Comment by reenorap
18 hours ago
Have the duress PIN on sticker on your phone. Maybe put it backwards and don’t say anything to border patrol. Have them try it out and erase the phone and then you can legitimately say you didn’t do anything and they did it themselves.
But if the prosecutors can make a convincing argument that your intent was exactly that all along, then you may end up convicted anyway.
Intent matters. It might be hard to prove, but it matters.
It may not even be that hard; what other possible explanation is there for someone putting a PIN visible on their phone that wipes it while crossing a border?
> what other possible explanation is there for someone putting a PIN visible on their phone that wipes it while crossing a border?
Two obvious answers:
1. It's for the general case of lost/stolen phone.
2. It's for the owner. I can't remember numbers I don't type in, might as well keep it visible on the device.
>what other possible explanation is there for someone putting a PIN visible on their phone that wipes it while crossing a border?
For thieves, obviously.
There’s no way to prove intent if you keep your mouth shut and don’t answer anything.
Yea, that’s not how it works in practice. If they catch you standing over a dead body holding the murder weapon. Then you can’t just say they can’t prove intent if you keep your mouth shut.
1 reply →
That’s good advice to not talk, but it won’t necessarily save you.
claim your password to be some derivative of the duress PIN, for example: 1234 is password reminder for 2444 (one 2 three 4), the device is erased anyway.
For if someone steals the phone?
if the cops do that, they're breaking the law with that search already
theyll have a hard time showing that you intended for the government to break the law. first the government would have to admit breaking the law
Unfortunately I think they have pretty wide latitude to perform searches at border crossings.
They might be able to convict on that, but that sets a dangerous precedent imo, which is that doing anything preemptively to prevent searches is conviction worthy, including the preparation the OP suggested.
"it would be funny if the border police typed it in to my phone"
I think you should read the other reply about not saying anything at all.
1 reply →
As a speech.
Or just make it your birthday. Though I'm not at all sure the agents will try typing random codes in without at least some idea that they may work, given that many OS's will quickly start to punish with tarpitting.
Be funnier if you even write “do not enter 123456”.
That might have actually been legal. I'm not a lawyer, but it's definitely better for the accused than what happened in reality.
"I told you not to. You're the ones who wiped my phone. You owe me money for destroying my personal property."
I'm not saying you would get a check courtesy of Uncle Sam for your troubles, but the argument that you deceived authorities into destroying evidence is a lot weaker.
I might go with "do not enter 696969" instead because the stranger fiddling with your phone probably expects a your phone to do something funny, like load a shock site.
I wouldn't write it down, I would just make it 1234. They're bound to try that. Then they have absolutely no case against you.
That's the combination on my luggage!
The police will ask you if the PIN unlocks the phone before using it.
Refusing to answer questions IS one of the rights that the US government mostly honors.
Well, these days especially at border police don't care about "rights"
4 replies →
Under US law, you have a nearly absolute right to not answer police questions.
I belive this only applies if you are a US citizen and not a visitor.
1 reply →
Yes of course. But their use of the PIN will likely only occur if you answer, which many people will. This is a common setup in interrogations.
1 reply →
It unlocks the phone.
Why would agents think that a number written on your phone is the PIN? That would only make sense if it was a communally-used device, not a personal one. Also, no one would put sensitive info on a devices that has the PIN affixed to it.
I suppose it's possible someone might enter it without thinking, but the odds seem low. Also seems risky to put a self-destruct PIN on your device, lest a friend (or enemy) enter it by accident or as a prank.
I've worked with fleets of company phones and mobile devices, people absolutely do this.
They do this with devices that have sensitive information that would be of interest to federal agents?
with this sort of configuration, you either trust your backups or you don’t ;)