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.
Destroying evidence, which is funny because that assumes there was any to begin with, which they can't prove.
That wasn’t the charge. The charge is destruction of property that the government is trying to hold on to.
Which would still be unreasonable search and seizure.
They were not in the United States and the constitution doesn’t apply at border searches. Their argument is going to be limited to very few things, like “I didn’t destroy anything, the cbp officer did”
He was in fact in the US when this happened. Also he alleges he wasn’t read his Miranda rights, and there’s a good case for presumption of guilt from the “officers.” Also denied him having a lawyer present before engaging.
Thus the officer has no rights to confiscate. There, done.
If they were not in the United States so that the constitution doesn't apply, why would the other US laws apply? Makes no sense.
"You see these guns? That's how" - the fascist bootheels at the border
Destroying what? The phone is still there, you just have to install an OS in there or something. A charge with "destruction of property" hinges on the assumption that 1.- there was something in there before the passcode (could have been an empty profile) 2.- that was property (corporate interests insist that our data is not ours, so I don't see how the agent can insist here that the user destroyed his own property, at least) 3.- that was destroyed (which relies on proving point 1).
But he did not destroy, officer did by type in code he got. His mistake to trust user.
I agree. I don’t think the charges will hold for exactly that reason, the device owner didn’t do anything to destroy the device and also didn’t prevent seizure. The CBP still has the device.
Property is evidence.
Evidence of what? You cannot presume there was evidence unless you can prove there was evidence.