It’s naive to think politically motivated surveillance can’t happen in the UK and elsewhere. Or to assume that only the “right people” will be the ones able to break encryption.
It's naive to think it isn't already happening in the UK and elsewhere and has for a long time. The only thing technology is changing is to increase the depth and scope of what they surveil.
But worse that that, they have a population that thinks its fine as long as it's not the government, its just the free market doing its thing, and it's all about freedom for the most powerful
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_analysis
but message E2EE is generally not designed to solve that. Other layers of the stack would probably have to get involved.
You also have a president who has just said he will "report" a journalist to the FCC for "rebuke or punishment".
I regret to inform people that fear over people cracking your encryption is quite niche, at this point; you have a looming fascist regime and should be more afraid of the $5 wrench.
Ref for anyone looking: https://xkcd.com/538/
Destruction of potential evidence of a crime is a crime. Obviously here there is nuance and the courts can determine if this is the right interpretation or not. If he had compromising information and he reasonable suspicion he’d be asked to unlock his phone he should have “wiped” it way before he got to the border.
They'd have to prove there was evidence.
It's quite unadvisable to destroy data in front of any sort of law enforcement. Last ditch effort? Sure, you better your odds but it's not ideal. If you have evidence of a crime, you know, wipe it way before you need to hand things over for examination and be in the position of having to destroy data as they knock on your door.
If it was evidence, what was the crime?
IMO, even if that's actually illegal, there's zero way to prove it that the fifth amendment doesn't address.
For instance, apparently answering questions up until a point at which you don't severely threatens your legal ability to invoke the 5th.
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.gand.35...
To be charged with destruction of evidence, the data contained in the device has to be justified as such. It appears this was not the case, note this person was not indicted or accused of anything else too.
I'd be more worried about European democracies which don't put a limit on the tenure of a president or prime minister. It was a close call in Hungary and Poland. If Orban had won the elections he could've manipulated Hungarian institutions to such a degree that he'd be president for life with unlimited powers.
The same has already occurred in Turkiye. I chuckle at the Turks protesting against Erdogan. That ship sailed about 15 years ago, there's no way to remove him from power. The only thing they can do is wait until he passes.