Post #50442

2025-12-10 22:23 UTC

The exact circumstances around the search—such as why CBP wanted to search the phone in the first place—are not known until this isn’t an unknown it’s impossible to voice opinion on the legality of this action. If they had evidence that there was something incriminating or against the law on the device and can prove the user intentionally destroyed the info to impede the investigation(honestly this last part is fairly easy as long as the first part can happen) then yea what he did would defo break the law, but until those aspects can be determined this seems like a massive abuse of that persons 1st(due to activism), 4th (due to the seizure of private property without a lawful search), and 5th(again private property) amendment rights.

Replies (3)

@Imgonnatrythis__dup_15263@sh.itjust.works 2025-12-11 00:31

I’m having a tough time thinking of an example where this makes sense. I guess if there was one incriminating document they had evidence was on your phone and then you wiped it you’d be interfering with the investigation under the assumption there could be more? If they knew a out the one then they would have a copy of it and some proof you have it on your phone. You wiping it doesn’t help you much for that particular crime. If it’s a crime to delete the stuff they didn’t know you had, that sounds ripe for abuse. They could find something banal like a miscompleted tax form and use it to do a deep dive into someone’s entire document library, browser hx, etc. Perhaps I’m on the wrong side of the law on this one, but it seems like the law should favor a right to avoid self-incrimination and a right to protection from unjust violations of privacy. Anyway, while it looks suspicious, couldn’t it just be an accidental data wipe? Cops making accusations against someone could make them nervous, maybe make typing finger shaky and inaccurate. Maybe they could mis-enter their password 10 times in a row and trigger a wipe?

Open ##50889
@SleeplessCityLights@programming.dev 2025-12-11 04:19

Stop pretending like your constitution means anything anymore. You have no rights, you can get kidnapped and sent to a place you have never been before and there is nothing you can do about it.

Open ##51486
@fodor@lemmy.zip 2025-12-11 05:34

I think your speculation is probably going to be fairly close to reality, but that makes their case very difficult to prove. If the FBI comes to my house and tells me that they’re investigating a crime and then I delete data, then probably I have broken the law. And I would have known it. So I would get convicted. But Border Patrol loves to go on fishing expeditions and search digital devices when there is no evidence that a crime has been committed. And if that’s the case, then I don’t have any obligation to preserve the data. And it doesn’t even matter what Border Patrol claims later because the legal standard is going to be what I believed at the time that they tried to go on their fishing expedition. I think we can safely conclude that there was no warrant because no one has reported there was a warrant and that is the kind of thing that they would have reported. And if they had one they would have seized the phone itself. So we can reasonably conclude that this is a situation where they told the guy, unlock your phone or we’re going to keep you locked up or we’re going to take your phone.

Open ##51676