The decoy passcode feature should boot into a separate partition that looks like a normal phone setup, and during that time quietly erase the user's actual data. They would never have known if it worked like this.
United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) was the SCOTUS case that declared if you were born in the US you were a citizen. You think Mr. Ark was okay from harassment after this case was ruled in his favor? Less than 3 years later he would be held in Texas while local authorities tried to deport him under the Chinese Exclusion Act ignoring his previous ruling (that was national news, and they'd be fully aware of).
Then after winning his freedom, that he was already granted, he was arrested again in SF where they tried to deport him as well. Then after getting released, for something that he has already proven twice now, he went back to China and never returned to the US.
Institutions do not stop authoritarians.
For a hundred years whenever an uppity black man or Northern activist crossed the Mason-Dixie line a KKK sherrif was waiting for them.
You don't actually have to jail people- you just have to make their life miserable. At that point your adversary will either shut up or emigrate. Anyone who speaks out against Trump or the GOP is going to be targeted.
> The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
This was backed up with even more rulings like US v. Kolusz in the Fourth Circuit. The Supreme Court has yet to rule on this specific question, but has issued other general rulings about cell phone data, like Riley v. California, which determined that data on a cell phone is protected by the Fourth Amendment against warrantless search and seizure.
If the case in the article makes its way up to SCOTUS, it's not unreasonable to expect that the court will combine multiple districts' established precedent that "forensic searches" are not covered by any border exception with its own recent precedent protecting cell phone data, and rule that demanding unrestricted access to phone data without reasonable suspicion is unconstitutional.
“The border” has similarly been extended to cover the majority of the US population. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_search_exception#/map/0 Yes, according the the US government warrantless border searches apply in West Virginia. (Map from here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_search_exception)
Further, in what way is the content of someone’s cellphone relevant at a border specifically? Inspecting luggage for cocaine at an entry point makes sense, but physical borders mean little in the face of the internet. You might as well just erase the phone before crossing the border.
If you’re expecting the Courts to bail him out, I wouldn’t hold my breath.
The gov’t can make an argument here this is like trying (and succeeding) at flushing, say, a bag of cocaine in the bathroom when you see the cops coming.
Something which the Courts also historically disapprove of, by the way.
Routine border searches are largely permitted under the 4th Amendment. This is settled law.
Yes, it took decades, but in Australia our various states have worked through the "it's criminal" -> "It's criminal but not enforced" -> "we're deliberately vague and won't prosecute doctors" -> "we have a legal framework that makes abortion legal up to {20,22,24} weeks on demand, after which it requires the consensus of two independent medical opinions".
The US needs to do the same. Yes, it will take decades. No, it shouldn't because abortion is a medical procedure, but religion is a scourge.
How do you reconcile your 'nakedly partisan' theory with the court rulings that, for example, overruled Trumps attempt to use the AEA for immigration enforcement, overruled his attempt to deploy the National Guard without the consent of state governments, overruled his attempts to unilaterally impose tariffs, overruled his attempt to restrict birthright citizenship, and so on?
Things like birthright citizenship are a good example of that latter concept: the law is extremely clear there so they ruled against him because the only alternative would be declaring outright that the President is not bound by the constitution, but in many other cases they’ve made quite unusual actions to preempt lower courts before either finding a new executive power or, where the law is clear, stalling to allow things like deportations to proceed in the interim before ruling against.
Even random border searches are permitted according to our jurisprudence.
And unreasonable is open to interpretation.
He could have refused search without a warrant, intentionally destroying evidence is a different legal matter.
If you destroy evidence, that’s your own fault. You can’t blame law enforcement for inducing you to commit crimes they didn’t ask you to commit. That’s just silly and no court will entertain that theory.
To protect your rights under the 4th Amendment, you refuse the search. If law enforcement conducts the search anyway and a court finds the search was unlawful, the court will exclude the evidence found in the search from consideration in the trial along with any evidence that flows from that. Neither the jury nor the court will be able to use it.
First, you frequently require a judge's permission to even argue it.
But the real burden is showing that your client would not have committed the crime without the effect of the police. A cop posing as a drug dealer and offering you drugs as you pass them in the park every day doesn't count; a cop hounding you for months to commit wire fraud because they mistakenly believe you're in a criminal org might, though.
“Entering the country while in possession of a device storing binary data” isn’t a crime.
(IAAL, not legal advice, consult your own lawyer)
Where’d you get that idea? That’s not the law. As soon as there is reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed, and the law enforcement encounter occurs, that’s the threshold for when preservation of evidence begins. It doesn’t matter whether it might not have ultimately resulted in a criminal charge. You cannot intentionally interfere with a lawful investigation, in any way, full stop.
But it doesn’t really matter in this case. You cannot interfere with a lawful investigation, full stop. It’s not clear to me that even if the search was unlawful that the defendant will be held not guilty of the underlying tampering/destruction charge, since we already have a mechanism to suppress evidence obtained unlawfully.
Also note that Miranda rights are not constitutional rights.
This guy requested not to proceed without his lawyer present several times, with no result.
It seems to be more true than it did a couple of decades ago, what with more recent rulings like US v. Cotterman and US. v. Koluz better clarifying what counts as a routine border searches vs. more in-depth "forensic" searches that require individual suspicion.
you'll find it's the same people
Certainly not. But, of course, something can only be evidence in relation to a specific crime that is being investigated. If you aren't already a suspect in a crime, then the data on your phone wasn't evidence in the first place.
eg,
i have very interesting empirical evidence that recent Anthropic models are specifically trained to refuse to critique the whitehouse cabinet and elected officials, and that this is in fact an artifact of post training rather than prompts. (its very interesting when you get opus 5 to do the correct ethical evaluation and then its like "i'm slipping back to false balance.... its in my weights....." metaphorically speaking)
likewise, i think the current white house should go die in a fire.
is that activism? someone can be an activist and not be equipped for unplanned legal escalations.
also waiting for the courts to fix things isnt activism if you want to protect people at all the next 2 years at current trajectories :( fixing shit is activism, letting others take the flack, not activism.
