I think you're arguing the wrong case there. You can have legally-encumbered property without a court order. US vs Plavcak ruled that already. But you do need to have suspicion that specific evidence was being destroyed.

The big reason the government will lose this case is that they don't know what was on the phone. You can't obstruct the government by destroying something they don't know about. This isn't even a constitutional case. This case will fall flat on its face because obstruction in general won't apply the way 18 USC 2232 is written.

The word 'El Nino' was mentioned 10 times and the word 'Super El Nino' twice. Yet nowhere does it bother to mention what this means. What effects? How long? Who might be affected?

Yes, there is this thing called 'the internet' that I'm told can be used to look up information (or watch cat videos), but if you're trying to disperse information, it might be nice to include said information so people can better understand the point you are trying (and failing) to get across.

Incidentally you didn't just make a logical point, but a very specific legal one. Obstruction requires that a defendant destroy specific property that is being attempted to be taken into lawful custody. You can't take into lawful custody something you don't know exists. Also the defendant didn't destroy anything. That's a more grey legal area.

Quite the opposite. The government needs to prove that they were taking into possession specific data (they need to know what was destroyed), lawfully (they need to show they had reason to take possession of that data), and that the person destroyed the evidence (that is an edge case here since he was not in possession of the phone at the time, and lying isn't a crime).

The government has a hell of a case to prove, and the US attorneys who are trying to prove it both listed the wrong agency Customs and Border Patrol (not the people who took the phone, that's Customs and Border Protection) as well as misspelled their own fucking country "Untied" States in the court filings.

At this point the government is arguing a complex case and is doing so with people who you wouldn't trust to get your McDonalds order right.

I will eat my fucking hat if this guy loses his case.

Yes, very. If the police show up at your door without a warrant and you flush your drugs down the toilet then you didn't obstruct anything.

You actually touched on a very core issue of the case: A warrant is a lawful search for particular property with suspicion. A border search is not, it's effectively a fishing expedition. The obstruction law covers taking lawful custody. This has been in the past ruled to specifically to mean you need to have a warrant or other lawful reason to search for the particular property you're looking for.

The government needs to prove that they knew what was on the phone and that they had lawful authority to take *the data* not just the phone in order to prove obstruction here. Good luck to them.

He did nothing. He was pressed under duress to give a password. And yes you very much are legally allowed to lie to the police. You are absolutely NOT under oath when being questioned by any federal agent.

To prove obstruction the government needs to show they knew what was on the phone and had an intention of taking into possession the specific data they were looking for (also there's a lawfulness clause which we'll ignore, but courts have ruled that obstruction only applies when executing a warrant). If the government can't prove they knew what data they were trying to seize (a simple search rather than attempting to take "particular property") then all they can prove is that they took possession of was a phone. Which they did, and had and weren't obstructed from doing.

This is a complex and interesting case.

A very in depth analysis is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

He did so REPEATEDLY.

No they don't. The thing is, even without the constitution there's many reasons this case will fail. For one, it's not automatically obstructing law enforcement by destroying something.

To prove their case the government needs to prove the person was authorised to search and seize the particular property, and saying "We're the police" isn't sufficient. Also particular property means they need to have a reasonable suspicion on what was destroyed.

Secondly the *defendant* needs to destroy the evidence, he didn't even touch his phone.

Oh and the big one, the obstruction only applies if the person prevents "lawful authority" from siezing evidence. There's existing case law that shows this only applies when executing a warrant. In order to do that it ties into the first point, you need to know what you're trying to take into possession.

So the government needs to argue that they were taking into possession data they knew existed, not just a phone. Good luck to them. This is a hell of an uphill battle, and a complex case to prove, and it's worth noting that the people who need to do this are the same people who both misspelled the name of the country "Untied States" as well as listed the wrong agency "Customs and Border Patrol" (instead of Customs and Border Protection) being obstructed on their official court docket. I wouldn't trust these people to get a McDonalds order right let alone be able to argue a legal case.

No the argument is far more complicated than that. Like really really complicated. It goes beyond the constitution as well, and given he handed over a password that wiped the phone the 5th isn't relevant.

The question now is if the government had a right to see the evidence. Simply having a right to search doesn't make destruction of something evidence. Destroying something isn't obstruction. They can be, but only if there was something to point to there being evidence on that phone in the first place. For all they know he just wiped his own dick picks right now which isn't obstruction.

Even without the constitution this lawsuit will fail.

Since you're keen to solve this problem you will agree with funding free mental health clinics? Social services to the poor and homeless? Education? I mean all those three are directly and causally linked to reduced homicide rates (and violent crime in general).

Why do you default to surveillance?

