GrapheneOS says its data-wiping "duress" password is perfectly legal, after user faces federal charges

[Hipno]

They suspected him of terrorism - and they were looking for anything incriminating…

Ok, let me try to simplify… the authorities aren’t complete fools. If a phone had the option to “restore to something that looks like an inoffensive phone”, they would know about it - and be able to look beyond. Unless the data is irretrievably lost, they WILL find it.

They suspected him for terrorism based on? Because to do a lawful and reasonable search they need a reason
Also, yes, cops are stupid sometimes, and almost always when it's a non soecialised cop when it comes to security technology, so if it makes it irretrievable, which I'm decently sure it does in Graphene's case, probably lost (HENCE why procedures exist and an officer shouldn't be doing this out of nowhere on the field)

 

[Melkor Unlimited]

Sad Part is that it is like double edge sword can we used by good and bad people

Guns do not kill people.
People do.

 

[nimby]

My opinion is that Graphene OS should be able to offer that "duress password" as an option; free speech protects the code needed to write those functions. If it is your phone, you should be able to wipe it whenever you choose too, or set the wipe command to be whatever you want it to be. However, if someone uses that option to wipe the phone before a legitimate government investigation then that person should subject to the same penalty they would get if they destroyed potential evidence by other methods, like slamming the phone into the ground.

Duress, like feeling threatened, is a subjective determination. No gov't can force you, under duress to incriminate yourself or divulge passwords. If you were actually being investigated, you have the right to remain silent. Therefore destroying your data under duress cannot be held against you since the gov't was already breaking the law. If they can convince you to incriminate yourself, then you're on your own. Especially since they cannot prove probable cause to allow a search of a locked device that they couldn't have known contained evidence, otherwise they'd already have a warrant. How can an officer claim they witnessed evidence on your phone if it was locked? They can infer all they want but only evidence wins cases. Plus if their case was so weak that the only copy of the evidence was solely on one device, there's no way they could know it exists because every transaction on the Internet requires at least two parties. These laws are meant to protect the innocent against gov'ts abusing their power.

 

[nimby]

They suspected him for terrorism based on? Because to do a lawful and reasonable search they need a reason
Also, yes, cops are stupid sometimes, and almost always when it's a non soecialised cop when it comes to security technology, so if it makes it irretrievable, which I'm decently sure it does in Graphene's case, probably lost (HENCE why procedures exist and an officer shouldn't be doing this out of nowhere on the field)

You can't just go around searching everyone's phone because you suspect they might have planned to do something. Either you have proof or you're just fishing and fishing is unconstitutional. If you have evidence then they destroyed evidence and now you have something you can charge them with.

 

[nimby]

Guns do not kill people.
People do.

There are no such things as bad people, only bad actions.

 

[nimby]

It is unreasonable if you're just at the border and absolutely no evidence of a trace of CSAM is to be provided, they just made that **** up, be real, there's also procedures, they didn't follow any procedure and just went "f it" and asked the password directly, almost every single time even when it's clear as day that the accused is guilty, if the evidence is gotten through illegitimate means, such as without following the procedure on the field, that evidence would be unusable and sometimes even get the case thrown out, it is not that hard to understand.
Or do you want a cop to come up to you, say "We think you possess CSAM" without any evidence, and take and hack your device? I don't think so

Actually taking your phone for refusing to unlock it is fine. Forcing you to unlock it so the can do an illegal and unwarranted search is very different. Remember, they can just deny entry. The claim that being questioned at the border suddenly causes your phone to become evidence in a terrorist plot is pretty far fetched. If I thought a terrorist was in front of me, I'd arrest them and then gain a warrant to search the phone. At that point police have many tools to bypass security, but they cost thousands of dollars per hack, so harrassing you is just cheaper.

