I am not a lawyer. This type of device can have legitimate use as well though. Think about if you are the guy that knows the coca-cola recipe. The destruction of the recipe by hd degaussing is good when a competitor comes to your office and steals your computer. Though, you would need a pretty large degaussing device to erase the hd beyond forensic analysis.

Absolutely not. As another poster pointed out, if it predated the court order, it would be 100% legit. Say I wanted to make sure my data was safe in the event of theft? Wiping the data on movement would be a clear way to do that.

I thought about that, but wouldn't it only be destruction of evidence if YOU were the one that destroyed the evidence? Just because it was set off when the cop/FBI/whomever moved your computer doesn't mean you wanted it to happen, right?