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> Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data Yeah, that's awful. As far as federal overreach of power goes, that's pretty inexcusable. I'd probably posit t

> Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data Yeah, that's awful. As far as federal overreach of power goes, that's pretty inexcusable. I'd probably posit that COINTELPRO in the 60s was more insidious, but that doesn't discount this story individually being terrible. I still maintain that America is not in the midst of its own demise and a comparison to East Germany is inaccurate.

sfRattan 1mo ago
> As far as federal overreach of power goes, that's pretty inexcusable. Selectively detaining this guy, likely overreach. Trying to get his phone's unlock code to go on a fishing expedition for whatever they can find, absolutely overreach. But this guy catching felony charges for giving federal border police a duress PIN to wipe his phone when they asked for an unlock PIN? Not actually overreach. You have the right to remain silent, not to lie to the police when detained (18 USC § 1001, and many state-level laws to the same effect also exist). Our justice system could not function if people had a right to lie to the police. Once you are detained, whether or not that detention is eventually determined to be lawful, destroying or disposing of your possessions to prevent police from accessing them is also generally a crime. You fight abuses later, in court. Or, if you're going to use a duress PIN in the moment, you accept the legal consequences. And yes, giving a duress PIN to wipe a phone when asked for an unlock PIN is a lie which may result in destruction of evidence. And no, the law does not care about "I'm not touching you"-level rationalizations of whether something is a lie or whether it was technically the police who entered the code to wipe the phone. Proximate cause is a longstanding legal concept.
- zugi 1mo ago
  > But this guy catching felony charges for giving federal border police a duress PIN to wipe his phone when they asked for an unlock PIN? Not actually overreach. I think it's an interesting case that will get litigated in the courts. It seems they'll have to prove that the phone contained "evidence"; it could have just had embarrassing personal photos that he didn't want shared. When a house is raided and someone flushes a toilet, can courts assume they flushed drugs, or does that have to be proven? I hope he's found not guilty, but either way this definitely is not the "sky is falling", "we're almost a police state" case that folks here are making it out to be. It's a very narrow and novel line.
  - sfRattan 1mo ago
    > When a house is raided and someone flushes a toilet, can courts assume they flushed drugs, or does that have to be proven? Game it out at the systems level. If the prosecution had to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that what was destroyed would have been evidence, then destruction of evidence would be functionally permissible whenever done competently. > ...either way this definitely is not the "sky is falling", "we're almost a police state" case that folks here are making it out to be. It's a very narrow and novel line. Agreed. And activists should generally work with lawyers in order to be familiar with areas of the law they are likely to encounter in the course of their activism. Especially activists who travel internationally.
    - fc417fc802 1mo ago
      > then destruction of evidence would be functionally permissible whenever done competently. Well yes, but ... is that not the case? Game out the opposite. If the prosection doesn't have to demonstrate that something was valid evidence beyond a shadow of doubt that's rife for all sorts of abuse. In general I don't believe I can catch a (legitimate) felony for locking myself in the bathroom and flushing the toilet during a police raid.
      - sfRattan 1mo ago
        > In general I don't believe I can catch a (legitimate) felony for locking myself in the bathroom and flushing the toilet during a police raid. Most juristictions have a duty to preserve or not to spoil evidence once you are clearly detained or a search is clearly imminent (i.e. the police are knocking on your door), or when litigation can be reasonably anticipated. Behavior like locking the door and then burning/shredding papers, wiping a phone, or even flushing a toilet can absolutely be considered destruction-of/tampering-with evidence past that point, even (and especially) if the evidence is impossible to recover.
        fc417fc802 1mo ago
        I feel like you aren't responding to what I wrote there. My point was that there's presumably no clear evidence that I was destroying evidence in that example even if I was. The example was in regards to the point made in the preceding paragraph.
- rmwaite 1mo ago
  I find it interesting that you can’t lie to the police but the police can (and do) lie to you. Why?
  - sfRattan 1mo ago
