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US accuses American of allegedly wiping his phone using a ‘duress’ password during border search (techcrunch.com)
submitted 2 months ago by [B] to c/pulse_of_truth@infosec.pub
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A U.S. citizen has asked a court to throw out the government's claim that he gave over a passcode to border authorities that wiped his phone's data, opening up fresh questions about a person's constitutional rights at the U.S. border.

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[–] 14 points 2 months ago

How can they claim destruction of evidence if they don't know the phone actually contained any evidence?

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    [–] 7 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    Look forward to following this but unfortunately I doubt the outcome will introduce any new precedent around duress passwords. There's enough nuance here the guy might beat the charges. But in a straight case of being required by a judge to provide your password, giving a duress password would almost certainly be destruction of evidence.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago*

    Evidence of what? What crime was allegedly committed?

    Difficult to prove it was a duress password. It could have been some other software fault. Or maybe the phone had nothing on it to begin with. Who is to say 🤷? The feature merely existing isn't going to get past mens rea. The behavior and the contents of the phone cannot be inferred.

    It should be noted that CBP's goal is supposed to keep shit out. If the data is wiped and it might have had illicit content, mission accomplished? If I brought some diarrhea lettuce to the border and dumped it in plain sight right before inspection, would I have committed a crime?

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