 

[Squid Surprise]

They suspected him for terrorism based on? Because to do a lawful and reasonable search they need a reason
Also, yes, cops are stupid sometimes, and almost always when it's a non soecialised cop when it comes to security technology, so if it makes it irretrievable, which I'm decently sure it does in Graphene's case, probably lost (HENCE why procedures exist and an officer shouldn't be doing this out of nowhere on the field)

We don’t know - but they DON’T need a reason… read up in the comments - border searches don’t need warrants…

And while individual cops might be dumb, the ones scraping devices for data know what they’re doing - they won’t be fooled by something they can learn from a Google search…

 

[Squid Surprise]

Guns do not kill people.
People do.

People WITH guns kill a lot more than people without them though… faster and more efficiently as well.

 

[Endymio]

People WITH guns kill a lot more than people without them though… faster and more efficiently as well.

The worst school killing in the US was with a home-made bomb, not a gun.
The worst terror attack in the US was with an airplane, not a gun.
The worst terror attack in the US in the last five years was carried out by truck ramming, not a gun.

The worst knife attack in Japan killed 19 people.
The worst knife attack in China killed more than 100 people.
All five of the five worst mass shooting in the world were in nations that either ban firearms outright or regulate them far more than does the US.
Nations like Mexico or Jamaica ban firearms, yet have murder rates 600-800% higher than the US.
Nations like the UK and Australia saw slight upticks in their already-miniscule murder rates from when they allowed unrestricted gun ownership.
The worst mass deaths in the US occur in so-called "gun free" zones.

 

[Melkor Unlimited]

People WITH guns kill a lot more than people without them though… faster and more efficiently as well.

"A lawyer and his briefcase can steal more money than 10 men with guns."
-- Al Capone

 

[Squid Surprise]

The worst school killing in the US was with a home-made bomb, not a gun.
The worst terror attack in the US was with an airplane, not a gun.
The worst terror attack in the US in the last five years was carried out by truck ramming, not a gun.

The worst knife attack in Japan killed 19 people.
The worst knife attack in China killed more than 100 people.
All five of the five worst mass shooting in the world were in nations that either ban firearms outright or regulate them far more than does the US.
Nations like Mexico or Jamaica ban firearms, yet have murder rates 600-800% higher than the US.
Nations like the UK and Australia saw slight upticks in their already-miniscule murder rates from when they allowed unrestricted gun ownership.
The worst mass deaths in the US occur in so-called "gun free" zones.

Yeah - try averaging instead of cherry-picking

 

[Squid Surprise]

"A lawyer and his briefcase can steal more money than 10 men with guns."
-- Al Capone

True - but if a lawyer does it, it's not stealing since it's "legal" ... and no one gets killed in the process...

 

[Endymio]

Yeah - try averaging instead of cherry-picking

Average murder rates, per 100K in US: 5.7

Average murder rates in other nations:
Haiti: 64.2 (bans guns)
Jamaica: 40.3 (bans guns)
Mexico: 25.6 (bans guns)
Bahamas: 29.9 (heavily restricts)
Columbia: 24.3 (heavily restricts)
Brazil: 18.7 (heavily restricts)

Meanwhile, nations like Switzerland -- which has one of the highest rates of firearm ownership in the world -- has a murder rate of just 0.5, far below the rest of Europe. Clearly, your chances of being murdered in a country are driven far more by demographics than gun prevalence.

 

[argospanoptis]

Apparently not many people read the last part of my post. There is an very substantial grey area over the word 'unreasonnable' in the 4th amendment. In this particular case, however, CSAM was the excuse for the search. This is fraud. If Border Patrol had asserted that they were looking for CopCity evidence, their search would have been 1000% illegal, ergo - the kiddie porn is a red herring for their fishing expedition.

Border Patrol has broad powers at international crossings, but they want absolute powers, which they should not have. Further, for something to be evidence, it must have even minute probative value. His phone had 0 probative value, which is why they trying to criminalize the erasure and not the phone or its contents: they have no grounds or basis to believe that the phone contained evidence, otherwise the charge would be different.