    I'd generally agree that the police shouldn't be able to lie to a detained suspect, or at least that such deception should be more constrained than it is in the context but, in general, the law as practiced hinges on the question, "does police deception render a detained suspect's confession or statements involuntary?" If yes, then those confessions or statements could become inadmissable (i.e. the suspect was effectively compelled to testify against himself, in violation of the 5th Amendment). When police combine deception with coercion or threats, the answer to that question leans toward yes, but it will depend on the juristiction and the judge and is often assessed on a case-by-case basis. Police in any given juristiction probably have a reasonably good sense (from their own accumulated experience and local training) of what kind of deception results in the produced evidence becoming inadmissable in the courts where the defendant will appear.
- Gerard18Aug 1mo ago
  [flagged]
- fc417fc802 1mo ago
  > And yes, giving a duress PIN to wipe a phone when asked for an unlock PIN is a lie which may result in destruction of evidence. I was distressed and got confused and gave the wrong PIN. Anyway there was no evidence on the phone just a few embarrassing photos. Also I just so happened to catch a bad case of indigestion right as the police knocked down my door. There were absolutely no drugs in the toilet when I flushed it. To me the far more concerning fact is that this is getting any pushback at all. The response described is what everyone ought to do without exception when asked for their PIN by law enforcement. The right not to be forced to provide access to your own devices needs to be staunchly defended. These devices serve as extensions of ourselves at this point.
  - sfRattan 1mo ago
    > I was distressed and got confused and gave the wrong PIN. Anyway there was no evidence on the phone just a few embarrassing photos. > Also I just so happened to catch a bad case of indigestion right as the police knocked down my door. There were absolutely no drugs in the toilet when I flushed it. To repeat, for emphasis: the law does not care about "I'm not touching you"-level rationalizations. > The response described is what everyone ought to do without exception when asked for their PIN by law enforcement. The right not to be forced to provide access to your own devices needs to be staunchly defended. If by "response described" you mean "remain silent," then absolutely. Not 100% clear from your last paragraph.
    - fc417fc802 1mo ago
      > the law does not care about "I'm not touching you"-level rationalizations. But it does AFAIK care about plausible deniability. Whether or not any given instance of denial is plausible must of course ultimately be determined by a judge. > Not 100% clear from your last paragraph. The "response described" was (I think quite clearly) "provide a duress PIN that wipes the device in violation of the law". I am advocating for civil disobedience in defense of privacy and the right not to self incriminate. These devices have become extensions of ourselves but the law does not currently treat them as such which I see as a violation of my fundamental rights. Actually even if they were recognized as an extension I don't believe there's any prohibition against reading people's minds. It's just that the technology doesn't exist yet. But it likely will soon so we badly need to update the law to account for that IMO.
jLaForest 1mo ago
Despite the normalization of masked federal gunmen kidnapping people based on the color of their skin and the language they speak.... Not even breaking a law in the process, the supreme court legalized racial profiling.
- ericmay 1mo ago
  One can just argue about the normalization of people breaking the law by overstaying visas or hopping the border or whatever being the Supreme Court (or whoever you feel like blaming) legalized some other concept that most Americans also find disagreeable. We don't have to have brown shirts pulling people off the street, and we also don't need to have this stupid fight over simply enforcing our borders like every other country on the planet. Extremists on both sides are as always, simply incorrect. Reject MAGA, reject DSA. In context to my OP, none of this stuff or policy really affects most people's day to day lives. If you turned the news off you'd probably have no clue people were jumping the border en masse and you'd likely have no clue that those very same people were being arrested and deported.
  - czgov 1mo ago
    … very same people were being arrested and deported. This is an indication you don’t understand what is going on. Some illegals have been deported but amongst those illegals are U.S. citizens and people who are legally allowed to be here. They are being deported without judicial oversight and in some cases in direct violation of judicial orders. … none of this stuff or policy really affects most people's day to day lives. Man. What a profoundly immoral thing to say and believe. This illegal shit going on doesn’t affect more than 49.999% of the population so… no big deal. It is people like you that Martin Luther King described in his letter: I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season."
expedition32 1mo ago
I disagree. Back then it was all a big secret. Officially the US was pretending. Now? It is all out in the open. They're BOASTING about it. The baddies do whatever they want and noone is going to do anything about it besides write a blog. There will be no 1970s backlash with progressive Supreme Court judges and a senate committee investigating Hover.

