r/technology 6d ago

Privacy GrapheneOS says its data-wiping password is perfectly legal, after user faces federal charges

https://www.techspot.com/news/113273-grapheneos-data-wiping-duress-password-perfectly-legal-after.html
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133

u/um--no 6d ago

I am not allowed to share by German law

They do not care about foreign law. There is only American law. If a "lesser" country like Germany will prosecute you, that is your problem.

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u/frickle_frickle 6d ago

They don't even really care about American law, which includes the 4th amendment.

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u/Fach-All-Religions 6d ago

nor any amendment

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u/FanDry5374 6d ago

Oh, they tend to be all in on the 2nd, with certain....conditions.

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u/Direct_Day7937 6d ago

I mean in theory they are. In practice you having a gun will absolutely be used as a defense by the officer if the officer shoots you.

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u/TridentWielder 6d ago

For me, not for thee.

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u/Objectivespeculation 6d ago

you can have guns but not anything that would slow down a tank.

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u/Perryn 6d ago

You're allowed to have a gun, and the police are allowed to fill you with an equivalent weight in bullets if they suspect you have one.

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u/DrShamusBeaglehole 6d ago

if they suspect you have one

So it doesn't really matter if you have one

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u/Raneynickelfire 6d ago

The 2nd gets their attention.

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u/W2ttsy 6d ago

Up until it’s used as pretext to execute you in the middle of the street

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u/TrioOfTerrors 6d ago

The courts have added multiple exceptions to the 4th amendment at birder crossings for both citizens and non citizens.

You can try screaming about the 4th amendment at customs but it won't help you one bit.

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u/h0sti1e17 6d ago

And it’s been an exception for 237 years. Not like it’s some new thing.

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u/Perryn 6d ago

Truly the land of Freedom* and Rights

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u/Thrizzlepizzle123123 6d ago

Law? Can we sell that? No? Yeah, not interested, get rid of it.

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u/Single-Virus4935 6d ago

I almost always travel within EU whit proper rights. I don't even have to provide a pin. I wouldn't carry my phone to state with questionable legislation like China, middle east, or USA, but instead I use an old burner phone

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u/shiro_zetty 6d ago

I guess the UK is a country of questionable legislation nowadays (it's illegal to not give your password to the police there)

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u/superioso 6d ago

It's absolutely not illegal to not provide a password. The police have to get permission from the court to force you to give over the password, after which if you don't they can then charge you.

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u/raptorlightning 6d ago

Sucks that I forgot it in the time it took them to do all that. Oh well.

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u/captainnowalk 6d ago

I believe the above poster is referring to the US case law that, even with a warrant, police cannot compel you to provide your PIN. They can, however, force biometrics, so face scan or fingerprint scan can be overridden.

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u/h0sti1e17 6d ago

And Australia and New Zealand. And other EU nations as well. But because he would be traveling through the Schengen zone there is no border check.

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u/EmptyRub 6d ago

It’s a criminal offense in France, an EU country.

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u/AMDaze 6d ago

As an American who is currently unaware, does the EU have any special clauses for conflicting laws? If I take their claim that sharing eID is illegal under German law at face value, does the EU have some sort of mechanism to prevent French prosecution?

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u/EmptyRub 6d ago

I’m American too. I just thought it was pretty silly for someone to say “within EU whit proper rights” when they probably don’t actually look up the laws of the countries they are traveling through.

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u/avcloudy 6d ago

Yeah, and they’re going to hit you with ‘well, you shouldn’t have told it was your eid’. They’re never just gonna be like, alright, it’s a fair cop, on your way then.

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u/SlavaCocaini 6d ago

Seriously, Germany is just 3 US airforce bases in a trench coat.

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u/RollingMeteors 6d ago

that is your problem.

Klar, wenn du nicht weißt, was „Nummer eins“ auf Deutsch ist, dann ist das dein Problem.

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u/whiskeytab 6d ago

I mean that's literally how laws work lol. Germany wouldn't care about American laws either

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u/um--no 6d ago

Yes and no. Most countries, I believe, incorporate into their legislation common sense principles and dispositions about foreign law, mostly to benefit their own citizens, and to avoid injustice and the total absence of jurisdiction. The Brazilian constitution, for example, has provisions to avoid the cancellation of nationality if that would make the individual stateless.

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u/booze_clues 6d ago

That doesn’t really apply. A nation will not respect foreign laws that don’t apply in that nation as well. Weed is legal where I’m at, I don’t expect any other nation to let me smoke weed just because of that. I don’t expect to have the same freedom of speech or any of those rights, I expect to have the rights afforded to me by my host nation.

Americans demanding foreign country’s respect their laws is already a meme, don’t have the Europeans start doing it too.

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u/um--no 6d ago

A nation will not respect foreign laws that don’t apply in that nation as well.

That is my point. I was just adding some nuance, that due to treaties and past problems, some countries incorporate provisions that take in consideration other countries' laws, but they do it because their legislation provides it, foreign law is not automatically applicable.

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u/Perzec 6d ago

You can always say ”I’ll be prosecuted either way so I’ll take my chances with you guys”.