For anybody going through borders who wants to be left alone, backup your phone to the cloud, erase it, and restore on the other side. The poster who said he should have wiped his phone before check in is absolutely correct. And remember, this is both legal and appropriate, as we now live in a society where a 10 year old Facebook or twitter post can drop you into extended screening at borders, make you a suspect for terrorism, or turn you into a racist.

My ex almost got put on a no-fly list for posting something negative about George Dubya Bush. Not a death threat, just a criticism of his policies. You live in 1984, never forget it.

 

[Squid Surprise]

Average murder rates, per 100K in US: 5.7

Average murder rates in other nations:
Haiti: 64.2 (bans guns)
Jamaica: 40.3 (bans guns)
Mexico: 25.6 (bans guns)
Bahamas: 29.9 (heavily restricts)
Columbia: 24.3 (heavily restricts)
Brazil: 18.7 (heavily restricts)

Meanwhile, nations like Switzerland -- which has one of the highest rates of firearm ownership in the world -- has a murder rate of just 0.5, far below the rest of Europe. Clearly, your chances of being murdered in a country are driven far more by demographics than gun prevalence.

Again - try averaging instead of cherry-picking

 

[argospanoptis]

Actually taking your phone for refusing to unlock it is fine. Forcing you to unlock it so the can do an illegal and unwarranted search is very different. Remember, they can just deny entry. The claim that being questioned at the border suddenly causes your phone to become evidence in a terrorist plot is pretty far fetched. If I thought a terrorist was in front of me, I'd arrest them and then gain a warrant to search the phone. At that point police have many tools to bypass security, but they cost thousands of dollars per hack, so harrassing you is just cheaper.

They cannot deny entry to a US Citizen. They can charge with a crime and detain, otherwise they can delay you for 10-20 hours, but that's it.

 

[argospanoptis]

They do not need a warrant at the border. This has been covered many times.
The defense claims they did not have a warrant. You do not need a warrant at a border crossing. And given he was flagged for potential terrorist activity, they already had justification.

The defendant is screwed. There are lots of things that are legal to own and use, but have restrictions on how and when. Firearms are the easiest example. There is nothing illegal about having or using a reset code, unless you use that code after officers request your code to unlock your device to search for evidence. Destruction of digital documents on a device counts as destruction of evidence.

Again, he was not flagged for terrorism. He was listed as a participant in the CopCity protest, a perfectly legal protest and assertion of civil rights. The GROUNDS for the search was potential CSAM. No basis, no probable cause (a warrant is not required, but probable cause is required for a more invasive search). No record, no history, no leads, no nothing, just an invented accusation = unreasonable search and seizure.

Now they have to prove that he actually erased actual evidence with probative value, not just his grocery list. Good luck to them, they'll need it.

 

[Endymio]

Again - try averaging instead of cherry-picking

Those are average murder rates. Whether you consider just the worst incidents of violence or mass shootings, or average murder rates, the worst offenders are nations with strict gun laws. The correlation to homicide and violent crime is based on demographics, not gun laws. One of the clearest examples is Sweden, which saw a huge surge in violent crime as they began accepting mass immigrant waves:

"...In Norway's capital, Oslo, immigrants from certain countries are heavy overrepresented in crime statistics. For every 1,000 male Somali residents age 15-24, there are a staggering 2,120 criminal charges. In terms of violence and abuse crimes, Somalis are overrepresented by more than 15 times the number of charges compared to Norwegians without an immigrant background...."

BTW, the #2 correlating factor for low homicide / violent crimes rates is celerity (not severity) of legal punishment.

 

[Squid Surprise]

Those are average murder rates. Whether you consider just the worst incidents of violence or mass shootings, or average murder rates, the worst offenders are nations with strict gun laws. The correlation to homicide and violent crime is based on demographics, not gun laws. One of the clearest examples is Sweden, which saw a huge surge in violent crime as they began accepting mass immigrant waves:

"...In Norway's capital, Oslo, immigrants from certain countries are heavy overrepresented in crime statistics. For every 1,000 male Somali residents age 15-24, there are a staggering 2,120 criminal charges. In terms of violence and abuse crimes, Somalis are overrepresented by more than 15 times the number of charges compared to Norwegians without an immigrant background...."