sfRattan 1mo ago

> As far as federal overreach of power goes, that's pretty inexcusable. Selectively detaining this guy, likely overreach. Trying to get his phone's unlock code to go on a fishing expedition for whatever they can find, absolutely overreach. But this guy catching felony charges for giving federal border police a duress PIN to wipe his phone when they asked for an unlock PIN? Not actually overreach. You have the right to remain silent, not to lie to the police when detained (18 USC § 1001, and many state-level laws to the same effect also exist). Our justice system could not function if people had a right to lie to the police. Once you are detained, whether or not that detention is eventually determined to be lawful, destroying or disposing of your possessions to prevent police from accessing them is also generally a crime. You fight abuses later, in court. Or, if you're going to use a duress PIN in the moment, you accept the legal consequences. And yes, giving a duress PIN to wipe a phone when asked for an unlock PIN is a lie which may result in destruction of evidence. And no, the law does not care about "I'm not touching you"-level rationalizations of whether something is a lie or whether it was technically the police who entered the code to wipe the phone. Proximate cause is a longstanding legal concept.

zugi 1mo ago
> But this guy catching felony charges for giving federal border police a duress PIN to wipe his phone when they asked for an unlock PIN? Not actually overreach. I think it's an interesting case that will get litigated in the courts. It seems they'll have to prove that the phone contained "evidence"; it could have just had embarrassing personal photos that he didn't want shared. When a house is raided and someone flushes a toilet, can courts assume they flushed drugs, or does that have to be proven? I hope he's found not guilty, but either way this definitely is not the "sky is falling", "we're almost a police state" case that folks here are making it out to be. It's a very narrow and novel line.
- sfRattan 1mo ago
  > When a house is raided and someone flushes a toilet, can courts assume they flushed drugs, or does that have to be proven? Game it out at the systems level. If the prosecution had to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that what was destroyed would have been evidence, then destruction of evidence would be functionally permissible whenever done competently. > ...either way this definitely is not the "sky is falling", "we're almost a police state" case that folks here are making it out to be. It's a very narrow and novel line. Agreed. And activists should generally work with lawyers in order to be familiar with areas of the law they are likely to encounter in the course of their activism. Especially activists who travel internationally.
  - fc417fc802 1mo ago
    > then destruction of evidence would be functionally permissible whenever done competently. Well yes, but ... is that not the case? Game out the opposite. If the prosection doesn't have to demonstrate that something was valid evidence beyond a shadow of doubt that's rife for all sorts of abuse. In general I don't believe I can catch a (legitimate) felony for locking myself in the bathroom and flushing the toilet during a police raid.
    - sfRattan 1mo ago
      > In general I don't believe I can catch a (legitimate) felony for locking myself in the bathroom and flushing the toilet during a police raid. Most juristictions have a duty to preserve or not to spoil evidence once you are clearly detained or a search is clearly imminent (i.e. the police are knocking on your door), or when litigation can be reasonably anticipated. Behavior like locking the door and then burning/shredding papers, wiping a phone, or even flushing a toilet can absolutely be considered destruction-of/tampering-with evidence past that point, even (and especially) if the evidence is impossible to recover.
      - fc417fc802 1mo ago
        I feel like you aren't responding to what I wrote there. My point was that there's presumably no clear evidence that I was destroying evidence in that example even if I was. The example was in regards to the point made in the preceding paragraph.
rmwaite 1mo ago
I find it interesting that you can’t lie to the police but the police can (and do) lie to you. Why?
- sfRattan 1mo ago
  I'd generally agree that the police shouldn't be able to lie to a detained suspect, or at least that such deception should be more constrained than it is in the context but, in general, the law as practiced hinges on the question, "does police deception render a detained suspect's confession or statements involuntary?" If yes, then those confessions or statements could become inadmissable (i.e. the suspect was effectively compelled to testify against himself, in violation of the 5th Amendment). When police combine deception with coercion or threats, the answer to that question leans toward yes, but it will depend on the juristiction and the judge and is often assessed on a case-by-case basis. Police in any given juristiction probably have a reasonably good sense (from their own accumulated experience and local training) of what kind of deception results in the produced evidence becoming inadmissable in the courts where the defendant will appear.
Gerard18Aug 1mo ago
[flagged]
fc417fc802 1mo ago
> And yes, giving a duress PIN to wipe a phone when asked for an unlock PIN is a lie which may result in destruction of evidence. I was distressed and got confused and gave the wrong PIN. Anyway there was no evidence on the phone just a few embarrassing photos. Also I just so happened to catch a bad case of indigestion right as the police knocked down my door. There were absolutely no drugs in the toilet when I flushed it. To me the far more concerning fact is that this is getting any pushback at all. The response described is what everyone ought to do without exception when asked for their PIN by law enforcement. The right not to be forced to provide access to your own devices needs to be staunchly defended. These devices serve as extensions of ourselves at this point.
- sfRattan 1mo ago
  > I was distressed and got confused and gave the wrong PIN. Anyway there was no evidence on the phone just a few embarrassing photos. > Also I just so happened to catch a bad case of indigestion right as the police knocked down my door. There were absolutely no drugs in the toilet when I flushed it. To repeat, for emphasis: the law does not care about "I'm not touching you"-level rationalizations. > The response described is what everyone ought to do without exception when asked for their PIN by law enforcement. The right not to be forced to provide access to your own devices needs to be staunchly defended. If by "response described" you mean "remain silent," then absolutely. Not 100% clear from your last paragraph.
  - fc417fc802 1mo ago
    > the law does not care about "I'm not touching you"-level rationalizations. But it does AFAIK care about plausible deniability. Whether or not any given instance of denial is plausible must of course ultimately be determined by a judge. > Not 100% clear from your last paragraph. The "response described" was (I think quite clearly) "provide a duress PIN that wipes the device in violation of the law". I am advocating for civil disobedience in defense of privacy and the right not to self incriminate. These devices have become extensions of ourselves but the law does not currently treat them as such which I see as a violation of my fundamental rights. Actually even if they were recognized as an extension I don't believe there's any prohibition against reading people's minds. It's just that the technology doesn't exist yet. But it likely will soon so we badly need to update the law to account for that IMO.

