And risk being charged with obstruction. Like perjury, it's naturally difficult to prove, but one should be aware of the risks before moving down that course.
No, I mean, disable Touch ID before any potential situation where the phone might be seized for any reason, not after a judge had ordered you to unlock the phone with a thumbprint.
The moment you believe the phone is going to be seized by law enforcement and you act accordingly to make it more difficult or impossible to retrieve data from it, you are guilty of spoliation / tampering of evidence. This is the same set of laws that makes it illegal to shred papers before law enforcement can get to them. Locking or erasing your phone is simply the digital equivalent.
Couldn't you also apply this argument to everything? The client turned on full disk encryption 5 years before this arrest because he wanted to make it difficult for anybody (including law enforcement) to read the content of the disk.
I think you could just argue that you didn't want the disturbed and/or wanted to save some battery.
> Couldn't you also apply this argument to everything? The client turned on full disk encryption 5 years before this arrest because he wanted to make it difficult for anybody (including law enforcement) to read the content of the disk.
No. The difference is that the action is taken to obstruct a specific investigation. Generally protecting information without regard to a specific investigation is not obstruction. Same as shredding papers years before they become relevant to an investigation is also not obstruction.
> I think you could just argue that you didn't want the disturbed and/or wanted to save some battery.
Like perjury, proving obstruction may be difficult. That doesn't make it any less illegal.
