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Many think that deleting data or blocking it is a right to privacy. But, when the cell phone is the target of a search… Deleting it can be a crime.
A Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agent was going to search Samuel Tunick, but the activist erased all data on your cell phone before the agent arrived.
It was not explained why CBP wanted to search Samuel’s cell phone – which was detained for being accused of destruction of evidence.
The arrest warrant indicates that the activist intentionally destroyed the contents of the cell phone, to prevent or hinder government authorities from seizing the device.
Tunick was detained earlier this month during a police raid in Atlanta.
Samuel Tunick’s supporters say that the police tricked him: told to get out of the car to check a problem with the lights in the car; but he was handcuffed by the police and surrounded by FBI agents.
Tunick was however freed, after the hearing. This banned from leaving north Georgia while the case is ongoing.
The highlights that many people in the US think that by erasing data from a cell phone or locking the cell phone with strong encryption, they are simply exercising their power. right to privacy.
But there is a “but”: from the moment the cell phone – or another electronic device – becomes the target of a search or lawful federal seizure, to switch off what is there can constitute a crime. Even if the agents have not yet taken possession of the device in question.
Under obstruction laws, digital data is treated in the same way as physical records.
CBP can conduct basic cell phone searches without a warrant; forensic searches generally require only reasonable suspicion.
Passwords are more protected, because of the Fifth Amendment; but the Government can force their disclosure if it already knows what data it expects to find.