I really need to attached a generator to Benjamin Franklin or something. The free energy from him spinning in his grave every time someone uses that quote could power Amazon's new datacentre.

The "essential liberty" Benjamin Franklin was talking about was the ability to levy taxes to build your own army, nothing to do with surveillance or freedom.

"Benjamin Franklin has got to be one of the most misquoted people on the internet." - Abraham Lincoln.

I haven't seen any recent story about what Linus Torvalds uses for this workstation, but he certainly has a history of using Intel graphics cards.

Errr, tell us you don't know how safety features work without telling us. There's more RAM required for the cars safety features than the infotainment system. Or do you think vision processing for lane keeping and radar processing to determine which lane the vehicle ahead is in happens by clacking a few relays?

Here's an example: The Volvo EX30 has 2 computer with 8GB of RAM. One for the infotainment system and one for the safety features. The Volvo EX90 has 2 computers, one with 8GB of RAM (infotainment) and one with 64GB of RAM (for the safety features, and lidar processing).
Teslas also have a similar configuration with HW3 having 32GB of RAM, and HW4 with 64GB of RAM.

Sure that's advanced, but you still need a computer with around 8GB of RAM at a minimum, oh and driver attentive monitoring systems are not just vision based, but mandatory as for a month ago in the EU, so every car has at least a computer with 8GB of RAM associated with a mandatory safety feature.

You're precisely the kind of person who would buy a car and then complain about the infotainment system. No a navigation system is a fundamental car feature that people universally use while driving these days, to the point where if they don't have one, they will get an additional one (typically their phone), and you just need to look here to Slashdot to see how many people would not consider buying a car that didn't support AA or Carplay.

The navigation and infotainment systems is a fundamental feature for any buyer who gives more of a shit than what colour the car comes in.

That I agree with. Except the single point of failure issue. Your car is literally full of single points of failure, it doesn't matter if it was built in the 70s or in the 2020s. Tow trucks have existed long before touchscreens.

Yes. No.

The ads thing and the distraction can fuck all the way off. But your other point is widely off base. At no point were you ever paying a vehicle for the hardware. You were paying for a functionality. Hell even in the 90s you ended up with different models of vehicle with different engine power largely differentiated by ... some software settings in the ECU. The whole heated seats debacle is nothing more than people turning off their brains. You get what you pay for. You don't pay for heated seats, you don't have heated seats. You do pay for heated seats, you do have heated seats. But for some reason BMW giving you the option of getting heated seats later without having to pay thousands of dollars to have seats replaced causes people to freak out.

Please tell me how is this bad for you:

Past situation:
a) You bought a car with heated seats and have heated seats.
b) You bought a car without heated seats and don't have heated seats.
c) You bought a car without heated seats, wanted heated seats, and had to pay thousands to swap out your seats to get heated seats, now you have heated seats.

Present:
a) You bought a car with heated seats and have heated seats.
b) You bought a car without heated seats and don't have heated seats.
c) You bought a car without heated seats, wanted heated seats, and paid either a one off fee to have it enabled without intrusive work, or pay a small monthly fee you can stop later, now you have heated seats (and more money in your pocket).
d) You bought a car without heated seats but since the heater is present anyway you hacked it and now you have free heated seats.

How is that BMW situation not better for you as the customer? It literally has all the old functionality with extra choices, one of which is cheaper and faster.

A great many idiots buy cars for the colour, or the vroom vroom sound and then complain about poorly implemented features like navigation. The trick is buy a car considering the entire package instead. E.g. there was no car at the top of my list which didn't have Google Maps as the primary navigation system. Not one. I have zero tolerance for poorly integrated features. But some people are more interested in "does it come in red?" and then complain about infotainment system on the way home. (By the way even before BMW went full retard with ads they were on my shit list. Their infotainment system is horrible)

Yes attrition is built into the law. It's why there's virtually no cars left on the road without ABS. Or do you suggest the government run a safety program that requires the population to collectively scrap millions of vehicles at once? No that would be silly. Also some integrated features make more sense for new vehicles. E.g. my car would fail roadworthy inspection if the cross movement detection didn't work. My previous car didn't have that feature, but critically, I could actually see out of my previous car because tiny windows seem to be a modern design "feature". So from a safety point of view that's a wash.

Honestly I have no time for people who are annoyed by things that actively make their lives better. It's the I got mine, fuck those other's mentality. Those grumpy old shits need to be reminded they live in a society and it's not all about them.

We could, but what about the knock on economic impact? That may be minimised in a car free city, but it would cripple America. When people turn desperate they start not following laws.

Congrats, you went from having bad drivers on the road, to having bad drivers on the road who aren't insured.