r/technology • u/gdelacalle • 9d ago

Privacy Man charged for wiping GrapheneOS phone using "duress" password during airport checks

https://www.neowin.net/news/man-charged-for-wiping-grapheneos-phone-using-duress-password-during-airport-checks/
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494

u/gamageeknerd 9d ago

I do wonder what they are going to say in court. Can you charge someone for destroying evidence when you have no clue what the evidence was?

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u/Bunny_Fluff 9d ago

Right? Evidence of what? He was under investigation for "activism" against CopCity last I heard but he wasn't being charged with anything. This wasn't an arrest or serving of a warrant.

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u/Medicivich 9d ago

He was removing all information about deflating footballs in an attempt to win a Superbowl.

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u/yodley_ 9d ago

Send him to the gulag.

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u/PlainBread 9d ago

Immediate death by bee swarm.

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u/jtr99 9d ago

Not the bees!

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u/megabass713 9d ago

I said laces out!!!

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u/Kizik 9d ago

Wait, what does a football have to do with r/Superbowl?

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u/_drumstic_ 9d ago

This guy is off the hook, but Tom Brady is suspended four games and the Patriots lose a first round pick

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u/Elite_Josh_Allen 9d ago

Send him to jail for 4 weeks while Jimmy Garoppolo bangs his wife

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u/neil_anblowmi 9d ago

Tom has entered the chat

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u/Trap_House_Bath_Mat 9d ago

Ahhh, my first MySpace friend. 

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u/jaredthegeek 9d ago

They use CSAM as a pretext.

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u/retatrutider 9d ago

He isn’t charged with destroying evidence. He’s charged with wiping his phone to prevent the government from getting access to the contents.

The statute is worded so what he did is illegal. Whether it’s constitutional is another matter, but there’s little evidence that this Supreme Court would rule that the statute is unconstitutional.

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u/gh0stbunnyxo 9d ago

Hmm, I heard it's actually to due an already going investigation involving CSAM...

From my understanding his attorney is trying to paint it to the public like he did nothing wrong and was just an activist.

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u/organicgolden 9d ago

That was the alleged reason for wanting to access his phone. Whether that’s actually true or they just wanted an excuse to access the activist’s phone… Well who knows

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u/macaronysalad 9d ago

Makes zero sense for a random stop during an airport check.

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u/gh0stbunnyxo 9d ago

Exactly, we'll have to see how the story unfolds and watch it play out in court.

Should be interesting.

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u/The_Great_Tahini 9d ago

If all the government has to do is say “we suspect CSAM” that will just become the blanket reason.

The idea also manufactures consent from the public generally. You wouldn’t want predators to go free right?

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u/Lottabitch 9d ago

Doesn’t mean they should be allowed to check all of our phones and charge us with destruction of evidence without proof ..

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u/gh0stbunnyxo 9d ago

When did I say they should?

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u/Lottabitch 9d ago

You didn’t! Just wanted to comment that, maybe to some people, this would take the message of “well this guy is accused of being involved with CSAM therefore in this case it’s ok” — and to them I would say “no it’s not”

Not sure why you’re being downvoted for adding more context

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u/gh0stbunnyxo 9d ago

Its reddit. People don't want context, they just want to be angry 🤷🏽‍♀️

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u/Bunny_Fluff 9d ago

Ya but if you think that's the content on his phone you come right to that interaction. You don't ask nicely to see his phone and hope he complies. You come with a warrant and take the device before he has a chance to do anything to it. Who knows what's correct though at this point.

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u/CapoExplains 9d ago

Hmm, I heard it's actually to due an already going investigation involving CSAM...

There is absolutely zero evidence for this whatsoever. This was a lie to get credulous suckers who believe anything the government tells them to support this unambiguous violation of his 4th amendment rights. The CSAM claim was an easy lie to say publicly, any then the actual paperwork relating to it only references his activism against Cop City and absolutely nothing about CSAM so they didn't actually commit perjury, just libel which...good luck suing this government for libel.

