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.

There are literally hundreds of Linux distros out there.

Also, a movie about a war veteran getting mistreated, and critical of the anti-war movement.

No, of course a broken spar is A Very Bad Thing when it happens in midair.

Is this changing-the-timing-chains-in-an-Audi difficult, or is this replacing-your-spinal-cord-without-killing-you impossible?

Are these planes repairable? I think it's a reasonable question.

(Of course, with the Audi, if has anything more than a loose gas cap it's not economically feasible to repair, but that's what you get with European engineering.)

Not for you, but for them to track your kids.

Indeed, because even if it's not user-repleaceable, any phone repair shop can do it. (It's also crazy to buy a $1k+ phone in the first place, goddamn, there are fine options for much much less.)

It's annoying, but adapters are cheap. I'm not going to lose sleep over $5.

They did, the whole industry uses USB-C now.

And there was "Project Star Trek": back in '92 they got System 7 running on a 486. It was shelved as Michael Spindler pushed for the PowerPC instead, but it existed.

But Tomb Raider: Anniversary is already that, and still looks perfectly good. And if you want it more strictly faithful to the original, there's the recent remaster. So this is absolutely unnecessary.

Not exactly, it used the Z80 to control the actual sound chips: a Yamaha YM2612 (which does FM) and a Texas SN76489 (which is a simpler PSG). And this setup, in the right hands, could produce absolutely excellent music.

The man really had no shame:
Brian Schmidt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Bobby Prince: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Foolish mortal. I am unkillable.

That's sort of what Google does now. You try to search, it gives you some AI-generated overview of the topic before providing links. It's occasionally handy but most often infuriating.

A lot of the audio production in individual videos is really bad. This isn't anything to do with YouTube per se, not their compression algorithms or other features. A lot of YouTubers have absolutely no concept of microphone placement, of using audio compression, of reducing background noise. All of which are things which will drastically affect audio quality and the ability of a speech-to-text model to create subtitles.

It would be nice if YouTube would normalize all the uploaded videos to one set standard. Note I'm not suggesting that they compress the videos as that might change the intended presentation of professional audio productions. I just mean peak-finding normalization which could be implemented losslessly and without breaking existing video links.

Having said that, when I look at my own channel - and I am not claiming to have great audio; I have a host which would destroy a lavalier microphone in mere seconds. YouTube's subtitling is really good. It automatically switches between English and French and Hebrew, and even with a fair bit of background noise (welding, grinding, cooking, crowd noise, music) it generally gets the text correct. So I don't know what the original complaint is, except that it's not perfect. Well, guess what, neither is human hearing. How about that famous Jimi Hendrix line, "Excuse me while I kiss this guy."