Seeing posts saying FBI could not get into WaPo reporter's phone because she had it in Lockdown Mode. This isn't true. They couldn't use forensic tool to capture full-disk image, but they could still access contents. They had to take photos of it, though, which is still a gain for privacy.

Imagine a forensic team having to take photos of every piece of content they want and to re-record each voice recording. Making it uber-cumbersome and inconvenient for a government to collect data is still a win for privacy

Wording of my post is confusing. To clarify, they *were* able to access phone content they wanted, but could not take it from disk image of phone. Instead, they took it from Signal app on her laptop because it sync'd w/ Signal on phone. So yes they could not unlock phone but did still access content

After the initial linking the desktop Signal is associated with your account independently of the phone (it has its own keys and can send/receive even when the phone is offline), so technically it's not phone content.

But doesn't it still sync with the Signal app on the phone when the phone goes online? I don't use Signal desktop, but I understood that if you send/receive something thru Signal app on phone it will reproduce itself in the desktop app.

The only time when messages are literally synced from phone to desktop is (optionally) when you first link the desktop (to transfer the message history). Once a desktop is associated with your account, other parties automatically send multiple copies of their messages (one for each linked device).