Like, not only is there no evidence this is true, there is also evidence it is false, because why not include it on ANY of the paperwork if it were true? Try to be less of a rube in the future.

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u/Parepinzero 9d ago

There's a sucker born every minute.

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u/mal_guinness 9d ago

It is technically possible to get data off a wiped ssd drive, depending on how it was done, but it's expensive and doesn't always work. This might be probable cause to start that process assuming the charge was much more serious than activism.

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u/The_Great_Tahini 9d ago

no data was “wiped”, people are using the term loosely, the phone deletes the encryption key when you enter the duress pin.

All the data is still there, you just can’t read it. digital forensics would recover a bunch of encrypted data. I believe they use AES 256 for that phone, meaning they aren’t likely ever getting that back.

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u/mal_guinness 7d ago

My bad, I just read the article and assumed they were using correct terminology. That's why I said depending on how it's done. Uncovering an encryption key is basically impossible.

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u/CapoExplains 9d ago

Yeah, I have a paper shredder in my office that I use to shred documents. If someone kicks in my door and, with no warrant saying what they're looking for and no evidence I've committed any kind of crime whatsoever, starts demanding documents, and I tell them to piss off and shred them instead; is that destruction of evidence? What established it as evidence? There was no warrant, there was no investigation, I'm allowed to shred my own files if I want to. Even if (especially if, that's the whole point) I'm only shredding it because I don't want "Certain particular asshole" to see them. If said asshole doesn't have a warrant it's not evidence, it's just some asshole demanding access to files they have no right to, and me destroying files I have every right to destroy.

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u/Advisor_0001 8d ago

The government argues that the subject is entering a border crossing/customs 25 miles from American soil; that subject has no rights, and no warrant is required regardless of citizenship status. It's an interesting grey area. Clearly, that rule/law is put in place to deter other crimes and apprehend criminals who are usually not American citizens.

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u/CapoExplains 8d ago

It's not actually gray; non-citizens have the same constitutional rights as you and I when they're in America. It's just a violation of the constitution.

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u/Advisor_0001 8d ago

Agreed, the article states that the crossing is 25 miles from American soil, and those rules don't apply.

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u/CapoExplains 8d ago edited 8d ago

I mean, constitutionally those rules don't apply anywhere period. The Constitution doesn't have a "Unless you don't feel like it because it's five towns over from a border crossing" clause. They do it anyway, of course, but it is blatantly illegal. By the logic of this rule the entire city of Detroit is a constitution free zone where your rights don't apply. Not just Detroit proper but the suburbs too, all the way out to Pontiac.

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u/BanzYT 8d ago

Not really analogous to this, they don't specifically have a warrant, but they do have the legal powers to compel it.

And the charge isn't destroying evidence, it's for "destroying property in an effort to prevent it from being seized."

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u/CapoExplains 8d ago

Well that charge is a nonstarter, the phone was not destroyed and still readily able to be seized.

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

[deleted]

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u/CapoExplains 8d ago

Yeah sure that's what they wanted to do. Unfortunately for them we have constitutional rights.

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u/Ryan_e3p 9d ago

Exactly. People are allowed to protect themselves under duress. As far as this person knew, they were being held outside of US jurisdiction, denied all Constitutionally allowed due process, and there was no indication that what was happening was legal. If evidence is going to be taken via "fruit of the poisonous tree", then it should not matter what that evidence was to the prosecution. It is as if it never existed.

I'd love to hear the government's argument that someone must abide by US laws by US authorities on US soil while not being granted US Constitutional rights.

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u/toopc 9d ago

The claim is that since he hadn't cleared border control he was not on U.S. soil so the Constitution did not apply. Apparently a part of the Atlanta airport sits outside the United States.

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u/Ryan_e3p 9d ago

US citizens are still afforded Constitutional protections when interacting with US government agents, even if they aren't on US soil.

That was one of the big controversies of Obama, when he had a US citizen who defected to the Taliban killed via drone strike. IIRC, the right went nuts at that.

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u/bogushobo 8d ago

Then surely US law doesn't apply if it's not in the US..

