Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVvlgMf1hAg

theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/23/cop-city-protester-phone

consumerrights.wiki/w/Common_Questions,Arguments,&_Responses_when_discussing_Flock_Surveillance

The US Department of Justice is attempting to prosecute an Atlanta resident in connection with the movement against the police training center known as Cop City because he had GrapheneOS on his phone

Experts said it may be the first time the law has been aimed at the operating system

What clown wrote this? It has nothing to do with GOS specifically, it has to do with destruction of evidence. Not trying to suggest that this person is guilty at all, it's just very strange phrasing. I guess "Protestor charged with destruction of evidence for deleting phone contents" gets less clicks than "protestor charged with running iLlEgAl operating system!".

The case, which had its first hearing on Monday, centers on a little-known US federal statute that makes it a crime to destroy property in an effort to prevent it from being seized.

Is it really "little known" that destroying evidence is illegal?

Meanwhile they keep covering up that ranch in New Meico and hiding the list of all the murdering pedophile rapists.

They use CSAM as an excuse to attack the innocent, while protecting the people who are actually involved in it.

Is it really "little known" that destroying evidence is illegal?

I suspect you are attacking the article’s lack of awareness and precision, but I applaud them for not echoing the fascist government’s carefully crafted and fictitious propaganda narrative.

The government attempted to illegally and unconstitutionally search a person’s personal property. They had no cause, no suspicion, and no warrant. There was no evidence to begin with and no evidence to delete. What a person does with their own property and data is not the business of the government outside of due process. No evidence was deleted because nothing was evidence. The accusation is a work of fiction meant to punish someone for exercising their rights in the face of abuse.

I suspect you are attacking the article’s lack of awareness and precision

Uhhhh nope, I was attacking the article's notion that few people know that destruction of evidence is illegal, as I said.

There was no evidence to begin with and no evidence to delete

How could you possibly know that?

If you have mushrooms in your car it is not evidence unless it is discovered during a lawful search as required by due process. Cops cannot just randomly search cars or any other property without cause.

Hypothetical things are not evidence, regardless of whether they may or may not exist. The phone and any data on it was not evidence because the authorities had no legal or constitutional right or cause to search it.

Since the phone was wiped, there is no data. This means even the hypothetical was-never-evidence data still is not evidence, because it is literally the absence of evidence. This is as much “destruction of evidence” as the last time you emptied your computers trash folder.

For evidence to possibly exist, you need to be charged with a crime first. Evidence exists within context of a charge. No charge - no evidence.

If you have mushrooms in your car it is not evidence unless it is discovered during a lawful search

If a cop has a warrant to search your car for mushrooms and you then burn the car to the ground, that's destruction of evidence.

If the IRS subpoenas your tax documents and you throw them in a fire, that's destruction of evidence.

Anything deemed to be pertinent to an investigation is evidence.

LOL what!? So you're saying law enforcement has never obtained evidence without first charging someone with a crime!?

E: if you're downvoting this, you are a moron. You cannot charge someone with a crime without any evidence. The evidence comes first.

There was no warrant. And in this scenario the piggies accidentally burned the car to the ground while performing an illegal search. Messy example that doesn't line up 1:1.

I'm saying you cant "destroy evidence" if you haven't been charged with anything since at that point it isn't considered evidence.

something I feel is important to note: they added CSAM to the list of things they were searching for in order to gain access to his phone.

when the phone was clean (due to the wipe), they did not follow up on that charge

if they truly believed this person to be in possession of CSAM, a warrant should've been issued by now to follow up on that very serious accusation. instead, they go after the destruction of evidence.

because they have nothing on this man, and it was a fabricated excuse to gain access to his phone.

Or to put it simply. The Government can't blanket search your property for a crime. They need a specific crime and probable cause. Not just, "We don't like you. Let me see your phone so I can find something illegal."

This is just complete insanity. You live in a fictional universe. That's not how any of this works.

"Ah yes, that piece of paper you wrote something on a week ago and threw away that we have no idea what was on it? That is actually now evidence, and since you disposed of it you are now being charged with destruction of evidence."

