Comment on Man Charged for Wiping Phone Before CBP Could Search It
mkwt@lemmy.world 4 days agoIf he’s a US citizen, he’s better off refusing to enter any PIN. That’s protected by the 5th amendment.
If not a citizen and this was in a port of entry context, then he would still have the 5th amendment protection. But customs can simply choose to refuse entry on discretion. So that’s a potentially serious consequence.
It depends on port of entry. The ninth circuit, which covers San Francisco, has upheld that non-citizen entrants can refuse to provide a phone pin, but other circuits have found differently.
So odd that this happened in California because there’s a pretty powerful set of protections in place in the ninth circuit specifically - not that the current admin gives a shit about the law.
This was in Atlanta, Georgia, unless you’re referring to a different incident than what’s in the OP
The second paragraph discusses an incident that occurred at San Francisco International Airport with the same circumstance. Should have indicated that’s what I found weird because it should have been prevented. The southern courts have been less protective of individual freedoms. Might be legal there under the border exemption according to their courts.
RunningInRVA@lemmy.world 4 days ago
At least on an iPhone, if the device has been unlocked since powering on, then forensic tools such as Cellebrite’s can extract information from the phone. The absolute safest bet is to perform a wipe. If this person is an activist then he’s an easy target and likely knew to be prepared for such an interrogation with our current fascist administration.
bearboiblake@pawb.social 4 days ago
GrapheneOS has a feature which automatically restarts the phone if it hasn’t been interacted with after some user-configurable delay. For example, you could configure the phone to automatically reboot if it hasn’t been used for an hour. This way, even if my phone is seized, that reboot timer is ticking. Once it reboots, the encryption on the phone is basically unbreakable.
mkwt@lemmy.world 4 days ago
This may be effective at preventing the government from accessing the data. But as we see, the law, including the 5th amendment, doesn’t protect from legal exposure to obstruction-type charges. Or lying to the cops type charges if you say you’ll unlock the phone, but then you actually wipe the phone.
Cethin@lemmy.zip 4 days ago
Sure, but nothing protects you from Fascists if they want to go after you. There’s so many laws that are malleable enough that they can always come up with some excuse. You should be legally protected for doing what this person did, but they’ll still try. We’ll see if their bullshit holds up in court I guess.