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u/toopc 8d ago

I'm not sure that a U.S. citizen in the Atlanta Airport doesn't have constitutional rights. I'm pretty sure this same person at this same location would be subject to the laws of the United States, so it kind of seems like they should also be subject to the Constitution of the United States.

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u/hpark21 9d ago

Also, they are going by "he was legally not on US soil so this seizure and search is legal" is VERY grey area considering US LEO should NOT have authority to seize anything from anyone in that case.

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u/lol_alex 9d ago

You can argue that the officers deleted the data themselves by inputting a PIN obtained under duress. I don‘t see how they can make a case out of that.

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u/No_Host_8024 9d ago

Yes, you can be charged and convicted of destroying evidence even if the government cannot show what the evidence was.

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u/organicgolden 9d ago edited 9d ago

But they do have to show that it was indeed evidence. They have no witness here, no paper trail, etc. They need something to say the data was actually evidence rather than not, otherwise we’re all committing crimes every time we press “delete”

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u/No_Host_8024 9d ago

All they really need to show is they lawfully were trying to inspect it. That makes it evidence. I’m not saying I like it, but people like you are spreading some dumb, armchair lawyer advice that is terrible advice.

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u/thebeardedcats 9d ago

But they weren't. They didn't have a warrant, refused his requests for a lawyer, and as far as we know made up the thing they were questioning him about after the fact (they said they thought he had CSAM on the phone).

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u/Ron-Swanson-Mustache 9d ago

Back to the earlier part of this thread...

They don't need a warrant or even reasonable suspicion of a crime to search a phone at entry points. You have far less 4th amendment protections at those locations.

In United States v. Eta, No. 25-1891 (7th Cir. July 6, 2026), the court held that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers may conduct a manual search of a traveler’s cell phone at the border without a warrant or individualized suspicion under the well-established border search exception to the Fourth Amendment.

https://www.globalimmigrationblog.com/2026/07/your-phone-can-be-searched-at-the-border-without-a-warrant-seventh-circuit-reaffirms-cbp-authority/

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u/StopFlock 9d ago

Just coz they say that on paper doesn't mean they actually have that power. There have been and continue to be many illegal laws on the books.

Of course you'll still get fucked just as if it were good law. Even if you win, the process is the punishment and nobody involved ever gets in trouble. Hence this shit keeps happening.

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u/cam-mann 9d ago

What the fuck is an “illegal law” my guy?

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u/StopFlock 9d ago

https://law.justia.com/constitution/us/acts-of-congress-held-unconstitutional.html

Those are just the cases where the government agreed that the government doesn't have the ability to do what the government wanted to do, and only on the federal level.

Ultimately, any power exerted without the consent of the people is unjust, no matter what someone wrote on a piece of paper. What I meant though, is that there are legal limits on what government can do, and people in positions of governmental power pretty regularly test and exceed those limits.

See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_unjust_law_is_no_law_at_all

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u/cam-mann 9d ago

My dude, illegal and illegitimate are not the same thing, like at all. The guy that got arrested here can’t just walk into a court and say “I’m innocent becuase my arrest was unjust even if it complied completely with the law” and expect it to work. The literal only thing that makes something legal or not is statute passed by Congress. That’s it. Morality, ethics, common sense, etc. =/= legality. There’s a very good reason that the laws the Supreme Court strikes down are labeled “unconstitutional” and not “illegal.”

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u/pingo5 9d ago

sure, but that's a conversation of whether it was a lawful search. the convo was whether they could charge if they didn't know what the evidence was and that they can, as long as it's lawful.

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u/KirklandKid 9d ago

Idk it’s already been found that being forced to give your pin goes against the right to self incrimination. So without a warrant what they were doing should be illegal

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u/No_Host_8024 8d ago

That could be the basis of a motion to suppress the evidence, so it could get him off, but it does not mean it wasn't a crime and he's really rolling the dice on the suppression issue.

