DOJ Charges Alleged Cop City Activist Over “Duress” Password That Wipes Phone

https://truthout.org/articles/doj-charges-alleged-cop-city-activist-over-duress-password-that-wipes-phone/

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/67529

The Department of Justice is trying to prosecute a man allegedly involved in the movement against Atlanta’s Cop City for using a “duress” password on his smartphone that reportedly wiped its contents, in a seemingly unprecedented line of prosecution as the Trump administration expands its methods of criminalizing those with left-wing beliefs. According to The Guardian, the defendant…

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215 points · 43 comments · view on lemmy.world

43 Comments

BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world · 144 pts · 7d

“We tried to violate this person’s fourth amendment rights and failed, so now we want to put them in prison as a warning to others. You have no more rights, you fucking livestock.” - US Department of Injustice

yesman@lemmy.world · 66 pts · 7d (12 replies)

I hope Legal Eagle does an episode on this. All the articles I read are light on the legality of all this. SCOTUS has repeatedly and recently ruled that you don't have the same rights at the boarder as you do in the interior.

I notice that his lawyers are arguing the 5th and 6th amendments, apparently because the 4th is weaker at the boarder?

Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 23 pts · 7d (11 replies)

the 4th is weaker at the boarder?

He was in an Atlanta airport, though, over a thousand miles from the border.

Fuckfuckmyfuckingass@lemmy.world · 27 pts · 7d (4 replies)

Ahh but don't you see everything is the border.

I know they have jurisdiction anywhere within a hundred miles of the border, I think, and also at airports.

Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 24 pts · 7d (1 reply)

Yeah, an area covering the places where over half of the population lives.

Remember when Republicans were up in arms over the country becoming a police state rather than cheering for it? Pepperidge Farm does.

CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 6d

They were never serious about that.

The dipshits that actually believe(d) in that were just talking about Barack/Hillary/Bill/Joe coming for their guns or their Bibles or some other fantasy version of those Democrats and their policies.

Shoving gays back in the closet and invalidating their marriages, murdering trans, deporting brown people and forcing xtianity on everyone: that's just freedom.

frongt@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 6d (1 reply)
WesternInfidels@feddit.online · 14 pts · 6d (2 replies)

I believe (I'm not a lawyer) that an international airport counts as "the border," legally speaking.

I don't understand the history or the legal reasoning, but the fourth amendment is moot at the border. That sucks, but it's not new.

Under what is typically referred to as the “border search exception” to the Fourth Amendment, federal officers may generally conduct warrantless searches of persons and items upon their entry into the United States without needing reasonable suspicion or probable cause of wrongdoing.1 The Supreme Court has stated, “[t]hat searches made at the border, pursuant to the longstanding right of the sovereign to protect itself by stopping and examining persons and property crossing into this country, are reasonable simply by virtue of the fact that they occur at the border, should, by now, require no extended demonstration.”

-- Searches at International Borders, LII

Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 5 pts · 6d (1 reply)

Well that's not draconian oppression at all! Nope! 🤦🏻😡

anomnom@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 6d

I just want to know what a phone can smuggle into the United States.

These search laws are for contraband, large amounts of cash, human and animal trafficking and untaxed goods.

None of that requires unlocking a phone and the if SCOTUS wasn’t a bullshit rubber stamp for the fascists, it would make that clear.

prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 6 pts · 6d

They try to claim that international airports count as borders.

Add that to the "within 100 miles of a border" bullshit, and basically the entire US is in the zone. It's stupid and it's completely intentional.

Malyca@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 6d (1 reply)

Border or point of entry I think

Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 6d

That's just cheating

Ooops@feddit.org · 45 pts · 7d

They should charge the officer who entered the given password for criminal stupidity instead...

femtek@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 21 pts · 7d (3 replies)

So what if you delete before they ask. I guess you could say it was acting up.

Deconceptualist@leminal.space · 18 pts · 6d (1 reply)

As someone else mentioned, you probably shouldn't affix the duress password to the back of the phone with a sticker for the officer to discover.

apftwb@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 6d

FuglyDuck@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 7d

weekly formats. "it's routine, sir." is a viable defense

nao@sh.itjust.works · 16 pts · 7d (4 replies)

I wonder if you could get charged for traveling with an almost empty phone

floofloof@lemmy.ca · 28 pts · 6d (2 replies)

Maybe they'll make it a crime not to carry evidence of something they think you should have evidence of.

femtek@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 14 pts · 6d (1 reply)

Federal mandatory social media account

ZC3rr0r@piefed.ca · 3 pts · 6d

I wouldn't be surprised if that becomes a thing. Black mirror here we go!

Etterra@discuss.online · 3 pts · 6d

Buy a cheap phone to carry around and just never activate it.

melsaskca@lemmy.ca · 8 pts · 6d

What were the general thoughts on "Burn Bags" before this digital/tech issue came up? If it's my shit, I'll choose to burn it or not. My choice. Same goes for cellphones.

IAmYouButYouDontKnowYet@reddthat.com · 6 pts · 7d (2 replies)

The future of authentic humanity doesn't include the United States of Americas culture.

androidul@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 7d (2 replies)

is Julian Assange free yet?

DarkCloud@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 7d

Yes, the current Australian PM eventually came and got him.

...but really, Assange was spreading Russian disinformation to help Donald Trump into power... So a pretty dubious character.

floofloof@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 6d

Yes, though I don't suppose he'll ever be free of surveillance by various countries' intelligence agencies.

Malyca@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 6d

I'd have faith in the jury to release him but you see, my faith in humanity is shot

Snapz@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 6d

They charge all day to ruin lives, they don't convict. They earnestly want to convict, but they are failures. Broken system allows them to "win" either way, without consequence.

Here's hoping for a Nuremberg sequel to get the chuds "just following orders"

schema@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 6d
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Eggyhead@lemmy.world · -7 pts · 7d (9 replies)

I didn’t even know iPhones had this functionality.

Davel23@fedia.io · 20 pts · 7d (8 replies)

They don't.

Eggyhead@lemmy.world · -7 pts · 7d (7 replies)

Huh. Unless the phone was jail broken, it seems like it just gave up the ghost for no reason then.

Davel23@fedia.io · 19 pts · 7d (6 replies)

Who said anything about an iPhone?

Eggyhead@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 7d (5 replies)

Omg you’re right. Sorry about that.

PancakesCantKillMe@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 7d (4 replies)

Yah, it was a GrapheneOS phone. It'd be really nice if the duress code just opened a stock "profile" to fool the uniformed fool.

neon_nova@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 6d

I think both options would be good.

RunningInRVA@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 6d

That would likely require additional hardware to pull off. To display a bogus profile the phone would need to read from the storage device, which would still be unreadable because the actual PIN needed to decrypt it would not yet have been entered. Therefore a secondary storage device would have to be available to display the bogus profile without having to unlock the contents of the primary storage device.

Instigate@aussie.zone · 2 pts · 6d (1 reply)

The only issue with that is that when they grab the cellebrite and plug it in it will be able to extract the real data along with the fake profile. I think having both options would be great - the one you’ve described so that you can hand your phone to a friend or stranger who needs to use it, and the full-wipe method for when law enforcement demands it.

Manjushri@piefed.social · 1 pts · 6d

Not a full wipe. Have the phone keep track of files and apps flagged by the user. Have one friend code that hides the flagged items, and one duress code that deletes the flagged items but leaves the rest of the phone as is.