I don’t know what the fuck he did to get on the FBI radar

….

Dude is just protesting the construction of a large cop training facility near him.

That is what did it.

i mean, the broad strokes are obvious, but if they went after every person who was vocal about something being build in their backyard, they’d need the whole of ICE to staff themselves. He must have been saying some shit to an insider. Come to think of it, I bet they have a pretty fucking big online presence for that purpose.

He associated with Defend the Atlanta Forest, which due to being against Cop City, has been flagged as a terrorist organization by the fascists in charge.

There is literally no other reason to be found.

His lawyers have already found (through internal CBP emails) that they flagged him for suspected terrorism because he was associated with Defend the Atlanta Forest.

They internally categorized the group as anti-government, anti-authority, and a violent extremist group.

He protested against Cop City and associated with a non-violent, peaceful org that also protested against Cop City. Thats it.

I think the application of that law depends on whether a seizure is valid (aka legal), which is kind of up in the air, as your video points out.

It’s unfortunately a border entry. They can do whatever they want regarding searches in that jurisdiction. He won’t get away with it being an illegal search.

There are still outs, but they are not super likely :/

I don’t think ordinary citizens should be required to know the law in lawyer-like detail when they travel.

I think in the broad strokes, you’re probably right about his legal situation, but it suuuuuucks and it’s not what I think of when I hear the word “freedom,” for sure.

Freedom, lol. How many prisoners per capita again?

The freedom to enslave, silly.

I don’t think ordinary citizens should be required to know the law in lawyer-like detail when they travel.

It becomes a slippery slope. He is unfortunately going to be a martyr that teaches us

If he hadn’t used duress and had just refused, he’d have been fine. Graphene is secure

Graphene devs fucked over this guy. They should apologize

When Graphene is serious, the duress passcode will QUIETLY wipe your phone and leave it looking normal, preferably with normal-looking innocuous photos, media, etc.

This is what happens when devs aren’t really thinking about the real world use case.

They shouldn’t apologize, the dude should of known that destroying evidence during an investigation is going to land you in jail.

No. If you make and distribute security-related software, you should consider the safety of your user.

Your threat model absolutely should include this exact scenario. And you should know enough to understand and implement principles like plausible deniability and repudiation.

There was no investigation, no evidence, and no jurisdiction

Can’t Graphene be used like this already? Dude may not have known, or may not have bothered to set up multiple profiles. But I’m pretty sure it can be done.

Point is that when graphene gets the distress code, it makes it really clear that it’s wiping the phone.

That’s the Stupid Part

Something designed like SAmsung Knox would be much better. the rest of the phone/apps are still fine.

If they found a duress password in his wallet, and used it, they would 100% prosecute for that.

They would, but he’d have a significantly better chance at winning. Having a duress setup/password isn’t illegal. if you plead the 5th on what that pin code is, i don’t think they’d have a leg to stand on.

I don’t know if it would win or not. But the cops could argue that you put that piece of paper as a premeditated trap designed to wipe evidence and interfere with their investigation, if they caught you. Especially if you wrote any of that down and they found it. Honestly I’m not sure what the jury would agree with in this country.

So what? Yes, that’s what the paper note is for. If someone wants to get unauthorized access, they will likely try it and wipe the phone. You have zero obligation to warn them not to do that. You didn’t authorize access.

I think you’re on the right track. You could say the note was for cell phone thieves or something and you didn’t expect the police to use it. Plausible deniability.

Even if you did expect the police to use it, you aren’t obligated to front that information to them. Anything you say or do may be used in against you in the court of law. So, the safe option is to say and do nothing at all, let them dig their own grave.

I’m talking about in the court of law, when they’re claiming you tampered with evidence by leaving the note. Your lawyer could tell the jury that there were many reasons someone might have a note with a pin that erases the phone, including theft. Their client (you) invoked their right to silence, and you had no obligation to prevent the police from erasing your phone.

That would have been a completely different situation though. Even if the pass was written in a note inside his phone case, it’s not illegal to have it, right? If your computer has a button that wipes it and a cop presses it, you aren’t liable, right?

The issue here is that he told the cop that that button switches the computer on, which is a lie and it shows intent on destroying evidence.

There’ll be a chorus of people inexplicably arguing that police get to do whatever they want, until we’ve lost so much of our humanity it’s become illegal to breathe

The issue I’m seeing with the whole case is they siezed his phone, they kept his phone, the seizure of his property happened successfully. A person later entered something they believed would open it but instead it wiped it. The end user didn’t wipe it, and didn’t lie to the agents of the state because a duress PIN is still a PIN, I’m willing to wager they didn’t specify that they wanted his ‘unlock PIN’ and instead just asked him for a PIN (personal identification number), which he gave.