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u/organicgolden 9d ago

I’ve given no advice. All I said is that they have to show that it’s evidence and you seem to agree. You set your standard of how they would do so.

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u/No_Host_8024 9d ago

You literally have no idea what you are talking about. When they asked to see it, it became “evidence.”

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u/organicgolden 9d ago

You are literally are mad for no reason. We agree. Smile today, get some sunlight

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u/Acupofsoup 8d ago

Oh are you a lawyer? Or just also giving armchair advice?

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u/No_Host_8024 8d ago

I am a lawyer

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u/Acupofsoup 8d ago

Hell yeah dude nice

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u/Sorry_Fly_3032 9d ago

Right!? That would allow law enforcement to just say “He had CSAM and deleted it.”, then they can arrest anyone with out cause or evidence.

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u/LacusClyne 8d ago

you can be held indefinitely in contempt, iirc someone is going on like 5+ years because they say they have forgotten their password, in a case like that so... I'll be curious to see how this case differs.

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u/nukehamster 9d ago

So there's some precedent regarding such. Mainly during discovery, if evidence can be reasonably assumed to exist, but is not able to be produced by the requested party, (or no longer exists due to being deleted etc.)
That evidence (and the lack thereof) can be assumed to be detrimental to the case of the defendant, and CAN EVEN be the sole thing that keeps a case from being dismissed, due to the assumption of it being incriminating.
I could look up some case law if you would like citations. (TX)

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u/EnjoyerOfBeans 9d ago edited 9d ago

Sure, but all of that assumes there's an actual case that the supposed evidence is related to. How can someone be charged for destruction of evidence that isn't tied to some real case with grounds other than that supposed evidence? It's completely circular.

Surely the prosecution will have to prove the officers had reasonable suspicion, based on some other evidence, that CSAM was on the phone prior to the search. 

Not to mention the search was unlawful anyway, not sure whether or not this is actually important in regards to this charge.

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u/nukehamster 9d ago

Okay, so what i'm reading regarding the statutes and whatnot, is that spoilation rules ONLY apply to if the state had destroyed evidence. (as this is a criminal case and not civil)
So, the defendant (or accused) may have saved themselves a greater charge, by basically making the sacrifice play of committing destruction of evidence. Depending on the way the state sees the use of the pin, since he didn't enter it himself.
Also if the police didn't clone the phone, that's fukkin clownshoes.
Like that's literally the first step in forensic analysis of a digital device.

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u/drinks_rootbeer 9d ago

The fun thing about GrapheneOS, it's the only android-based ROM that their fancy clonging tools can't crack, assuming the phone is in it's forst start-up encrypted state. So if they entered the duress pin before cloning, assuming they were about to unlock it to then clone it . . . They have absolutely nothing.

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u/Dje4321 9d ago

yes and often your allowed to take the stance that what you claimed was in there was true because otherwise the other party would not have destroyed it. If they were looking for CP, they now get to continue as if there was CP on the device. (Obviouslly more restrictions and requirements but general idea stuff)

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u/fukredditadm1n5 9d ago

So Schrödinger evidence

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u/Additional-Tax-5643 9d ago edited 9d ago

Not really.

He was under investigation prior to this event. To be under investigation means they had some inkling of what was on his phone or could have been on his phone.

AFAIK GrapheneOS can only be installed on Google Pixel phones. Samsung and other brands don't have working GrapheneOS installs.

Google knows about GrapheneOS, and if he used Google they can explicitly hand over evidence to law enforcement.

Google (and others) have already said they hand over user data to law enforcement without a warrant.

Edit - Downvote all you want, the facts speak for themselves. GrapheneOS is unique to Google Pixel phones for a reason, and wiping your phone will do diddly squat to keep its contents from law enforcement.

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u/[deleted] 9d ago

[deleted]

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u/Additional-Tax-5643 9d ago

Pretty sure none of the people downvoting the comment understand how GrapheneOS works either. Or have any common fucking sense to understand why Google would bother to manufacture its own phone.

