You know, the same thing happens to me every time the FBI takes my phones.
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https://www.404media.co/eric-adams-told-fbi-he-forgot-his-phones-passcode/
Damn, he must be in some deep shit because he’s pulling out Trumpian excuses.
I mean, this is an obvious lie.
But it’s a smarter lie than Trump usually tells. Giving up your passcode is self incriminating, but a court can still compel you to do it. If you claim to have forgotten it, the court can’t compel you to remember.
A Trumpian lie would be like “I never had a phone, and people said it was the best phone, better than Nokeeya, better than Obamaphone, nobody had ever seen a phone like it, people would come up to me and say, I’ve never seen a better phone. A perfect phone, they’d tell me, I don’t know. The password, I shouldn’t even tell you this, but it’s so good, it’s the name of a hooker I used to know in Atlantic City. She was, well, she was young and looked a lot like my daughter Ivanka, very smart woman, super smart, and sexy, smart though. Ivanka was smart, not Brandy, but she was very good too. She said I had the biggest hands of anybody, any hands, she’d ever seen. Brandy, not Ivanka said that, although Ivanka also says I have big hands. But no, to answer the question, I never touched Brandy, never even met her, she’s not really my type, if you know what I mean. She’s not a very good person, at least that’s what they tell me, because I don’t know, I never met her, bad person, bad.”
Its a mess, but largely, courts cannot compel you to give up your phone password, because of the 5th amendment. They can force you to unlock a phone secured with biometrics, as that isn’t compelled speech.
Sort of, but also it hasn’t gone to the SCOTUS yet. Plus:
There is a difference between communicating a passcode to police and physically providing an unlocked phone to police, the court said. Though these two acts “may be functionally equivalent in many respects, this functional equivalency is not dispositive under current Fifth Amendment jurisprudence,” the court said. “We conclude that the act-of-production analytical framework makes sense only where law enforcement compels someone to perform an act to unlock an electronic device.”
The Utah case was an officer demanding to know the passcode. A court in New York might decide that the defendant can be compelled to enter his password and hand over an unlocked phone.
But if he’s forgotten the password, then the phone is simply locked until somebody hacks into it.
No worries, Eric, they’ll figure it out for you.
“Adams claimed that after he learned about the investigation into his conduct, he changed the password,” and he “increased the complexity of his password from four digits to six,” the document reads. Adams said he did this to stop members of his staff “from inadvertently or intentionally deleting the contents of his phone because, according to Adams, he wished to preserve the contents of his phone due to the investigation.”
Sure thing, bud.
6 digits is brute force hackable in about 1 second.
Also, isn’t lying to the FBI another crime?
Clone.
Repeat.
Also, cellebrite.
Edit: if people think forensics uses the actual device that would severely hinder any investigation.
That would risk tampering, or destroying evidence.
Copies are made.
Technology exists.
I really hate to defend this guy because he clearly sucks. But honestly: smart move. Your phone password and much of the contents of your phone should be considered speech and you shouldn’t be compelled to testify against yourself. That said, if this phone was government property then he shouldn’t have been the only one capable of unlocking it, which is a policy failure.
Recorded speech about engaging in crimes is often acceptable evidence. It’s probably the same with written messages.
I guess it’s up to the accused to prevent law enforcement from acquiring what they said, whether it be preventing recording, preventing police from sifting through mail or unsecure communications, or preventing police from acquiring the accused’s copy of potentially illegal communications. Which he is currently attempting.
I don’t blame him for trying, and would agree on a lesser extent that he is right to prevent self incriminating now. But copied communication as acceptable evidence is pretty settled in law by now.
