I fully accept that there are some places and situation where these searches are approved but police should not do law enforcement based on the notion that "we want to be able to do this". If they want to force brick a device then a judge can approve a request or order that.
Just hypothetically, let's say there is a protest against the police and let's also agree that police can act "as they want" with respect to mobile devices. What would stop the police from geo-fencing all phones at the protest and bricking them?
Worse, in most jurisdictions that I am aware of it is perfectly possible to become the legal owner of stolen property and a company destroying that property due to theft would make them liable for the damage in those cases. In order to lawfully disable the device they would need a court order that proves that the person who currently possesses it doesn't do so lawfully... but that just means that the person who possesses it was (civilly) tried to not have lawful possession, so how did the court not order the device seized and returned? Why would you ever want to open that can of worms?
Then there are all the terrible revenge possibilities where an ex or whoever decides to report a phone as stolen. Again, either you know who has the device and can solve it civilly or you have no idea who has it and what the legal status is. The thief is criminally and civilly liable, but that might not be the person currently in possession.
duxup•8mo ago
The government's position on this whole thing seems strangely like an unwise one trick pony that only works in specific cases / networks, unaware of other tech, and naive.