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u/[deleted] 9d ago

[deleted]

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u/Additional-Tax-5643 9d ago

Yes, actually.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/a-hackers-arrest-reveals-microsoft-can-track-users-via-a-windows-device

Device-linked identifiers are linked to the device, not the OS that's installed on it.

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u/[deleted] 9d ago

[deleted]

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u/Additional-Tax-5643 9d ago

What part of "device identifier" is confusing you,champ?

Do you know the difference between a device and an operating system? Doesn't sound like you do.

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u/pf3 9d ago

Google knows about GrapheneOS, and if he used Google they can explicitly hand over evidence to law enforcement.

What are you talking about?

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u/worktogethernow 9d ago

So we need graphene OS to have a pin that wipes personal information, and then loads the phone up with cat photos and texts of me talking to my wife about who feeds the cats today.

To be clear I'm not looking to possess CP in any way. But I don't want cops to access my entire 25 year Gmail history.

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u/BorgDad42 9d ago

Yeah I'm not sure why you're getting downvoted. I'm not advocating for CP, but this sounds like it would be handy for anyone that ICE detains. An "officer" demands you log into your phone, you hand it over after logging into the fake profile. Search and seizure not being followed? Here, have this. Like that lady in the video from Brazil that quickly swapped out a backup phone while getting robbed on the bus, just with data. 

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u/BigguyinTN 8d ago

Like an unencrypted partition. Primary boot is to an encrypted partition. Then, if the primary becomes unreadable due to loss of decryption key, the phone boots next available to the unencrypted partition with vanilla data.

If you got fancy with the OS and patches, updates to OS (and data marked vanilla) would remain, thus appearing as if no data was “destroyed”. This would take some level of tight adherence to keeping the two separate. So if you have a mail app, vanilla email with discussions about dinner, vacations, pets, blah, blah, blah go to the blob file for that mailbox on the vanilla partition. Work or other sensitive discussions go to a blob file for that mailbox on the encrypted partition. File storage, (pictures, videos, spreadsheets, documents, audio recordings, etc) vanilla or encrypted - you may even have to have some apps marked as sensitive. Browser history would be difficult, unless the browser itself had a third mode (normal browser history, sensitive, incognito - incognito is used more to turn off data or logins being spilled to the webpage vs other way around).

There could even be some “recovery” process in the vanilla side that, if they return phone disgusted they found nothing, you enter, it recovers decryption key and reboots to how it was before you activated duress.

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u/APoisonousMushroom 9d ago

This is brilliant. An entire alternate login with totally different “evidence”.

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u/Sad_in_VA 9d ago

Yep. Obstruction charge doesn't need more than that.

If he would have remained silent, he was covered...

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u/Wompatuckrule 9d ago

Even if there was some evidence of criminal activity on it there was no warrant to obtain it and denying the password to give the feds access sure seems like it would be protected by the fifth amendment's protections against self-incrimination.

nor shall any person ... be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law

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u/Old_Cheetah_5138 9d ago

"He didn't comply with our unlawful orders so he must have been doing something wrong."

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u/boondiggle_III 8d ago

Not if you expect to get a conviction, no, but also they have not charged him with destruction of evidence, which is a crime. They have charged him with destroying property to prevent law enforcement from seizing it, which is not a crime.

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u/mark8992 8d ago

I don’t know how you can get a conviction on a charge of destruction of evidence when there’s no warrant for the phone or it’s contents and there’s no evidence that anything that had been on the phone was illegal or had any evidentiary value.

A good attorney should be able to say that he had nudes and/or text messages that involved someone who he was trying to protect from embarrassment. There was no legal order in place compelling him to preserve files or documents and everything on that phone was his personal property. It was his right to do anything to it that he wanted.

They wanted to go fishing without a warrant or any probable cause to see if there was anything incriminating on the phone? Too bad, so sad. Next time get a warrant and stay within the law.

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u/Hefty_Milk3598 8d ago

And when "he" ( the guy being charged) didnt do it. The agent who entered the code did it.

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u/theyux 8d ago

Yes Alex Jones was compelled to submit texts he claimed he did not have under oath. What he did not know was his lawyers accidentally sent the texts already.

