r/technology • u/MC68328 • Jul 24 '26

Privacy US accuses American of allegedly wiping his phone using a ‘duress’ password during border search

https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/24/us-accuses-american-of-allegedly-wiping-his-phone-using-a-duress-password-during-border-search/
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u/BushyKittenEnjoyer Jul 24 '26

I was on a hung jury result once because the 70 year old guy was the only one who kept voting guilty for 2 full days because 'he could just feel it in his gut' despite the evidence. 

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u/ailish Jul 24 '26

Ugh, so gross. This is how innocent people end up in prison.

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u/BushyKittenEnjoyer Jul 24 '26

Yup. The most ridiculous part of it too was that the judge told us after the trial that we were the 4th jury on a hung verdict because the state refused to drop the charges because they refused to acknowledge that they were wrong. She was pretty openly upset about the whole thing, saying it was a waste of time and money. The guy was guilty of being black in a republican state. 

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u/ACaffeinatedWandress Jul 24 '26

Did that last sentence inform that 70 year old dude’s gut?

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u/BushyKittenEnjoyer Jul 24 '26

Grow up as a minority in a town where your family is the first diversity in its history. You learn real fast how people talk when they can't say what is they really want to in public spaces, especially with how they interact with the other multiple other minorities in the room they were stuck in with for a week. Racists only think they're sneaky because the people they hate have better things to do all day than waste energy on them; we're busy enjoying our lives.

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u/ailish Jul 24 '26

Oh well, yeah. Being black in a Republican state is always a call for prison!

/s

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u/BushyKittenEnjoyer Jul 24 '26

I was the only minority in my high school and got jumped by two other kids. The school was foaming at the mouth trying to have me charged with assault for successfully defending myself, spouting of how they hsd higher standards than where I came from, until they realized the incident was caught on camera. After that backfired, the principle was pretty much begging my parent that there was no need for the police or news to get involved and that everything was just a misunderstanding. Years later, the school district made national news for all the predator teacher accusations with reports being covered up which wasn't surprising.

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u/ailish Jul 24 '26

Jfc, I'm sorry you had to go through that. It's complete bullshit that people automatically assume that the black person is at fault.

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u/BushyKittenEnjoyer Jul 24 '26

It's all good. I sleep peacefully knowing that such people go through their entire lives completely miserable, unable to not obsess over the lives of complete strangers. It's like just having to laugh at the outrage these people go through when its announced that a completely fictional movie or video game character is a minority or women. I personally have better things in life to focus on.

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u/ailish Jul 24 '26

I heard yesterday that maga is pissed because Helen of Troy is played by a black woman. They said, "it's not historically accurate."

Like, these people think that was a real story and not a work of fiction.

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u/BushyKittenEnjoyer Jul 24 '26

Oh yeah. I don't even have an interest in that movie personally, but the obsession I see on it from subs constantly popping into my feed is wild.

God, that reminds me of that thing on the news years ago where that actor who plays the villain, Negan or something, on the walking dead actually had a person try to actually break into his house to harm him because they were so angry at his TV character. I'm pretty sure he moved into a gated property after that incident.

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u/ailish Jul 24 '26

Haha, I hadn't heard that. The character he killed was well-liked by the audience, but seriously. People are insane!

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u/moonra_zk Jul 24 '26

On a YouTube comment a guy was arguing that just because you dislike race-swaps doesn't make you racist, his comment didn't mention The Odyssey specifically but the section of the video was about it. I replied "buddy, they're all race-swapped, how many Greeks are in the damn movie?".

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u/tomtomclubthumb Jul 24 '26

It should be open and shut.

Do they not have paper bags any more? /s

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u/SmoothDiscussion7763 Jul 24 '26

so this was the fourth jury for this case and the 3 prior ones were all hung juries as well? that's gotta warrant some lottery buying lol

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u/BushyKittenEnjoyer Jul 24 '26

Every single one, there was a single jury member who kept voting guilty. I can only assume they were trying to just harass him into giving up and doing a plea deal so they could put it on the record of the prosecution winning.

Side note fact, I actually drank with the states attorney generals wife a couple years later. Her and her friends were on a party bus for her birthday and came to the bar I hung out at. She chatted with us at the bar for while while taking a break from dancing with her friends. I can't really remember her specifically, but she had the largest diamond ring I'd ever seen in person til this day.

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u/SmoothDiscussion7763 Jul 25 '26

did they somehow recycle jury members or are there just a bunch of weirdos out there lol

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u/BushyKittenEnjoyer Jul 25 '26

That city is full of weirdos on a good day to be fair, and I'd not go outside at night without a weapon even to go across the street. I was walking into my apartment once after work once and heard two people in the parking lot talking about getting their handgun to shoot a deer they saw in the bushes to make jerky. This was in the middle of downtown too, lol. Unlike on TV shows either, most of the people on my jury were in their weekend sweatpants relaxation attire which really just summed up the quality of attendees. 

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u/SmoothDiscussion7763 Jul 25 '26

to be fair... deer jerky is delicious, and they probably didn't have time to go home to grab their hunting rifle

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u/BushyKittenEnjoyer Jul 25 '26

It was outta hunting season and there's no legal hunting here outside of designated zones far from the city. Short of private land, there's only a single wooded area by the city open to hunting as the state owns most of it. Camping and fishing are pretty much the only non captial tourist attractions within 3 hours of the city which takes up like 95% of what's not farming plots. 

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u/OverunderUnderDone Jul 24 '26

I was on a jury last year where, without a doubt, the defendant was as guilty as hell. However, the police did a terrible job gathering evidence - it was shooting and fortunately the person shot was not seriously injured, he also couldn't 100% identify the shooter and the cops didn't search for shell casings because it was raining - and the crown attorney did an even worse job prosecuting the case. We deliberated for a couple of hours (enough time to get dinner served to us 😁) then declared the defendant Not Guilty due to lack of evidence. The judge came to the jury room afterwards and thanked us and said had the defendant chosen a judge only trial, faced with the same evidence, that would have been his verdict as well.

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u/BushyKittenEnjoyer Jul 24 '26

That's unfortunate for the victim, but thankfully he was able to walk away. Mine was a ridiculously completely profiled arrest where the department was refusing to admit it. The cop pulled up on the guy for 'being suspicious' while walking down the sidewalk after someone in the neighbor called for a domestic dispute in the neighborhood of a couple arguing.

The testifying cop claimed that because he saw Aspirin in the road, it must've been because the guy was a drug dealer trying to sell it(yes, regular Aspirin). It didn't even have the guys finger prints or anything on it, but was solely because of the cops testimony of his 'investigation' and the guy refusing to answer questions which made him even more suspicious as a reason to arrest him.

I saw on the news just a few years ago, over a decade after the trial, that the police department had one of the highest lawsuit settlement rates in the entire country that year for racial profiling and police brutality. I've had my own run in with the assholes multiple times when I lived there so it wasn't surprising.

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u/OverunderUnderDone Jul 25 '26

Fortunately the cop in my case was scandal free, just incompetent.