BTW, the #2 correlating factor for low homicide / violent crimes rates is celerity (not severity) of legal punishment.

You cherry-picked NATIONS.... lets try using only nations that are in the top 50 most populous nations' murder rates instead:

• South Africa: ~45 per 100,000
• Nigeria: 15.8
• Mexico: 5.6
• United States: 5.8
• Brazil: 3.9
• Colombia: 3.4
• India: 2.4 (latest available: 2022)
• Canada: 1.0
• Germany: 0.9
• France: 0.8
• Japan: 0.2
• Indonesia: 0.2

Still think the US has a good one?

I'm a Canadian - where guns ARE restricted (and the illegal ones that get in are almost exclusively from the US).... I'll take our 1/100,000 murder rate over the US' any day...

 

[Endymio]

You cherry-picked NATIONS.... lets try using only nations that are in the top 50 most populous nations' murder rates instead:

• South Africa: ~45 per 100,000
• Nigeria: 15.8
• Mexico: 5.6
• United States: 5.8
• Brazil: 3.9
• Colombia: 3.4
• India: 2.4 (latest available: 2022)
• Canada: 1.0
• Germany: 0.9
• France: 0.8
• Japan: 0.2
• Indonesia: 0.2

Still think the US has a good one?

It doesn't take an AI model to find the pattern: Asian and Northern European nations are very low, regardless of gun laws, whereas the highest by far are African, Latin American, and Caribbean nations.

The same pattern holds true within the US, where the District of Columbia -- with by far the highest percentage of minority residents -- has a murder rate more than four times higher than the national average, whereas the state with the lowest murder rate -- South Dakota -- has lax gun laws, but a very low minority population.

I'm a Canadian - where guns ARE restricted... I'll take our 1/100,000 murder rate over the US' any day...

LOL, what? Canada's murder rate is 1.98, not the 0.000059 you claim. And Canada's murder rate in 1950 was about half of today, well before Canada began its series of ever-more restrictive gun laws.

 

[Squid Surprise]

It doesn't take an AI model to find the pattern: Asian and Northern European nations are very low, regardless of gun laws, whereas the highest by far are African, Latin American, and Caribbean nations.

The same pattern holds true within the US, where the District of Columbia -- with by far the highest percentage of minority residents -- has a murder rate more than four times higher than the national average, whereas the state with the lowest murder rate -- South Dakota -- has lax gun laws, but a very low minority population.


LOL, what? Canada's murder rate is 1.98, not the 0.000059 you claim. And Canada's murder rate in 1950 was about half of today, well before Canada began its series of ever-more restrictive gun laws.

Canada’s murder rate is still a third of the US rate… and still in North America… again, why is the US better here?

 

[mbk34]

I prefer the checks they used when I first visited the states. They came round with a form that specifically asked you tricky questions like are you a terrorist or drug smuggler? The final question asked if you intended to undermine the constitution of the united states. I'd heard of one joker who wrote "sole purpose of visit" under the latter question. I seem to remember he was fined $2000 and deported.

 

[Deathdealers747]

Would be interesting to see which part of the constitution they believe protects it.

4th Amendment, obviously.

 

[Endymio]

Canada’s murder rate is still a third of the US rate

Canada's murder rate is the same as US states located by or near the Canadian border-- regardless of how strict or lax the gun laws are for that particular state. In fact, a few of those US states have a slightly lower murder rate. What do those states share in common with Canada? Demographics, ethnicity, and population density, of course.

And you still haven't addressed the point that Canada's murder rate in 1950 -- when guns were far easier to obtain, even weapons like automatic rifles and sawed-off shotguns -- was HALF what it is today.

 

[LordVile95]

4th Amendment, obviously.

Which doesn’t apply all the time