This is why I'm never going to the US until all this shit is fixed. Which will probably be never
this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2026
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Tourists going to the US and US residents leaving should take a burner phone.
Citizens too, at this point.
Definitely
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(15 replies)
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.
Legality seems to be a fairytale concept in the USA, except for oligarchs. They get full legal coverage.
If it was evidence, they fucked up BIG TIME if their actions weren't read-only from the beginning. A distress password would be an attempt at destruction of evidence, but completely unsuccessful.
There’s a bunch of legislation and case law saying that searches are OK within x (50?) miles of a border crossing which covers something like 90% of the population because they count international airports.
So it might get sticky for the person.
Search is not the same thing. Search means they CAN legally search. It absolutely does mean that wiping your phone prevented, obstructed, or obscured a SEARCH. Search all you fucking want, that data is gone. It's not retroactively comparable.
That being said, had there been a judge that said "You can't wipe your phone, because you are being charged with a crime, and we believe there is evidence of this crime on your phone, and here is why..."
Way different, and these laws only exist to prevent law enforcement from being caught in a cyclical legal roundabout in court related to the 4th amendment, and even then, many defense lawyers get "gray area" material data evidence thrown out because of Miranda Rights, or illegal searches by law enforcement of data harvested when the defendent was not properly advised or advocated for their ability to refuse.
Murderers get off for this shit because Cops get overzealous and don't follow the letter of the law or chain of custody in evidentiary collection.
From the article
"The government’s indictment, which contains a typo (“Untied States Code”), accuses Tunick of allegedly providing a passcode to border agents that caused the phone to “delete the digital contents,” prior to the device being seized."
"When Tunick provided his passcode and the authorities entered it, “the screen went blank, flashed several times and the phone appeared to restart.” The authorities seized his phone anyway, before telling him that he was free to go and could enter the United States."
Yes, and only JUDGES are able to make that determination.
There is no stature in Federal or State law that says this is a crime, and no superceded precedent for this.
No it can be police that charge.
My state 100% has this law and police charge suspects for this.
ORC 2921.12 Tampering with evidence.
(A) No person, knowing that an official proceeding or investigation is in progress, or is about to be or likely to be instituted, shall do any of the following:
(1) Alter, destroy, conceal, or remove any record, document, or thing, with purpose to impair its value or availability as evidence in such proceeding or investigation;
(2) Make, present, or use any record, document, or thing, knowing it to be false and with purpose to mislead a public official who is or may be engaged in such proceeding or investigation, or with purpose to corrupt the outcome of any such proceeding or investigation.
(B) Whoever violates this section is guilty of tampering with evidence, a felony of the third degree.
In your Section A right there: "official proceeding"
There was no crime in progress, suspicious activity, or active charges brought against this person.
Maybe reread the article.
Also, Police do not bring charges, Prosecuting Attorneys do. Police are only responsible for investigations and arresting. Everything else is cleared by the legal system first.
You're wrong and arguing in bad faith now.
People get charged with tampering for all types of shit, like eating drugs during an arrest. The laws surrounding the bordes are dumb as fuck, but legally-speaking border operations can be construed as official proceedings, although it's only an investigation that is required. Which it obviously was.
Prosecutors ultimately argue charges, but police organize those charges before presenting them to the the state.
Knock it off. Stop being a contrarian weirdo.
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You didn't even read past that. It then says "or investigation"
I'm kinda done talking as you're not even reading what I post.
Good day!
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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.
Yeah, you're wrong in a number of different ways. No, you're not a lawyer.
What you linked to is precedent par notice. Every single subordinate literally mentions notice.
A law enforcement officer of ANY type is not able able to issue that notice.
It depends. If the police suspect the owner has evidence of some sort on the phone, destroying it can lead to a tampering with evidence charge from the police.
A tampering charge doesn't have to be from a court order. If someone eats or dumps out drugs where the police can't collect the physical drug, it will stick.
But in the story's case, it falls within the 100 miles of the US boarder (called a boarder search exception) a warrant, probable cause, or RAS aren't needed here. It's considered a reasonable search so the 4th amendment is limited here.
There is a lot to it and really don't think this is the best format for it here.
It does not depend. 4th amendment is superceded by any state law, and it's SUPER clear that unless a crime has been committed and prosecutorial procedures are in place, no search or seizure is legal.
That's the whole point.
It's a federal law. It's been legal since the constitution was written. There have been numerous court hearings stating it's legal.
You might want to reread the 4th again. The supreme court has ruled international boarder crossing as a reaonable search, thus no warrant, RAS, or PC needed.
Again...you can SEARCH all you want. Whether you find anything is not mandated.
I'm not sure what's so hard to understand about this.
And if you destroy evidence during an official investigation, it's tampering.
I'm not sure why you're so confidently wrong. It's fucking embarrassing.
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Good. Annoying to rebuild his phone, but better than handing it to fascists who don't even have a lawful court order for it.
Surely he was also using the built in backup feature, if he was he would have been able to grab another used Pixel, install GOS, then just recover from his backup (I haven't tried the restore yet just because I'm lazy, fingers crossed it works).
In all likelihood they kept his phone and will retain possession until charges are dismissed. Get a burner phone and wipe it before going through security. I assume if they see your phone is "fresh" they'll take it on suspicion anyway.
If you change phones regularly you can use an old phone. No need to buy a new one.
Would you want the phone back after it's been in their hands? I wouldn't trust them to leave it alone.
I mean yeah, might be a fun reverse-engineering project to look for any backdoors or other modifications to the device.
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Hmm. Maybe DHS can fuck all the way off?
Anyone know if this feature is available on Murena e/os? Can't seem to find it :(
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I may be about to move to a town near the border, and I fully plan on visiting Mexico as frequently as I can. It's one of the things I'm most excited about about moving there.
I will 100% be getting a second cheap phone, and only taking that when I cross the border.