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558 points mikece | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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duxup ◴[] No.45029937[source]
>Michael Carson became the focus of a theft investigation involving money allegedly taken from a neighbor’s safe.

>Authorities secured a warrant to search his phone, but the document placed no boundaries on what could be examined.

>It permitted access to all data on the device, including messages, photos, contacts, and documents, without any restriction based on time period or relevance. Investigators collected over a thousand pages of information, much of it unrelated to the accusation.

Yeah that's pretty absurd.

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strathmeyer ◴[] No.45030813[source]
A good HackerNews poll would be to ask how many people have had their phones cloned by the police, I didn't know it was uncommon. I guess they've stopped since phones are encrypted.
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qingcharles ◴[] No.45032379[source]
Don't secure your phone with face or fingerprint scan as it is lawful in the USA to force you to open it in those instances.
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1. 542354234235 ◴[] No.45040842{3}[source]
It is actually more complicated than that and being forced to provide a passcode is also legal precedent, but both biometrics and passcodes are still open legal questions.

It has been argued successfully that giving biometrics is analogous to giving blood, hair, fingerprints, standing in a lineup, providing a writing sample, or wearing certain clothes, all of which you can be compelled to do.

From my understanding, the current split about being compelled to provide passcodes, and to a much lesser extent biometrics, is the foregone conclusion exception stemming from the Fisher v. United States [1] case, where, as Justice White said “the existence and locations of the papers[were] a foregone conclusion and the [defendant’s physical act] adds little or nothing to the sum total of the Government’s information by conceding that he in fact has the papers… [And so] no constitutional rights [were] touched. The question [was] not of testimony but of surrender.”

This has been used in relation to court cases on biometrics and passcodes [2]. It appears that courts that rule that you can be compelled seem to look narrowly at the passcode itself i.e. the government knows you own the phone and knows you know how to unlock it, so it is a foregone conclusion to provide it. Courts that rule you cannot be compelled seem to look at the phones contents i.e. the government does not know what is on the phone so decrypting the data would be providing protected testimony, or a stricter interpretation that you cannot be compelled to disclose the contents of the mind. The Supreme Court has declined multiple times to hear cases that would help settle the legal ambiguity, so it remains an evolving issue.

In short, a passcode is not a panacea and you may be compelled to provide it.

[1] https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2024/04/17/2...

[2] https://www.barclaydamon.com/webfiles/Publications/Unlock-De...