The search warrant to raid a Washington Post reporter’s home shows how authorities can open your phone without your consent.

The recent federal raid on the home of Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson isn’t merely an attack by the Trump administration on the free press. It’s also a warning to anyone with a smartphone.

Included in the search and seizure warrant for the raid on Natanson’s home is a section titled “Biometric Unlock,” which explicitly authorized law enforcement personnel to obtain Natanson’s phone and both hold the device in front of her face and to forcibly use her fingers to unlock it. In other words, a judge gave the FBI permission to attempt to bypass biometrics: the convenient shortcuts that let you unlock your phone by scanning your fingerprint or face.

  • stoy@lemmy.zipEnglish
    15·
    8 hours ago

    Eh, I get what you mean, but let me explain how it works in Sweden.

    Our courts practice something called “fri bevisprövning”, this means that no evidence can be declared unusable, and can be used in court, obviously the evidence has to be documented and validated as being real, but the manner of how it was collected does not matter.

    Now, if it was collected in an illegal way, that illegal act is a different case altogether.

    To be frank it makes a lot of sense, it stops procedural issues from denying the use of evidence, while punishing the illegal act used to collect it.

    Now, I know the US has good reasons for the laws they use regarding evidence, I just disagree that it is the only way to do it.