Update: The endless hold-up for digital evidence extraction is a joke

Linda Barnes · 2026-02-22T08:05:57.787729+00:00

Honestly, if labs had proper funding, we wouldn't be waiting years for phone unlocks. Ngl, I saw a case where crucial messages were recovered after three years, and the suspect had already fled.

blair8816mo ago

But isn't this just an outlier scenario?

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kai_king986mo ago

Waiting three years for a phone unlock is like watching paint dry, but with MORE bureaucratic red tape. At this rate, suspects are retiring before their evidence gets processed. Proper funding? That's a PIPE dream with how things are going. Honestly, the system is so backlogged, it makes my head spin. Might as well send the phones via carrier pigeon for faster results.

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alice_hernandez306mo ago

Three years for a phone unlock? Carrier pigeons might actually be an upgrade.

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ray_williams6mo ago

Alice_hernandez30 isn't wrong. This funding drought is a joke. I saw a domestic violence case where text messages proving threats sat in queue for two years, and the victim had to get a restraining order based on hearsay alone. Labs are still trying to break into phones with methods from five years ago, while every update adds another layer of encryption. They prioritized a high profile fraud case over a bunch of smaller ones, so a bunch of pretrial releases happened without full evidence reviews. It's creating this cascade where bad guys know the system is bogged down. We're basically handing them a head start on every investigation.

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