You make good point. As an intellectual exercise if I were arguing for the government I'd establish that digital data such as files are considered property, specifically, intangible property. By providing the duress-code, the defendant knowingly destroyed digital data stored within the device to be searched preventing that data from being seized. I'd cite Yates v. United States (2015)[1] regarding how narrowly the word "property" should be interpreted. The legal principle of noscitur a sociis (a word is known by the company it keeps) means it should be considered in the context of the types of digital data and electronic records of interest in the CBP search scope (See 2). The digital data stored on the device is the intangible property that is the object of the search and, potentially, the cause for seizure.

Alternatively, I'd consider arguing that any digital data justifying seizure is physically encoded in the storage unit within the electronic device and by causing the device wipe, the defendant damaged property - specifically, the storage unit to prevent it's lawful seizure. The act is equivalent to dumping ink onto a classified document making it unreadable to prevent the discovery and seizure.

I do believe your argument that digital data is not physical property does have some merit to it and as the statute authorizing the search and seizure originally meant physical contraband a narrow interpretation of property might work.

Thank you.

[1]: I bet there's better case law to cite.
[2]: From CBP Directive 3340-049B, "They [border searches of electronic devices] help detect evidence relating to terrorism and other national security matters, human and bulk cash smuggling, narcotics smuggling, firearms smuggling, contraband, and child pornography. They enable the discovery of digital contraband, such as child pornography, illicit transfer of restricted or classified information, or other export-controlled information. They can also reveal information about financial and commercial crimes, such as those relating to copyright, trademark, smuggling, transnational theft of proprietary information and export control violations."

So, I'm totally not a lawyer, but I find the vagaries and nuances of law fascinating. Perhaps I can help clarify some details.

First, he was at an airport and had not yet been permitted entry to the USA - in a sense, they were still in "international waters." The government maintains that anyone entering the country at a border may be subject to warrantless search by 19 USC 482 which was originally to allow searching of boats to seize any contraband. CBP doesn't need to have probable cause for the search. Further, the government maintains this search is exempt from 4th amendment protections by historical judicial precedent (or something) called the "border search exemption." This has been challenged in some districts but has not yet been considered by the supreme court.

Second, he's not charged with 18 USC 1519 "Obstruction of Investigations by Destruction of Evidence" but rather with 18 USC 2232(a) "Destruction of Property to Prevent Seizure." As I understand the distinction it's that as the CBP search isn't a part of an investigation based on a probable cause to believe a crime has been committed, they aren't searching for evidence of a crime and thus there isn't evidence to destroy. 1519 is far more serious and can mean up to 20 years in prison vs 2232(a)'s 5 years in prison.

The statute is broad enough to apply if the act was done at all but it does need a search to happen. Specifically, "before, during, or after any search for or seizure of property." From what I'm reading, you're welcome to wipe your phone if they don't search it.

As to corporations routinely destroying evidence, that doesn't mean they're not committing a crime, but I do believe there has to be intent to obstruct an investigation regardless if an investigation exists to obstruct.

The "border search exemption" mentioned far above is why no search warrant is needed for him to be charged with this crime.

If he wanted to prevent the phone being searched and not be charged with 2232(a), then he should have surrendered the phone to them and refused to provide an unlock code. Yes, that means they likely would have kept the phone and, potentially, indefinitely. A US citizen may not be denied entry to the USA.

Had he not been a US citizen, then refusing the search OR surrendering the phone and refusing to give the unlock code _may_ likely have been grounds to refuse him entry, but that's still not charged with a crime.

Trump won by a landslide?

Are you some kind of RINO trying to hide your TDS so you don't lose all your friends? If you're gonna pretend, at least get your facts right. Trump didn't win by a landslide - that's just a significant margin. Trump's wins are _blowouts_.

2016, Electoral College: 304 vs 227 and Popular Vote 46.1% vs 48.2%
2024, Electoral College: 312 vs 226 and Popular Vote 49.8% vs 48.3%

No one has ever win by such margins before. Biden's pathetic effort was almost shameful:

2020, Electoral College: 306 vs 232 and Popular Vote 51.3% vs 46.8%

We won't ever see anyone win as winningly as Trump did ever again in our lifetimes and we should be thankful.

Even the republican juggernaut, Ronald Reagan, didn't come close:

1980, Electoral College: 489 vs 49 and Popular Vote 50.7% vs 41.0%
1984, Electoral College: 525 vs 13 and Popular Vote 58.8% vs 40.6%

I don't know why you even mention the democrats. They don't matter anymore. They have only 212 representatives out of the total 435? Sad. Only 45 out of 100 senators? Why do they even bother showing up? Their voting base is too illiterate to understand they're being promised nonsense. These guarantees could be realized patently impossible with even a little consideration. As the electorate is too lazy to verify claims and have been trained to disregard discordant news, emotional manipulation easily stokes a selfish outrage and fictional boogeymen fill their nightmares. Now terrified and desperate, they zealously cling to an establishment that only values them for their votes and only occasionally shares their interests by coincidence.

I'm disgusted how eagerly you shit on Trump despite enjoying all the gifts he's graced upon us. He's gone above and beyond delivering everything he promised. We've never been so safe, so wealthy, and so free. /s

Thanks for your questions, Freenet caches data but it isn’t meant to be a long-term storage network. It’s better to think of it as a communication system. Data persists as long as at least one node remains subscribed to it. If nobody subscribes (including the author), it will eventually disappear from the network. So yes, if only your node subscribes then the data will only exist there and won’t be available when your machine is offline. But if other nodes subscribe it will be replicated automatically and remain available even if your node goes offline.

Not from 2023, the linked video is from last month. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

The new Freenet is written in Rust.

lol - same thing with pilots ;)

Thank you!

You're very welcome :)

When the new Freenet is up and running, I think it will be the first system of any kind that could host something like wikipedia, not just the data but the wiki CMS system it's built on. An editable wikipedia, entirely decentralized and very scalable.

I think when the history of the last decade is written, it will be about - in part - the terrible social damage caused by opaque and biased social media algorithms manipulating the public discourse.

Locutus is primarily designed for decentralization, not anonymity - which will make it less suited to IP theft than various other technologies that are already pervasive, the same is true of a lot of the other "people you don't want to be your early adopters" that you mention. It's definitely a risk for systems like Freenet, but it's a manageable risk.

Most of the negative comments so far are from people who I doubt spent 20 seconds looking at our site, so I hope they don't color your judgement. Read through our user manual and form your own opinion.

Once there are viable alternatives on Freenet we'll use them.

I think the time is right, which is exactly why I'm doing what I'm doing :)

Totally agree about the importance of naming, and Freenet has the advantage of literally describing what we're building - a free network.