That’s court fodder, and unfortunately, I don’t believe it’ll pass.

Yeah, sadly I don’t think it will either, I’m just hoping the jury decides the precedent they truly want to set.

Here is my problem with this interpretation…

Is data property? Sure, ideas, concepts, photos, etc can be trademarked/copy-write protected and have some degree of ownership, but I’m talking at a much lower level here… Is the particular configuration of memory on your phone a piece of property? If no, then no property was destroyed by wiping the phone. All of the storage and memory is still intact and functional. If yes, then we must look further…is the position (not the switch itself) of a binary switch (like a light switch) a physical thing that you can own? Would you consider it destroyed if it was switched away from it’s original position?

I don’t think you could charge him with destroying property… Destruction of evidence maybe, but the property is undamaged and functioning normally.

Other arguments. The cop actually destroyed the data. Or, defendant claims he did not know the cops would use the pin to wipe the phone, and that they just wanted to know what the PIN was.

I wouldn’t say there is enough evidence here to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that this guy destroyed any property in response to a search. He didn’t destroy anything, what was destroyed is arguably not property, and he may not be aware that his duress pin was going to be used on the device in the first place.

None of that would hold up in court.

Bucees just successfully argued in court that a beaver and an alligator are visually indistinguishable to the common man…

So far, every time I’ve been outraged about Buckees, they’ve sued a small business that’s trying to file their own trademark. And while I don’t like it one bit, trademark law is more or less designed for that exact purpose. Logos don’t have to be close, they could just vaguely remind you of another established trademark. The barrier to winning is extremely low, and the fault lies with the shitty, overly vague trademark law that attempts to make trademark owners fight any possible contender.

I don’t know if these guys were or were not trying to file a trademark, but I do know the three I looked at so far were begridgingly acceptable by trademark standards.

The video I provided covers this. There are plenty of statutes and precedents. There’s a tiny little bit of unsettled case law to be decided here that will, at best, lower his sentence a bit.

I strongly suspect an imminent plea bargain, unless they want to use him as an example.

If yes, then we must look further…is the position (not the switch itself) of a binary switch (like a light switch) a physical thing that you can own? Would you consider it destroyed if it was switched away from it’s original position?

the light switch is not something intended to store data, but the memory in your phone is. wiping the data destroys all the photos, media, logins, configuration on your phone, making them permanently and irreversibly inaccessible. and all of that is my property.

Light switches can store data. You can have open equal 1, and closed equal 0. Tada! You’re storing data on a light switch. All you need to do, is allow an electrical signal to control the position of the switch, and you essentially have 1bit of data storage right there.

anything can store data in some abstract sense, I don’t think that is a valid argument here

All you need to do, is allow an electrical signal to control the position of the switch, and you essentially have 1bit of data storage right there.

besides, most light switches cannot do that

anything can store data in some abstract sense, I don’t think that is a valid argument here

You know that hard drives don’t literally store the number 1 or 0 right? We arbitrarily assign a value to a specific configuration of a material or circuit.

besides, most light switches cannot do that

Most hunks of silicon can’t do that either.

You know that hard drives don’t literally store the number 1 or 0 right? We arbitrarily assign a value to a specific configuration of a material or circuit.

that’s besides the point. hard drives are very commonly used for large scale data storage. that is its intended use, and people are storing legible data on it, in practice. light switches? who the hack stores data on light switches, bit by bit?

this discussion is not productive. you have already decided that destroying user data is a nothingburger.

that’s besides the point.

It’s not besides the point. It exactly is the point. Functionally, computer storage is a stable binary state circuit, just like a light switch. When we wire billions of them together and automate the switching process, and throw in a few layers of abstraction, you get functional data. Changing the state of those switches does not destroy them, therefore changing the state of those switches is not destruction of property, unless by extension, flipping a light switch counts as destruction of property. It may be destruction of evidence, as the state of that memory or the position of the switch could be considered evidence, but it is a far cry from actual destruction of property.

who the hack stores data on light switches, bit by bit?

This is exactly how early computer programs were stored/written.

you have already decided that destroying user data is a nothingburger.

Correction: I am arguing that the alteration of computer storage is not destruction of property as written in the law that prevents you from destroying property to in response to or as the result of a lawful search.

good. get back to me once people are using light switches to store data.

