- cross-posted to:
- privacy@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- privacy@lemmy.world
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The charge treats the alleged wipe as destruction of property intended to prevent a government seizure.
He is being charged with destroying “evidence” but he was never charged with anything in the first place. That is like saying deleting any files at home is a crime. I’d think forcing you to present evidence necessary to charge you with something would fall under the constitutional right against self-incrimination.
I’m half-expecting for it to turn out that he was being wholly compliant, and he’s being accused of destruction of evidence because they were looking for something that never existed to begin with.
- get a phone with a removable battery and wireless charging
- break the USB port
- pull out the battery before crossing the border
sorry, my phone is dead and won’t hold a charge.
- nothing untrue about that statement
- state of the phone was a preexisting condition and cannot be used to apply obstruction charges
I mean, sure, but then they seize the phone and still get all the data. In this case he wiped the data so it couldn’t be seized.
Write the duress PIN on a piece of paper in your wallet. Someone searching your phone is probably also searching your wallet and may try the PIN.
Genius. Flips the script. In the process of conducting an illegal search, you deleted my phone causing considerable financial and emotional damage. Lawsuit time.
It probably won’t work, at least (US)domestically. The requirement for obtaining a warrant before searching a phone is part of training because there is a clear Supreme Court ruling to that effect.
That being said, what the law says and what some random asshole does during a stop are not always the same thing.
This was a point of entry. No search warrant required.
Their way around it is they say that the border crossing technically isn’t 100% normal US territory and therefore some constitutional rights are suspended under the concept of “sovereign self-protection”. You could then say any law in the US could be used to justify this concept, in fact it was used to forcibly intern thousands of Japanese and Japanese-Americans during ww2.
He was targeted for purely political reasons, the cop-city environmental protest in Atlanta GA, and I’m wondering why the border officials were even aware of them. Is there some sort of “we don’t like what you think” list run by the gov?
His device was threatened with seizure even though he posed no threat, no visible threat or spoken one, no suspicion of a crime, and they had no idea what the contents were. His 5th Amendment rights were violated by the threat to seize it. They want to establish a precedent, that the very existence of a possibility of criminal contents, regardless of any reason to suspect any, is sufficient for search and seizure. Based on this a little kid deleting the contents of their ipad would be a crime.
Is there some sort of “we don’t like what you think” list run by the gov?
You think all these data centers are just for making bad code and creepy videos?
Feds following the law? Did you miss the last decade?
That being said, what the law says and what some random asshole does during a stop are not always the same thing.
If the duress pin makes obvious it’s the duress pin then it’s not really doing its job. It should instead open a profile with not much in it while erasing the other profile and files in the background.
They asked to unlock his phone, he entered the wipe instead personal pin, and the wipe starts, with no possible reversal.
I mean yeah they discover it when he hands them the phone and it shows something other than an unlocked screen… But he is still in detention? Making a fake homescreen will fool them for like 30 secs tops until they open literally any app and sees it’s either completely empty or that it doesn’t work.
What would that solve? It just drags out the procedure
Empty apps or no apps aren’t necessarily a sign of guilt, but they will look at you like you are because its not normal.
Companies often have travel laptops which are a clean install and no private corporate info exposed.
From reading up on the laws and if what this article says is true, even if they unlocked his phone and found evidence of crimes on it, gods case would be kicked to the curb as it was all an illegal search and correct procedures weren’t followed.
Border guards do not need a search warrant to search you and your property at a crossing or point of entry. The search was perfectly legal.
They can’t search your property without a warrant, probable cause, or your permission.
https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/border-zone
- An immigration officer also cannot search you or your belongings without either “probable cause” or your consent. If an agent asks you if they can search your belongings, you have the right to say no.
Of course they just deny you entry at that point…
They can’t deny a US citizen entry to the US.
I doubt it would be grounds for turning away a legal visitor, though you would have to have a way to challenge it.
“At a crossing” means with 100 miles of any border or port of entry. Which is about 67% of the country. It is complete bullshit of a policy.
I’m not an expert, but I don’t believe that applies to airport points of entry. Regardless, if you’re going to something as suspicious as wiping your phone while at a point of entry, consulting a lawyer beforehand is just a reasonable thing to do.
You may think some laws are bullshit, (ie: sovereign citizens) but you are still governed by those laws.
All I am saying is be informed.
Yeah it’s like having never had a single sip of alcohol but doing a u-turn and driving off when you see police doing mobile breathalysers. It looks suspicious as fuck, and the police will treat it as such until they’ve investigated and found you didn’t do anything wrong. You’re basically giving them “probably cause”.