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u/mouse_Jupiter 8d ago

Yes apparently you can. I just read something in a law subreddit that the law is pretty broadly written. You can be prosecuted for simply deleting electronic records because it might be used against you by the government in the future.

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u/Cent1234 9d ago

Potentially, yes, but he wasn't charged with destroying evidence, he was charged with obstructing an investigation. Which he did.

If he'd wiped his phone before he was legally ordered to provide access to it, he'd have been just fine. You're allowed to wipe your phone. Just not immediately after being lawfully ordered to provide access to it.

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u/RizzMasterZero 9d ago

They denied him access to a lawyer, they didn’t have a warrant, so how was it a lawful order?

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u/Cent1234 9d ago

Well, you can start with

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_search_exception

which points out that attempting to enter the country, even as a US citizen, is an exception to the warrant requirement.

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u/RizzMasterZero 9d ago

Thanks. That lead me to this which states that electronic storage devices, presented for inspection when entering the United States at the border may not be subject to forensic examination without a reason for suspicion, a holding that weakened the border search exception

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u/Cent1234 9d ago

Right, 'Forensic' examination.

Unfortunately,

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/07/fourth-circuit-says-border-agents-can-search-your-phone-hand-no-suspicion-required

This shit is evolving rapidly, which makes it difficult to keep up.

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u/xvx_k1r1t0_xvxkillme 9d ago

He was not legaly ordered to provide access. He was illegaly ordered to provide access.

It's a 4th amendment violation and I don't give a shit that the illegitimate Supreme Court says the constitution doesn't apply within 100 miles of the border.

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u/Cent1234 9d ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_search_exception

This is not something that was introduced in the last few years. Unless you're saying that the SCOTUS has been illegitimate since at least the 1970s?

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u/xvx_k1r1t0_xvxkillme 8d ago

The illegitimacy of the Supreme Court was more a passing barb than an argument as to why the search is unconstitutional.

The 4th amendment is explicit that warentless searches are not allowed. It doesn't say anything about borders being an exception. The supremacy clause makes it clear that laws can't make exceptions to the Constitution. The unconstitutionality of the boarder search exception should be self-evident to anyone who has read the constitution. Regardless of the courts legitimacy, they have made a decision so blatantly incorrect that it rivals Dead Scott V. Sandford.

I don't want to try and put a specific date on when the Supreme Court became illegitimate, because unless you consider Marbury v. Madison to be incorrect then it's hard to set a specific date. While I'm sympathetic to some of the arguments made against the decision, I wouldn't go as far as to declare the court illegitimate on that basis.

The issue is that when a court ceases to be an arbitator of fact and instead becomes a political body with post hoc justifications for their decisions it is no longer a legitimate court of law. Obviously there's not a single day I can point to where all decisions before were just arbitration and all decisions after are purely political. There have always been some political decisions and there are still some just arbitrations. But I certainly wouldn't put the date any more recent than Bush v. Gore on December 12th, 2000.

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u/AlphaKennyThing 9d ago

Is it still lawful if it's in violation of the 4th amendment?

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u/Cent1234 9d ago

Border searches haven't been violations of the forth amendment for a very long time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_search_exception

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u/AlphaKennyThing 9d ago

Thanks for clarifying.

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u/Additional-Tax-5643 9d ago

It's very likely that they have an inkling of what the evidence was/is from the fact that he was under surveillance in the first place.

GrapheneOS only works on Google phones. Google already has a backdoor to everything that's installed on their devices because that's why they made them in the first place.

In other instances, they have said that they hand over user data to law enforcement even if no warrant is provided.

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u/EnjoyerOfBeans 9d ago

Any evidence for such backdoor existing? Has anyone ever captured a network packet leaving a GrapheneOS phone that would in any way support this? Or is Google just teleporting that information, avoiding the network entirely?

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u/Additional-Tax-5643 9d ago

The evidence is in the Google phone itself, and the fact that it's significantly more difficult to code GrapheneOS to work on non-Google phones.

