was being legally conducted?

Doesn't seem like it, no. It seems like the search had no legal basis, and so no legal search was hindered.

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

#914

Post by chb »

gslepak wrote: post #653
az226 wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably, but it will be more valuable for society for him to be tried and found not guilty, setting a legal precedent.

It turns out there already is a legal precedent for this. It's called the 4th Amendment: > The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seiz…

It seems cute_boi has it right: the 4th doesn’t apply to border crossings

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Arnold

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

#915

Post by tootie »

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…

I mean we have the 4th amendment here too. But there are exceptions for border control that have been upheld in court.

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

#916

Post by drnick1 »

madaxe_again wrote: post #907
gottorf wrote: post #846

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the UN as an entity, and to what it stands for What do you imagine the UN stands for? Let's not make the mistake of judging a program by its name or intention and not by its output. Mind you, this is the same UN on whose Human Rights Council sat such eminent proponents of human rights as Saudi Arabia, China, Russia, Afghanistan, and Cuba. Besides, the US historically funded about a third of the UN, out of 193 membe…

The UN stands for the UN charter - which the U.S. was a signatory of, of course - but from the 70’s onwards, US support for the UN waned to the point where we are today, where a withdrawal is not inconceivable. As to what specifically the U.S. has opposed… The Vienna convention. ICESCR. CEDAW. UNCLOS. Basel convention. Migrant workers convention. Convention on biodiversity. Convention on rights of the child (even Nor…

> The UN is supposed to be a supranational authority over all nations.

It's not. It's mostly a U.S. institution. And those 31 entities that you mentioned are expensive and useless to Americans.

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

#917

Post by Frieren »

rmah wrote: post #911
Taek wrote: post #811

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get that the political system could be better, but having been to places that actually are not governed by the rule of law, I can assure you that the US is doing quite well on that front. When there is actually no rule of law, consequences include: + entire regions / areas where merely visiting those areas invites a highly non-trivial (think, more than 10% chance) chance of being kidnapped or murdered + every neigh…

You will never convince those who think the US is a state of lawlessness that the US is (mostly) a lawful, free and prosperous place. They literally cannot comprehend what living in a corrupt and mostly lawless society is like. They've never experienced anything even remotely close to it. It's like someone who grew up in the tropics and complains that they're "freezing to death!" because it's 50F. Someone from the ar…

> They literally cannot comprehend what living in a corrupt and mostly lawless society is like.

I doubt that most Americans comprehend what is living in a well managed citizens-first country were people are represented and many laws are passed just because the working class wants them.

If you compare the USA with the worst places on earth, then it is a good place. I hope that Americans aim higher and want to compare themselves with the best places to live in the world.

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

#918

Post by Supermancho »

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.

All countries (all hierarchies) drift toward fascism. It's a historically and demonstrably effective way to consolidate power. The time to act is always, regardless if you're scared today or not.

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

#919

Post by encom »

yesb wrote: post #865
encom wrote: post #821

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>arbitrary Border searches aren't arbitrary. Sure, in the sense you may or may not get searched, but not in the sense that cops come and turn over your house for no reason. Crossing the border, you know some fraction of travellers will get searched, and that the government does so lawfully. Antagonising law enforcement in this situation is not a smart move, no matter how righteous you feel it is, unless you're doing…

Border searches aren't arbitrary when done for the purposes of border security and applied to travelers in a non-arbitrary way. It's pretty clear that CBP agents have a wide discretion to search people at their own whims i.e. arbitrarily. >that the government does so lawfully There are many legal question in this case, it's not clear the government acted lawfully. If he'd have arrived in a different federal court dis…

>Not what he did.

Maybe "antagonise" isn't the right word (ESL). By tricking the border agent into wiping the device, you have made him annoyed / angry / look foolish etc. No matter how much you are in the right, you have now given this person, with the power to create a lot of problems for you, the motivation to do so. You have to weigh that against coming home to your wife and children, in time for dinner. That's not fair, but that's reality.

Or maybe you crossed the border, with the intent to create this situation, to get it tried in court. More power to you.

About five years ago, here in Denmark, the government decided that freedom of assembly no longer applied. An activist decided to hold a party for about 10 people, including his lawyer, called the police on himself, and live streamed the whole thing. I can't find whatever became of that case, because search engines can no longer search. His name is Lars Andersen. He's been jailed a lot of times for petty bullshit.

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

#920

Post by hamburglar »

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(…

> Well, once you have been told to unlock the device, you're already in a legally binding process

In none of my scenarios am I describing actions to be taken after you have been told to unlock the phone. I’m talking about before you ever approach the border. There is no functional difference between wiping a key which encrypts the entire device (but leaving the encrypted data in place) vs wiping the entire device, from a security point of view, except one requires twiddling fewer bits to restore the data.

My point is that the law is unable to see that equivalence, but it is also unable to compel a different result. If choice A and B are identical for security purposes but the government can technically prosecute A but not B, all they have accomplished is forcing people to choose B.

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