This uses 7 services to store a base-10 numeric value on a 7 segment display.

electronics-tutorials.ws/…/7-segment-display-tuto…

Here is a picture of a power switch for a power strip

upload.wikimedia.org/…/500px-Socket_5.jpg

It’s can store any two data values people assign to it. In this case, power on, or power off.

We’re using binary switches (literal just different types of light switches) to store data all the time. That’s the whole fucking point. You’re having trouble differentiating between the two because the data they store the same fucking thing just at different scales.

sure, people are storing images and passwords on light switches and power strips. you have lost your fucking mind.

You absolutely can though. A 16x7 grid of light switches can store any 16 character password that uses the ASCII character set. Images would require many more switches (depending on the color quality and resolution) but it’s the same thing. Like I said, earlier, you are having an issue making a point to differentiate between the position of a binary switch and a single bit of data because there is no fucking difference in the first place.

You make it sound ridiculous, but we’ve stored data as a magnetic polarity for decades at this point, we’ve stored data on rocks, laser etched as dots and dashes at a microscopic level on thin bits of foil. Whole programs have been written and stored on stacks of cards. Heck, the programs to get a spacecraft to the moon were written on paper and then literally knitted into the onboard computers. Regardless of the medium chosen, (almost) all computer memory and storage is simply the representation of an array of binary states, something that can be done, and has been done with a simple array of light switches.

like I said,

good. get back to me once people are using light switches to store data.

in practice. on the daily.

you are trolling. I’m out.

Exactly!

Maybe you finally get it. The premise that altering the position of a switch is legally destruction of property is patently ridiculous. Altering the position of a 16x7 array of switches and calling it destruction of property is also ridiculous. So why is altering the position of an array of billions of tiny switches suddenly destruction of property?

lets demonstrate why. Because I would alter the structure of your atoms, and that would not be criminal, because why would it be. I would alter the structure in a very specific way, but that’s not a crime.

Because I would alter the structure of your atoms, and that would not be criminal, because why would it be.

On it’s bacsic premise, no, you’re allowed to move my arms or person (to the extent that it is not assault, kidnapping, etc) but say, altering the state of my atoms in a way that ends my life or does me physical harm is criminal.

So your point is not explicitly correct there, more detail is needed. You’ve also (either knowingly or unknowingly) built and argued against a strawman. My claim is that altering the position of a switch is not destruction of property, and that as the law as written explicitly criminalizes the destruction of property in response to a lawful search. Altering the position of a switch could be considered destruction of evidence, and by extension so would wiping the phone. I don’t know if there is a law that explicitly bans the destruction of evidence during a lawful border search though. So it could still be criminal, but there is significant reasonable doubt that any property was actually destroyed.

On it’s bacsic premise, no, you’re allowed to move my arms or person (to the extent that it is not assault, kidnapping, etc) but say, altering the state of my atoms in a way that ends my life or does me physical harm is criminal.

see! there’s nuance! not everything is a useless sea of light switches. there is no problem with squishing a grape, but there is a problem with causing similar physical harm to living beings

My claim is that altering the position of a switch is not destruction of property,

switches are like grapes. digital storage in your phone is like living beings. something that is not easy or possible to reproduce the same way it was before the damage.

No, digital storage in your phone is like ghosts playing a interdimenional clarinet when you look at the quantum tunneling aspects of an infinite universal wrap-up around rejected improbabilities of unstable bilateral states.

What if you set a durress password to something simple like 12345, plead the 5th, and the cops try to brute force your device? Would it still be your fault or is it the cops fault since they are the ones who entered the password while trying to bypass your phone’s security measures?

Also, what if you explicitly tell them there is a durress password, but refuse to tell them what it is? Surely if they were informed of the risk and proceeded regardless the blame would fall squarely on them for risking a process that might “destroy evidence”

They’re there because you’re being watched already. You’re coming in from an international flight to the 11th district so they have unreasonable search and seizure rules.

Graphine is clean enough that they can’t sidestep it. Just plead the 5th and leave it at that. They’ll probably confiscate it in hopes they’ll eventually be able to break it on a zero day.

Telling them the duress password is the unlock code will def get you fucked.

Pleading the 5th and then them entering a password found in your wallet that wipes it will get you dragged into court, but probably in a defensible position; those lawyer fees are going to be immense.

Pleading the 5th and having your duress as 1234, which they try, would also put you in a defensible position with 10s of thousands in lawyers’ fees.

The duress password isn’t illegal. The knowing destruction of data is. If you set it up so they’re likely to destroy the data in attempting, you’re going to get served.

Don’t go through a border with a phone full of questionable personal data. Legal or not.