The 100 miles extends inward from the exterior border, not around every airport. But every international airport is a port of entry over which they have jurisdiction and can perform warrantless searches. And, in my opinion, warrantless searches for everyone by virtue of simply entering into the country is a violation of the 4th amendment. Which is why it’s bullshit and shouldn’t be allowed. It can and often is abused, especially when tied to another equally (should be) unconstitutional “law”, civil forfeiture, even before the bullshit policies Trump and the SCOTUS have deemed reasonable suspicion for illegal status (i.e. appearing Hispanic, speaking Spanish, displaying a flag from another nation, etc.) I’m aware of the laws, but that doesn’t make them just or even constitutional.
They’re not allowed to do warrantless searches.
https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/border-zone
To do a search they need probable cause, your permission, or a warrant.
Under the border search exception, federal officers may generally conduct routine, warrantless searches of persons and items entering the United States without reasonable suspicion or probable cause of unlawful activity. However, stops and searches conducted in areas farther from the border may require at least heightened suspicion or probable cause of unlawful activity to withstand Fourth Amendment scrutiny.
https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/amdt4-6-6-3/ALDE_00000239/
They can do warrantless searches. Just not within the entire 100 mile border. A fair distinction, but they definitely can at the border and ports of entry, and do so routinely.
Yeh that’s very different to saying they can in the whole 100mil area.
At an airport or actual border crossing yeah, I can understand that. They’d only be doing it when they have a big suspicion of something, at least you’d hope. According to them it’s like 0.01% of people a year.
My understanding is you can’t actually be forced (legally) to give up your phone’s PIN or password as part of a police search, because it violates the 5th amendment against self-incrimination, even at the border. Now will they still find a way to fuck up your day if you refuse to unlock your phone, sure, but I feel like saying “I have a right under the 5th Amendment to not reveal my password” is going to be a lot easier to defend than “I intentionally wiped/locked/bricked my phone when you asked to look through it.”
Depends
Most phones can be accessed by forensic software. The more secure phones are protected as long as they’ve just been restarted but before they’re unlocked for the first time.
Some phones, like an up-to-date GrapheneOS on a supported Pixel, may resist forensic imaging after first unlocking but the information is in memory so there could potentially be zero days or other exotic methods of obtaining the data.
A duress wipe lets you know 100% that the data is not accessible.
Back up and wipe your phone before you cross the border. That way if they want to look at it, feel free to hand it to them. When you get back home, restore the backup.
Also consider getting a throwaway phone if they try to keep it.
What law did he break? Vs the warrantless search that is breaking the law. If only the supreme court didn’t give them a pass.
Search without a warrant is valid at the border.
Not without probable cause or your consent it’s not.
Or within 100 miles of it. Including all international airports. That just soh appens to be like 80% of the population or something.
It does not include airports. People need to stop repeating that
So I’ve learned :(
The headline is wrong.
Fascist regime fucks over people’s constitutional rights and could send a man to prison for protecting his own privacy.
There, fixed.
Without a warrant, it’s literally his phone to do with it what he pleases. Baffled that that’s not the end of the conversation.
Assuming we lived in a rational world with a fair and impartial justice system, and not one that exists to funnel money from the working class into the Epstein class and kill or imprison everyone that makes that less easy.
https://www.cbp.gov/travel/cbp-search-authority/border-search-electronic-devices
You’ll be surprised by what you don’t know.
well they have the “border search exception” so at the border, no, they generally do not need a warrant for “routine searches” of electronic devices. Fucked up, but that is the law on the books and US courts have virtually always upheld it when it comes up.
Oh, because they are outside US borders they claim not to need a warrant, but that doesn’t stop them using US law to prosecute him though.
I think the supreme court has said they can search phones without warrants at the border and points of entry, so airports.
You can’t be compelled to give them your password, but you can be compelled to use your biometric ID. Clear as mud.
Assuming we lived in a rational world with a fair and impartial justice system
That’s like assuming unicorns will protect all that is good and sugar is effective weight loss
Well yeah. Hence the second half of that sentence.
What’s a warrant?
A judge issues a warrant when there is an active criminal investigation. If there’s no investigation, no warrant.
Oh, that’s not how it works in the united States. Is this some commonwealth legal thing?
It is how it works inside the united states. It’s just they claim that because he was on the flight side of the airport, he wasn’t inside the US.
it is how it works
Thanks but I live here and it’s not basically ever.
