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‘The Government Hopes To Set a Precedent’: An Interview With the Man Charged for Allegedly Wiping His GrapheneOS Phone (www.404media.co)
submitted 2 weeks ago by to c/privacy@lemmy.ml
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The U.S. government has charged Samuel Tunick with allegedly typing in a passcode to wipe his phone before officers could search it. “I hope people understand that the charges against me are meant to intimidate people,” he said.

Just another example of the Trump admin trying to intimidate protestors using whatever the fuck they can to bring up whatever charges they can.

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[–] 14 points 2 weeks ago (1 child)

typing in a passcode to wipe his phone before officers could search it.

I wonder if that's actually what he did. You're supposed to hand them the phone and let them type in the duress code. Then it's not you who wiped it.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

    Another commenter in another thread said essentially just put the duress pin in your wallet with nothing else about what it is. Then say nothing about what that pin is. Then let them try it. Probably will get the same result because you didn't "warn" them or something, but it would be a harder case as you didn't tell them to put it in.

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  • [–] 15 points 2 weeks ago

    This kind of detail only matters if due process is still being observed.

    There's a scene that comes to mind from "The Yellow Tie" (2025) where a street patrol in Nazi Germany makes the protagonist strip naked just to have a laugh, then as they leave they wonder if they should've shot him anyway, despite not doing anything wrong.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 weeks ago*

    It might change a situation like this, but for a real criminal case, that does nothing. They will make an initial forensic image of the device. For this reason and others.

    In this situation, there was no criminal case, no probable cause, and no warrant. They do have the border 4A exception. NAL, but I think they pushed that exception WAY tf past its breaking point here.

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