jLaForest 1mo ago

Despite the normalization of masked federal gunmen kidnapping people based on the color of their skin and the language they speak.... Not even breaking a law in the process, the supreme court legalized racial profiling.

ericmay 1mo ago
One can just argue about the normalization of people breaking the law by overstaying visas or hopping the border or whatever being the Supreme Court (or whoever you feel like blaming) legalized some other concept that most Americans also find disagreeable. We don't have to have brown shirts pulling people off the street, and we also don't need to have this stupid fight over simply enforcing our borders like every other country on the planet. Extremists on both sides are as always, simply incorrect. Reject MAGA, reject DSA. In context to my OP, none of this stuff or policy really affects most people's day to day lives. If you turned the news off you'd probably have no clue people were jumping the border en masse and you'd likely have no clue that those very same people were being arrested and deported.
- czgov 1mo ago
  … very same people were being arrested and deported. This is an indication you don’t understand what is going on. Some illegals have been deported but amongst those illegals are U.S. citizens and people who are legally allowed to be here. They are being deported without judicial oversight and in some cases in direct violation of judicial orders. … none of this stuff or policy really affects most people's day to day lives. Man. What a profoundly immoral thing to say and believe. This illegal shit going on doesn’t affect more than 49.999% of the population so… no big deal. It is people like you that Martin Luther King described in his letter: I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season."

expedition32 1mo ago

I disagree. Back then it was all a big secret. Officially the US was pretending. Now? It is all out in the open. They're BOASTING about it. The baddies do whatever they want and noone is going to do anything about it besides write a blog. There will be no 1970s backlash with progressive Supreme Court judges and a senate committee investigating Hover.