Cops either use a pretense tools like a drug dog to establish probable cause for the search they want or do parallel construction after they’ve already built the general structure of a case, usually tracing things to a valid cause for search, usually via coached informant.
Or its ice and they can just do whatever they want.
You’re living in a fantasy world and your delusional ignorance is real danger is worrying. Please never approach or speak to me in person.
Did you stop reading at that point?
That’s not how it works. I’m not sure that’s how it’s ever worked. You’re living in a fantasy. Warrants are not a meaningfully real thing.
GrapheneOS should update the duress passcode to load a dummy profile like Only Key’s Plausible Deniability Feature.
Loading any profile allows the operating system access to root privileges, and opens potential for user privilege escalation.
The profiles are independently encrypted with a key derived from the user’s profile PIN. If the other profiles are not logged in then their keys are not in RAM (and they get zeroed beforehand so they can’t be read out of unallocated memory).
Even if the bad guys get root via a LPE in a dummy account there are no keys to find and the profiles’ storage are not mounted.
You couldn’t trust the device after that however, who knows what kind of persistent spyware they could have installed.
Then it should delete the data while loading a dummy profile
That would be an interesting proposition… under duress load profile x and delete all other profiles, apps, settings and keys.
Or maybe a lighter version of the duress pin that just loads the fake profile (or alternate profile) but leaves the other(s) intact.
If you’re just handing your phone over for a border pig to swipe through before waving you through that might be adequate.
It depends on whether you believe forensics can recover the data when handed over. So make it a setting
Yeah I was thinking of this as a half measure. But less secure than just wiping
This is fucking stupid. If I delete something on my phone while I’m on vacation am I going to prison because the border patrol might have wanted to look at it?
What color are you and how far left are your politics?
Should have been born a child fucking billionaire if you don’t want to be sentenced to prison for 30 years.
I always forget that “choose better parents” one weird trick. ;-)
It’s like pulling yourself up by the bootstraps. So obvious. Just because it is impossible to do is no excuse.
That’s not really how the law works. You’re not making a comparable analogy. You sitting at home or in a hotel room is legally not remotely the same as when you’re being actively searched by a federal agent.
This is more like if the a police officer is about to do a pat-down search of someone, and they reach into their pocket, grab something, and rapidly swallow it.
You can destroy your property in normal circumstances whenever you please. If you delete a file in the privacy of your own home, odds are you’re not doing so for the purposes of evading law enforcement. However, if you do it literally seconds before law enforcement is about to get a hold of it, it’s pretty unambiguous that you’re trying to destroy evidence.
That’s the crucial difference here legally. Plausible deniability does not exist when you’re destroying something because a police search is imminent.
Or maybe you just don’t want some cop to see your dick pics. If they had anything on this dude they wouldn’t have needed to go through his phone.
I am explaining how the law works and the assumptions behind it. The law assumes that if you were embarrassed about your dick pics, that you would delete those before the officer is right about to search you.
The laws assumptions are bullshit.
This guy has no fucking idea how the law works. Destruction of evidence requires a primary crime, the one you’re destroying the evidence for. There is no crime, therefore no destruction of evidence. Only an incompetent or corrupt judge would let this even go to trial.
It’s bullshit but with the current laws. Back up your phone before you head home wipe it before going through border control, and restore your backup when you get home.
That’s what I do but evidently that pisses them off
Their mood isn’t your responsibility. Carrying a blank phone is perfectly legal.
deleted by creator
Nah, they just lube up the rubber gloves and fist you, checking in case there’s a micro SD stashed up there. You should still make your flight if you relax.
And thats why you dont travel to countries with ropey regimes
We don’t need hyperbole here …. If authorities have a legal reason to search and you interfere with that, destruction of evidence is a crime. Delete all you want …. Right up until authorities claim the legal reason to search. Usually that takes a warrant: investigators must convince a judge there is a good reason
This also includes “when entering the country”. It always has. There’s nothing new here. There are so many things the current administration does to violate rights and due process, but this isn’t one of them.
The slippery slope here is “or within 100 miles”, but that wasn’t a factor here either
This also includes “when entering the country”. It always has. There’s nothing new here. There are so many things the current administration does to violate rights and due process, but this isn’t one of them.
Have to disagree with that one. Simply entering a country is not justification for searching someones phone. I don’t care what the law says. People have a right to privacy.
Not since 2001 they don’t.
They do, just because the government says otherwise doesn’t make it true.
Yes, it does. Thats what governance means.
I’m not saying I agree with it, just that it’s always been so
There are so many things the current administration does to violate rights and due process, but this isn’t one of them.