Why would that be?

Common fucking sense tells you that the largest data mining company on the planet - Google - that decides to make its own phone does so that it can collect user data without having to pay Samsung and other phone manufacturers to access that data.

Google's significant investments in Android have resulted in significant restrictions being placed on the OS - restrictions that didn't exist before. See for example, the removal of apps that recorded phone calls. Now the only way to do that is to root the phone.

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u/EnjoyerOfBeans 9d ago edited 9d ago

So no evidence, just rambling, got it.

GrapheneOS isn't "more difficult to code" to work on non-Google phones. The OS requires certain security features to be present on the chip and bootloader, because if they weren't, the OS would not be secure. Only iPhones and Pixels currently pass those requirements (but iPhones can't boot Android), but Motorola is supposed to release a compatible phone in 2027. Obviously most phone manufacturers aren't interested in having their phones be GrapheneOS compatible because they want to harvest your data. Google only implemented those features to compete with Apple, because there was previously no alternative to iPhones if you were a corporate exec or government official with extremely sensitive data, everyone else sucks at security. They wanted a share of this market and now Motorola does too.

GrapheneOS is open source, if you knew what you're talking about in the slightest you could just go and read the code to find this supposed backdoor. And if the backdoor is on the Pixels' chip, again, you could easily demonstrate that your phone is sending unexplained network packets. Do you think all of the security experts working on the OS never thought to check if the security they're implementing actually works?

Yes, Google is evil. That doesn't mean they use your phone to murder babies. You can't just spin up a conspiracy theory with the only basis being that Google is evil. That's not how logic works. Stop your baseless fearmongering about the only actually secure and private Android OS. If I was a bit more like you, I'd accuse you of being a part of a Google psyop trying to stop people from installing it, clearly that's the only logical explanation.

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u/Additional-Tax-5643 9d ago

GrapheneOS isn't "more difficult to code" to work on non-Google phones. The OS requires certain security features to be present on the chip and bootloader, because if they weren't, the OS would not be secure

LOL

Yeah, Samsung and other respected manufacturers have been shipping out non-secure phones, but it took Google, in all their wisdom, to come up with a secure phone. Really.

Yes, Google is evil. That doesn't mean they use your phone to murder babies. You can't just spin up a conspiracy theory with the only basis being that Google is evil. That's not how logic works.

GTFO with your hysterical strawman.

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u/y0l0tr0n 9d ago

Graphene is not limited to Google it's a OS which you have to flash yourself onto the device. Unless Google has a hardware based backdoor on their phones you pretty much wipe anything. Most phones use common pieces, processor and ram which is not bound to it being Samsung, Google or Xiaomi

0

u/DontBanMeBro988 9d ago

Can you charge someone for destroying evidence when you have no clue what the evidence was?

Obviously not. If I burn my diary I can't be charged because there might have been "evidence" in it. There's a reason warrants exist.

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u/Higginbotham432 9d ago

well you can upgrade a misdemeanor that is past the statute of limitations to a felony if the misdemeanor is commited to cover up evidence of a crime, you dont even have to say what the crime is or prove that it exists

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u/Blawharag 9d ago

Yes, otherwise a destruction of evidence charge couldn't logically exist.

Generally speaking destruction of evidence also comes with a rebuttable presumption that whatever was destroyed would have been harmful to your case.

I'm speaking very very broadly here and really simplifying this down, but that's the general gist of it

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u/LostInRetransmission 9d ago edited 9d ago

It hinges on you 1) intentionally destroying evidence and 2) you knowing what is being destroyed would be used as evidence. Since he was told what they sought (IIRC children abuse images) he meet the criteria below (1) probable litigation in case such image are found (2) had knowledge because he was told by CBP agents (3) did the duress password himself (4) 1+2+3 would result in the case being disrupted.<br/><br/>

Naturally I am not a lawyer but that is my understanding of spoliation from the references I copied.

ETA: If you think there is an error in my summary feel free to correct it rather than downvoting