OK. Owing an iPhone or Samsung also isn’t a sign of innocence, it’s just a phone, just like a Pixel. There may be a higher incidence of people owning Pixels being drug dealers/traffickers, but there’s also likely a lot of people who have them who aren’t drug dealers/traffickers, so that fact isn’t useful as evidence.
Comment on Feds in Catalonia, Spain think everyone using a Google Pixel must be a drug dealer
arc99@lemmy.world 3 days ago
The cops quite obviously don’t think owning a Pixel makes somebody a drug dealer. But if they arrest or detain a suspect then owning a Pixel flashed with GrapheneOS isnt exactly a sign of innocence. Even if nothing could be extracted from the phone, I’m sure a judge and jury could be convinced what they were doing if they have such a device in their possession.
Also, regardless of the security the OS claims to have, most criminals are not the brightest and I bet some can be squeezed to hand over the key or the phone can be unlocked with a face id or fingerprint. It also motivates the cops to do what they’ve done in the past where they have compromised supposedly secure operating systems or apps and installed backdoors.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
arc99@lemmy.world 2 days ago
You’re getting it the wrong way around. People aren’t arrested for the phone they have. This is a complete nonsense by a clickbait article. They are arrested based on observation or intelligence of criminal activity. After the fact, when they are arrested they are found to have one of these phones flashed to use a privacy OS. Do you think such a phone convinces the cops they got the wrong person or not? The answer quite obviously is it convinces the cops this person is a criminal and is attempting to hide what they are up to.
It would be absurd to think cops are staring at people’s phones to initiate arrests because they are not.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
Whether it convinces the cops isn’t nearly as important as whether it convinces a judge/jury. I highly doubt “suspect’s phone is too hard to break into” would sway a jury to believe they’re a drug dealer.
Cops need to do a proper investigation and prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The type of phone someone has shouldn’t significantly impact any of that, though having a phone they can break into may make that investigation easier.
PoisonTheWell@reddthat.com 3 days ago
Why would they need a “sign of innocence”?
arc99@lemmy.world 3 days ago
This is not hard to understand.
Having a phone installed with an OS favoured by criminals doesn’t exculpate a person arrested for criminal activity, or make the cops think they’re innocent.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
Sure, but it’s also not evidence of wrongdoing. What phone you choose or what OS you run on it isn’t evidence of anything.