chillpanzee

@chillpanzee@lemmy.ml · Joined ⁨Aug⁩ ⁨2025⁩

Replying to @⁨mike_wooskey@lemmy.thewooskeys.com⁩

Yeah, it’s not an accurate indication of what changed. As of Jan 2026, California has a new law and registry where residents can register with the State to have the state demand that the data brokers (those who bother to register with the CA Sec of State anyway) remove the California resident’s data.

It’s got a fairly slow compliance deadline, so it’ll be a while before the whole rigamarole of some non-compliant broker actually getting fined, lawsuit, appeal, and an eventual majority opinion written by Associate Justice Butchug stating why California doesn’t have the right to protect its citizens because of some bullshit application of the interstate commerce clause and how it will cause undue harm to the data brokers that have him on payroll.

It probably won’t change much for the average person, but at least the lawyers finally get a win.

Replying to @⁨just_another_person@lemmy.world⁩

Perfectly legal. Unless they were legally charged and ordered by a court to preserve data considered to be used in a crime, they can’t be charged with shit. Cops don’t dictate this, courts do, AND that scope only applies to an active prosecution anyway.

I’m not a lawyer, so I’m not arguing that you’re wrong here, but the article describes the federal law the journalist was charged with. It seems very broad, and it’s a bullshit law, but from what’s here, it seems more grey area than perfectly legal. All of 2232 seems to require knowledge (which it seems like he had, but might be arguable) and action. You could argue that the journalist didn’t take any affirmative action to wipe the phone. The action that wiped it was the feds entering a code.

LII / Legal Information Institute18 U.S. Code § 2232 - Destruction or removal of property to prevent seizure