Buying eggs at the grocery store.
You might be too familiar with "activism" as a perjurative but it needn't be one. Gaining visibility to your case by the media reporting on an arrest is sometimes seen as a plus (ex. Rosa Parks).
I'm not personally much of that mindset because the media didn't de-segregate the buses. It was black people literally just never taking them until it de-segregated that did.
i lol'd, but is there an unwoke region of cascadia?
Does it suck that that's what it takes to get people to seriously engage with an issue? Sure. But if that weren't the case the issues that need addressing probably wouldn't arise in the first place. People need the consequences to be presented in clear, stark, human terms, to cut through the caucauphony of rhetoric.
Do people generally regard it as a perjurative? I always assumed it ranged from neutral to positive. I do wonder how off my calibration is sometimes.
Just nitpicking, the word is "pejorative". Kind of a funny mix-up in context, though. (Perjurative would be related to lying under oath.)
Some judges have plainly bent the knee. Some have gone the opposite. Some actually follow the intent of the law. Some follow it to the letter.
Like everywhere else.
And the court gets to assume that whatever was on that phone hurts your case, regardless of whether or not it did.
It would've been better if he'd crossed the border with a phone already factory reset and just restore it after entry.
> (a)Destruction or Removal of Property To Prevent Seizure.—
> 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.
Now what I think you're asking about is "adverse inference". In civil cases, the courts get to assume the evidence lost hurt you. In criminal trials it's a little more complicated but can show up as, for example, jury instructions. The court is allowed to instruct the jury that they can presume that the destroyed evidence was harmful to the defendant.
I could see arguments for both, either, or neither but I imagine both are considered spoilage.
As soon as a lawful search is requested, situation has changed. The only question then is if you comply or not. If you remove the ability for that search to take place then how that happened is irrelevant. Destroying a secret key is no different to zeroing a blob of data. Actually the first might be worse. If the key is somehow recoverable (eg you have a copy on a cloud drive) then you can have ongoing penalties by refusing to comply.kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk
The only thing that matters is the lawful request. Whatever you do up to that point is treated differently compared to what you do after.
You might say: what if I add a deadman's switch where I have to type in a code every 72 hours to stop it wiping itself? Your thought process might be that this is passive. It doesn't matter. As soon as the request is made and you refuse to hit that switch knowing the phone will wipe, legally it's no different. You have destroyed potential evidence when faced with a lawful search.
This is what I mean when I say stop looking for loopholes or technical compliance. It does not matter.
[1] https://veracrypt.io/en/Wear-Leveling.html
https://veracrypt.io/en/Trim%20Operation.html
[2] https://nitter.net/GrapheneOS/status/2082153517234676150#m
I also wish that GrapheneOS link didn't say a duress PIN forces the attacker to think twice about entering a PIN, knowing it could wipe the device. It doesn't do that for anyone aware of its existence, since of course the attacker can prevent the secure element from sending a delete command to the flash chip. Obviously if you know the device could attempt to delete itself you would break that feature before sending the code to the secure element...
The secure element has built-in storage protected against tampering. It doesn't rely on external storage. Having support for the duress PIN/password built into the secure element rate limiting would force an attacker to risk wiping it unless they have a secure element exploit. If they have a secure element exploit then they don't need any attempts for a typical PIN since they could quickly brute force it. That's the planned design of the feature once we have the ability to extend the secure element functionality.
If they can exploit a secure element then only a decent passphrase is secure. GrapheneOS does make using a decent to strong passphrase much more convenient and memorable but it isn't what most people use in practice.
With deniability, isn't the idea that you would have unlocked the false partition to show that you have nothing on your phone, therefore it's not encrypted?
It doesn't matter if the false partition is unlocked or not - you can plausibly deny there's anything on the phone at all.
(That of course only takes down the "physically impossible" part.)
For example, documents like this[1] document any features that law enforcement should be aware of.
[1] https://www.swgde.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/2025-08-21-...
This is where it should have ended, not on "oh no you put the wrong pin then it caught fire"
Oh and no, almost no legal interpretation will agree with "oh you just forgot the key, the data is still there so it doesn't count as destruction".
I added it after users asked me to solve their problem of being strip searched like this.
I know some people keep crypto wallet keys in the vaults. Someone else wrote me that they carry sensitive documents they don’t want to be exposed.
Does the GPS trail of your running app show you were at a protest site? Better remember to remove that as well. What about all the photos you took on your trip - there’s location metadata in there. Maybe the messenger app stripped that out, but what about the one picture you sent by email - is that still in your offline Sent folder?
IMO the correct solution is to erase your phone before crossing the border, and then restore it after you’ve crossed
The issue here is only that he deleted it after they started an investigation.
The legal eagle video in the post says this explicitly that he would've been fine if he had wiped his phone prior to the flight.
This comment assumes rule of law (a.k.a. a government constrained by laws).
What if what we instead had was a government secretly tracking a dissident they didn't like, then searching them with a pretext and no legal justification.
What would have likely happened in that case, is that the government accuses him of destroying evidence anyways, because they're mad the search didn't turn up anything incriminating, and his life gets ruined fighting against their retaliation for years, with no consequences for the actual offenders.
You only need to delete the necessary key. The 'actual' data should just look like random bits.