So presumption of innocence is officially dead (along with rule of law generally).
this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2026
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Also dead:
- Privacy
- Probable cause
- Right to travel freely
- ...
- Free speech and free expression.
- Press freedom.
- If this incident is a sign of things to come, and they start going after Linux phones or tablets and Linux or BSD desktops or laptops next, device ownership.
Hey, I have no sympathy for people who do BSD to each other. That's just vile sexual abnormality! 🤢
You know full well what BSD I meant...
Not only that, I wouldn't know what it could mean otherwise 😅
I don't know what it means in either context tbh. #justsweetsummerchildthings
It's an operating system. macOS is based on it for example.
And what's it mean in terms of sex things?
Nothing, don't know. Dumb joke on BDSM vs BSD
When did non-white people ever have those in america? Those are privileges afforded to those of a certain melanin composition, not all americans equally. People who thought they benefited from so-called 'universal' liberties are quickly finding out that it was never universal to begin with. "Rights" have never been "universal" guarantees for American people. Not once in the history of this nation have rights been 'universally' applied. They have been case-by-case applied, and often people of a certain melanin composition benefited from the 'universal right' while others don't have the 'universal' aspect of those rights applied to them. This is not a coincidence and it is beneficial to no one to think it's just a coincidence—well at least it's not beneficial to anyone worth benefiting.
"All men are created equal"... except those ones over there
It's okay, we're still afraid to fuck off and die. They just don't say that part out loud because the dead can't pay taxes.
As I've said before, welcome to the Reich.
I’ll say this: a possible destruction of evidence charge is the bulwark against whatever evidence might have been destroyed, the possession of which could have been a much more egregious charge. Not saying they actually possessed any criminal evidence, but the legal theory behind the concept plays this out. If, perhaps, they possessed some dangerous or damaging documents, a “destruction of evidence“ charge would be nothing compared to some potentially much more terrible charges they could possibly suffer from the discovery of, say, whatever else you could possibly imagine. Although there is no evidence this person possessed anything of the sort, let alone anything illegal at all.
And while this is a total bullshit charge that this person only could’ve gotten “outside of the protections of the constitution” that only theoretically exists before this person “crossed the border”, as a US citizen, this is still only legal theory that hasn’t quite been tested yet.
As others have mentioned, this is precisely what this feature is for. Other technology companies have similar protections, although they institute it slightly differently.
Apple, for example, has instituted in accessibility protections on its devices in a slightly different manner. For example, if you think that your device might be accessed without your permission, you can enable lockdown mode by clicking the power button five times to enable several additional layers of encryption. It also turns off every possible wired and wireless port of access to your device. It also lowers the tolerance for incorrect passwords from 5 to 3, and after three incorrect password entries, instead of locking down the device for several hours, it immediately initiate a device wipe that cannot be interrupted by a power down.
This mitigates the need for a “dress password“ and this may have a legal difference, since providing the correct password won’t be necessary and shift the liability to the authority entering a “guessed“ password. so either that authority can continue incorrectly, guessing your password or can simply shut the device off and leave it in some archive somewhere to never be accessed.
These are subtle differentiations, and different approaches, and these tech companies are attempting these different approaches with successes and failures in an attempt to help their customers maintain privacy. And, until tested, we can only guess at their successes and failures.
This is one of those times.
"I can tell you my password is most definitely NOT 6666"
*Agent types it in
"Oh no! Look what you've done!"
I saw one good suggestion here to just write down your duress pin and leave it in your wallet.
lockdown mode has to be enabled in the settings. it requires a pin & a device reset.
pressing the power button 5 times can either call 911, if you have that set up, or it resets face id & prompts you for your pin, again.
although true, so do such levels of security on most devices/OSs.
if you want this level of security on any device, it isn't by default-- even with GrapheneOS, you have to go to the trouble of actually installing it-- or go to the trouble of finding a device that actually comes pre-installed with it, which your local mobile provider does not sell
the point being that, for more than bog-standard security, some level of effort by the user will, yes, be required.
Everyone else will just get a lollypop.
At least then, you are legitimately justified in telling them to “suck it”
In situations like this, I don't like that most phones tell you how many attempts are left. If they really want what's on your phone, they're going to stop before they run out of attempts and use some tool to break the encryption.
Didn't some in the FBI and some members of congress wipe their phones and destroy burner phones? Didn't seem to be any problem there.
Don't forget that the Secret Service wiped their phones for a 2-day span around Jan-6.
I’ll never forget that. Blatant cover up around one of our nations most shameful days in recent memory… that we know about. I’m sure this country commits atrocities daily that the American people don’t know about or otherwise wouldn’t believe.
What's different here is that the officer wiped the device owned by the activist
It's going to be interesting if they go to prison, and how much compensation will be paid to the victim
I'm really interested in how this is gonna go.
I'm also excited, personally. It's the best case to establish a good precedent... Especially since the officer wiped it.
I expect the victim will counter sue for damages, and this will be a huge win
I am going to try to be hopeful too
I think that the OS shouldn't just restart and wipe everthing tbh, it's too obvious, it should get in a 2nd profile, wipe the other silently and when the wipe it's done display something like "update downloaded, the phone is about to restart" then actually restart the phone and do a bunch of other stuff while it "updates" or soft-break the OS after "the updated failed" or sum
Just catch fire. Done.