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Comment by ImJamal | Hacker News Reader

It looks like there are a lot of issues here on the government side, but it also appears like the protestor intentionally gave them a password that, when used, wipes the phone? That seems like a clear example of destruction of evidence.

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> That seems like a clear example of destruction of evidence

If he was under arrest, sure. The cops claiming this was a routine airport inspection would seem to muddy the waters, at least.

I don't think the crime of destroying evidence / tampering with evidence depends on what your status in custody is. If the police knock on your front door and you start shredding documents, that's still a crime.

Now, could that get tossed about because they denied him access to a lawyer? Maybe, I don't know about that part.

> If the police knock on your front door and you start shredding documents, that's still a crime

Isn’t the relevant bit whether you think you’re doing crimes and/or being investigated?

If I’m shredding while the cops knock on my door because they’re looking for a missing cat, that’s obviously not criminal. (I guess the more-pertinent comparison would be they knock on my door and then I put stuff in the shredder while I check around my home.)

If you shred any evidence of a crime you are guilty of a crime regardless if the police ever knock at your door or you think you are being investigated if you have the intent "to prevent the apprehension or cause the wrongful apprehension of any person or to obstruct the prosecution or defense of any person, he knowingly destroys, alters, conceals, or disguises physical evidence or makes, devises, prepares, or plants false evidence"

You're jumping to conclusions.

Deletion to protect privacy does not prove deletion to prevent apprehension.

I could believe that everything is wholly innocent, but wish to protect privacy regardless.

If that was his intent he shouldn't have handed over any pin. This looks like he was hiding evidence of wrongdoing and he will probably be charged with it. I am guessing his only hope will be that they denied his request for a lawyer.

His rights were already being violated. He was falsely arrested and denied his rights to an attorney.

They can prosecute him (and probably will) but he's got a pretty strong civil rights claim against the federal government for a false arrest and illegal search and seizure.

You can't arrest someone without a warrant or a reasonable suspicion of a crime. These thugs had neither when they arrested him, just that he's "a terrorist". That's why they were trying to get him to confess or commit a crime. That's why they didn't want a lawyer to get involved.

What if I have a camera/microphone near my front door, that when law enforcement is detected, it auto wipes my data, with no interaction from me?

I don't think it ceases to be a crime if you automate it. What if instead of wiping data it set off a shotgun that was pointed at the door?

Under Georgia law (16-10-94) you do not have to be under arrest.

> A person commits the offense of tampering with evidence when, with the intent to prevent the apprehension or cause the wrongful apprehension of any person or to obstruct the prosecution or defense of any person, he knowingly destroys, alters, conceals, or disguises physical evidence or makes, devises, prepares, or plants false evidence

This would be under federal law, not Georgia law I believe. But even assuming it was under Georgia law: it hasn’t been entered into public evidence that the person in question knowingly destroyed anything. It’s entirely possible the phone had nothing of value on it; the prosecution is required to demonstrate that evidence was in fact destroyed or falsified.

> the prosecution is required to demonstrate that evidence was in fact destroyed or falsified

Is this legally true? At least in civil matters, destroying evidence typically causes the worst to be assumed about whatever was destroyed.

I thought the standard for obtaining adverse/negative inference in a criminal case was higher than in a civil one, i.e. a judge will typically need more than just evidence that information was destroyed. But IANAL!

Maybe you just get charged with destroying or tampering with evidence instead of the original charge? (Help us rayiner!)

He was in Atlanta so he can be charged with a Georgia law even if it was the feds are involved. The federal law is quite similar though so it doesn't really matter.

> Whoever knowingly alters, destroys, mutilates, conceals, covers up, falsifies, or makes a false entry in any record, document, or tangible object with the intent to impede, obstruct, or influence the investigation or proper administration of any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States or any case filed under title 11, or in relation to or contemplation of any such matter or case, shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.

I'm not a lawyer, but I think the federal law might be more damning since the law clearly doesn't state that there has to actually be anything of value on the device as long as there was "intent to impede, obstruct, or influence the investigation". Wiping a phone that they want to look at will impede the investigation.

Perhaps It had a message involving client-attorney communications? Is there any carve out for that case? Is that still intact or has a jack boot been applied to its throat?

Technically that means the cops destroyed the evidence. Their investigatory department should be savvy enough to avoid destroying evidence.

That is not how the law works. Under Georgia law (GA Code § 16-2-20) it says

> (a) Every person concerned in the commission of a crime is a party thereto and may be charged with and convicted of commission of the crime

>(b) A person is concerned in the commission of a crime only if he: (1) Directly commits the crime; (2) Intentionally causes some other person to commit the crime under such circumstances that the other person is not guilty of any crime either in fact or because of legal incapacity; (3) Intentionally aids or abets in the commission of the crime; or (4) Intentionally advises, encourages, hires, counsels, or procures another to commit the crime

Seems like this is a clear case to me.

One weird trick to destroy evidence without creating a crime. Cops don't want you to know.

You do not have to give them your pin, by law. They can use biometrics to open your device, which is why you should not use biometrics for device unlocking.

GraphenOS has a couple of settings, a distress pin that wipes the device, and a number of failed attempts that will wipe the device. If the person handed over their "pin", they didn't need to

GrapheneOS does not offer a feature to wipe the device based on failed attempts.

I thought I read about it in their docs, but perhaps I'm hallucinating that from a forum post requesting the feature.

It doesn't wipe after a certain number of failed attempts but rather the secure element only permits a total of 20 attempts and heavily throttles the rate those can be done. That's a standard feature for Android 16 QPR2 and later for devices implementing the recommendations. The list of devices with it likely currently only includes Pixels but we'll make sure to have it on the upcoming Motorola Mobility devices.

We wrote an overview of the features we provide:

https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/40700-grapheneos-protection...

Why do you think reporters would rather eat a contempt charge vs throwing their sources to the wolves?

It's too bad GrapheneOS doesn't support hidden volumes.

It can't because it runs on phones which only have SSDs which leave forensic traces. They would like to improve deniability but it must be robust, whatever they implement.

Evidence of what?

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