The way things are going it might actually become that way. And then you'll see true insanity.

But it wasn't a week ago. He was actively being investigated for a crime at the time.

You have a right to not incriminate yourself. Being investigated for a crime implies probable cause, which this instance lacks unless I'm misreading the article.

It was a targeted harassment search into a political nuisance, not an actual warranted investigation. There was no charge. They let him walk away. Can't have evidence if there was no crime.

No he wasn't. He was being harassed because he protested cops previously. They had nothing on him. They still have nothing on him.

It was a targeted harassment search into a political nuisance, not an actual warranted investigation

There is no difference, legally.

Can’t have evidence if there was no crime

Can't know if there was a crime if the evidence was destroyed. Imagine if a corporation were being investigated for some sort of crime and they just went and deleted any evidence of it. Does your statement still apply?

There is no legal difference.

Your right to not incriminate yourself does not apply to destruction of evidence.

Yes there is. One is an illegal abuse of power, which is a island offense for the officer. The other involves a surprising of a crime and a court warrant.

If there's no suspicion of a crime, there's no legal search. So no evidence to gather.

😂 As if the police doesn't abuse innocent activists for state repression

ok but...there was. Regardless of whether it's legitimate.

No there wasn't.

You should read the article again. The suspicion was CSAM.

Correct, no evidence was destroyed in this instance.

We're going around in circles here. There's no way you can know that. There's no way the court can know that. Because it's gone.

You NEED to know that before pressing charges. You CANNOT just break into people's stuff on a whim. What the fuck.

We're not taking about breaking into people's stuff, we're talking about destruction of evidence. The phone was collected as evidence. Then its contents were destroyed.

That was the alleged suspicion. They were fishing because they don't like that the guy is against cop city.

That's the suspicion they will cite in court.

in the burgerreich, when you complain about the government, you get accused of child abuse

They better have proof or bring lots of money to the defamation lawsuit.

The time at which the phone was wiped the phone did not meet the legal requirements to be considered evidence. Therefore wiping the phone at that time does not constitute as destruction of evidence. You are conflating the legal definition of "evidence" with the layman's definition of "evidence".

No. They can't charge him with data destruction because it was the officer that destroyed the data.

You're right, they will not be able to charge him with anything. This is an excellent case to set a precedent that this tech is totally legal.

Double standards much?

Release the Epstine files.

Based solely on the fact that he protested the cops hq. That was their excuse after their illegal search attempt.
If there was an actual suspicion, they'd have a warrant and be searching his property, not just holding him up at the airport for a few minutes.

Are you always this easy to fool? We all know this admin isn't going after actual child abusers.

They're doubly mad because they were trying to plant the CSAM

My boy is a hero for not allowing his contacts to become states evidence

Apple IOS user accused of chil..... Google Android user accused of chi......

fuck off.

Enshitification has done enough to get me off Reddit, I personally think very simple entry level tutorials on how to best personally disconnect from the surveillance apparatus, myself I am not computer savvy at all whatsoever so I have a long road ahead of me, too. I’m young but still old school, I like printing zines and putting them out into the world physically, maybe something easily printable telling people

1. What the problem is

2. How to solve it themselves

3. How to help others become aware subsequently help them.

Of course, online messaging will work too, just needs to be very very wide spread.

That's not correct, according to the first sentence of the article from 404.

The U.S. government has charged Samuel Tunick with allegedly typing in a passcode to wipe his phone

I am not being fooled. I just understand how our justice system works. There is no rational thought process. Only consideration of the law. The prosecutors won't say anything about his protesting. They will only cite suspicion of CSAM.

They can just manufacture proof, that’s the real risk here

Yeah this thing is almost always followed up by a raid on their homes, their work computers etc.

DARVO, the rot of narcissism runs our country now

Simple tutorials.

I know that a decent chunk of the privacy/Linux folk have that same "I had to suffer and you should too" boomer mindset, and that's like 80% of the reason I haven't stopped using Google and Microsoft.

I'm not a software dev, but I do have a job and a life and shit. There is only so much time I can spend trying to figure that shit out before I decide it's not worth it.