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.
The burden of proof is on those making the claim that this not illegal, when that claim is directly contradicted by the news story right in front of your eyes. The person was indicted, which means the government had to at least convince a grand jury the act was illegal.
Whoever, before, during, or after any search for or seizure of property by any person authorized to make such search or seizure, knowingly destroys, damages, wastes, disposes of, transfers, or otherwise takes any action, or knowingly attempts to destroy, damage, waste, dispose of, transfer, or otherwise take any action, for the purpose of preventing or impairing the Government’s lawful authority to take such property into its custody or control or to continue holding such property under its lawful custody and control, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both.
Unless you can make the argument that the search itself was illegal, then wiping your phone when an officer is actively trying to search it is indeed illegal.
It seems the key thing here is to not confuse what actions you can take just sitting at home with the actions you can take while actively being searched by a federal agent.
You actually hint at this with your “under indictment” comment. The law treats destruction of evidence only as a crime under certain specific circumstances. Basically in a setting where it’s reasonably clear that you’re not doing it to stymie an investigation, then it’s legal. For example, you can normally delete personal financial records whenever you want. But if you’re under indictment for a financial crime, that would likely be illegal. So one of those is when you’re under indictment. But for the same reason, another case is when an officer is searching you. In both cases the philosophy is that it’s very unlikely that someone happens to want to destroy something for innocent reasons right at the moment they fall under indictment or search.
And…? There’s nothing illegal about wiping your phone if not already under indictment of something
You sure about that?
Are you under inditement right now? Can you wipe your mobile device?
Your questions miss the point.
The burden of proof is on those making the claim that this not illegal, when that claim is directly contradicted by the news story right in front of your eyes. The person was indicted, which means the government had to at least convince a grand jury the act was illegal.
Here’s the indictment.
Here’s the law cited in the indictment:
Unless you can make the argument that the search itself was illegal, then wiping your phone when an officer is actively trying to search it is indeed illegal.
It seems the key thing here is to not confuse what actions you can take just sitting at home with the actions you can take while actively being searched by a federal agent.
You actually hint at this with your “under indictment” comment. The law treats destruction of evidence only as a crime under certain specific circumstances. Basically in a setting where it’s reasonably clear that you’re not doing it to stymie an investigation, then it’s legal. For example, you can normally delete personal financial records whenever you want. But if you’re under indictment for a financial crime, that would likely be illegal. So one of those is when you’re under indictment. But for the same reason, another case is when an officer is searching you. In both cases the philosophy is that it’s very unlikely that someone happens to want to destroy something for innocent reasons right at the moment they fall under indictment or search.
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Ok.