You literally said they are not violating rights by doing this.
He’s saying that right was taken away by George W Bush.
Governments cannot take rights away. They can only infringe upon them. They are rights. Not privileges.
Then clearly you’re talking about deontological rights and they’re talking about legal rights and both wasting your breath
as far as I understand, they were not there to serve a warrant. he was crossing a border and the feds are claiming that the 4th amendment doesn’t apply because he hadn’t yet crossed into America.
border patrol was essentially using a loophole to preemptively collect potential evidence (they’ll figure out what to charge him with after they see his phone contents). he’s a political activist against a cop city, they were obviously trying to do him dirty.
they were not serving a search warrant. they were abusing what should be an illegal search at the border in order to silence those who speak out against govt overreach.
Finally a sensible reply. Quite a few NAZI bootlickers here. They’re the first the sign up it seems.
So the important takeaway is to delete your phone before customs. Presumably you have an encrypted backup you can restore without too much effort
In addition, the law that he’s charged with relates to knowingly destroying property that the police have a warrant to sieze.
There is no precedent of it being applied to border searches where they may not even have reasonable suspicion of a crime and can stop people for questioning on a whim.
The State has absolutely no claim over your personal property at that point and destroying property that the police hope and dream of siezing isn’t the same as destroying property where they’ve demonstrated probable cause to a judge.
This argument from the border patrol that you can be arrested for destroying data that is in your possession without ever been given due process and 4th amendment protections isn’t supported by precedence.
These fucking conservatives crawl out of the woodwork like cockroaches anytime the government does something heinous and use their piss poor understanding of EVERYTHING to try to justify the heinous actions. It happens every time, and I wish just once to see one of them use real and relevant facts, just so I can pretend that these people live in reality for just one second.
Hasn’t happened yet though.
If he wasnt in the US how can the US claim he violated a US law?
The US claims jurisdiction over its citizens wherever they are.
Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because it means you can be prosecuted in the US for stuff like going to Thailand and sexually abusing children there.
So the law applies, but protection under the law does not.
Isn’t all law essentially derived from powers granted by the constitution?
If the powers granted by it to enforce a law are applicable when not within the US then then it very reasonably ought to apply to any and all amendments.
But, reason is on the extinction list with the magafascists. (And all LEO)
Good to know thanks
The indictment alleges that Tunick knowingly deleted the phone’s digital contents
My hot take: the officer wiped the phone. With their own hands. They’re just stupid.
The law isn’t that stupid.
that was the issue I was going to bring up. If the officer wants to try varuous pin numbers how is it the owners responsibility as to what the phone does.
My phone is set to automatically wipe after X number of incorrect pin attempts. If I just kept telling law enforcement the wrong pin number because I cant remember it exactly, what is the difference if the phone wipes. Once the phone is out of my hands how can I be responsible for what the phone does? (Assuming I dont issue a remote wiping command)
Hotter take: The phone was empty when he handed it over. There was nothing to delete.
It doesn’t look like anything to me.
“If you can’t tell, does it matter?”
If they succeed I guess in the future an officer could delete your phone to save face then blame it on you.
Those of us who have asked to avoid the cancer box and been subjected to a subjectively punitive pat-down and fashion show experience are already anticipating just that. Yay!
(And for added fun, call it a cancer box. Wow, when you get that one TSA who only has bad days will you get a great speech as well)
Why do you call it a cancer box? I’ve been through plenty of them and never seen anything to indicate they’re unsafe. Then again, we also used to let people x-ray their feet in shoe stores, soo…
Fun fact: Logan TSA asked the FAA for paperwork showing those things are safe. Anything.
FAA said fuck you.
That’s kinda all I need.
I know the anecdotes say it’s good. But with anything introduced hurriedly and without clear need - we know the TSA doesn’t have good track record anyway - the hype-to-utility ratio is too high.
Yeah, they are masters of parallel construction. ( Aka lying)
Parallel construction is a way to present evidence illegally obtained by coming up with a plausible-seeming other way it was found.
So, rather than saying “we illegally stopped and searched the defendant” they’ll get an “informant” (sometimes paid, sometimes coerced) to swear that they tipped them off beforehand.
Yeah… lying
It’s a form of lying, but with a specific meaning.
Like how the 9th (or 8th, depending on how you’re counting) Commandment says to not bear false witness. That doesn’t mean that people following an Abrahamic faith cannot lie… just that they can’t lie in that one specific way.
Land of the “free”…
Land of the free™
Free to get fucked over
Bend over, bend over
