> As far as federal overreach of power goes, that's pretty inexcusable.

Selectively detaining this guy, likely overreach.

Trying to get his phone's unlock code to go on a fishing expedition for whatever they can find, absolutely overreach.

But this guy catching felony charges for giving federal border police a duress PIN to wipe his phone when they asked for an unlock PIN? Not actually overreach.

You have the right to remain silent, not to lie to the police when detained (18 USC § 1001, and many state-level laws to the same effect also exist). Our justice system could not function if people had a right to lie to the police. Once you are detained, whether or not that detention is eventually determined to be lawful, destroying or disposing of your possessions to prevent police from accessing them is also generally a crime.

You fight abuses later, in court. Or, if you're going to use a duress PIN in the moment, you accept the legal consequences.

And yes, giving a duress PIN to wipe a phone when asked for an unlock PIN is a lie which may result in destruction of evidence. And no, the law does not care about "I'm not touching you"-level rationalizations of whether something is a lie or whether it was technically the police who entered the code to wipe the phone. Proximate cause is a longstanding legal concept.

I disagree. Back then it was all a big secret. Officially the US was pretending.

Now? It is all out in the open. They're BOASTING about it. The baddies do whatever they want and noone is going to do anything about it besides write a blog. There will be no 1970s backlash with progressive Supreme Court judges and a senate committee investigating Hover.

Despite the normalization of masked federal gunmen kidnapping people based on the color of their skin and the language they speak.... Not even breaking a law in the process, the supreme court legalized racial profiling.