"USA land of the free..."
Really what happened with your country ? In EU you can't imprison someone for not decrypting hard drive if he says it can incriminate him, everyone understand this but not the biggest democracy in the world?
Indefinite prison for suspect who won’t decrypt hard drives, US government says
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Re: Indefinite prison for suspect who won’t decrypt hard drives, US government says
#32This effectively makes forgetting one's password a crime with a lifetime jail sentence... Not bad, not bad
Re: Indefinite prison for suspect who won’t decrypt hard drives, US government says
#33"USA land of the free..." Really what happened with your country ? In EU you can't imprison someone for not decrypting hard drive if he says it can incriminate him, everyone understand this but not the biggest democracy in the world?
The whole EU? No, a small island has some lunitic laws.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law#United_King...
Re: Indefinite prison for suspect who won’t decrypt hard drives, US government says
#34"USA land of the free..." Really what happened with your country ? In EU you can't imprison someone for not decrypting hard drive if he says it can incriminate him, everyone understand this but not the biggest democracy in the world?
Well, their democratically elected leaders said the idea of "innocent until proven guilty" is obsolete and probably supports terrorism. Democracy is a political system, not a synonym of being thoroughly good and fair.
As for "land of the free", that's propaganda.
Re: Indefinite prison for suspect who won’t decrypt hard drives, US government says
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Investigators say they know child porn is on the drives. His sister saw some of it and the suspect is said to have shown his family an illicit video, too. So that's their basis for this "foregone conclusion" apparently. That at one point in time it was witnessed. That is very dangerous logic. The sadest thing in this is that it took child pornography to make the headlines, not political activism or journalism but th…
I wouldn't call looking at pictures (even of victims of child sexual abuse) "the most despicable crime in our modern society". The child sexual abuse itself is worse. Also torture, wars of aggression, mass poisoning...
I was thinking of a modern twist of pedophilia where digital media has become a way to spread the product of child abuse.
But maybe also that it's more relevant today due to the people being more informed and connected.
So I was actually separating it in its modern form from much older issues like war, torture and poisoning for example. But that's a non issue really, sorry for unclear phrasing.
Re: Indefinite prison for suspect who won’t decrypt hard drives, US government says
#36"USA land of the free..." Really what happened with your country ? In EU you can't imprison someone for not decrypting hard drive if he says it can incriminate him, everyone understand this but not the biggest democracy in the world?
Neither British common law or Continental law systems have any mechanism to challenge this type or behavior.
At least in the US, there's an absolute right against self-incrimination, guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment. The higher courts have been pretty clear, going all the way back to combination locks, that coercing a password would constitute requiring a defendant to incriminate him or herself.
The actions of the judge should be overturned based not only on existing precedent, and principles of fairness and good faith, but also because they violate the privilege against self-incrimination.
Re: Indefinite prison for suspect who won’t decrypt hard drives, US government says
#37This is an important constitutional issue! The subject may be deplorable, but the root issue is not. If it is a "foregone conclusion", then they should have no problem convicting the guy without forcing him to testify against himself. If it is not a "foregone conclusion", then they have been lying and are illegally (unconstitutionally) depriving him of his freedom for months, without even charging him with a crime!
It is not in fact settled law that unlocking an encrypted drive is testimonial. It's also worth remembering that the primary motivation for 5A is to prevent false, coerced testimony and torture; when SCOTUS eventually deals with this, they could find that no protected substantive rights are threatened by demands to unlock encrypted media.
We're unlikely to get it both ways: both a right to strong encryption without government interference and a right to defy court demands to decrypt specific files. But we'll see.
Re: Indefinite prison for suspect who won’t decrypt hard drives, US government says
#38>... it's a "foregone conclusion" that illegal porn is on the drives, ...
Obviously not if the government needs the suspect to tell them where to find the porn in the keyspace. The porn at this point literally does not exist on the computer. The government is asking the suspect to find it for them there.
So the question here is; can the government compel someone to help the government find evidence against them?
This reminds me of something a Pakistani coworker said. He said that in the area of Pakistan he grew up in they had the best police force anywhere. There were no unsolved crimes. Someone always confessed...
So this is the same sort of thing. Torture someone long enough with indefinite detention and they will eventually come up with something to indict themselves with. There has to be something illegal in any well used computer.
Re: Indefinite prison for suspect who won’t decrypt hard drives, US government says
#39This is an important constitutional issue! The subject may be deplorable, but the root issue is not. If it is a "foregone conclusion", then they should have no problem convicting the guy without forcing him to testify against himself. If it is not a "foregone conclusion", then they have been lying and are illegally (unconstitutionally) depriving him of his freedom for months, without even charging him with a crime!
>Investigators say they know child porn is on the drives. His sister saw some of it and the suspect is said to have shown his family an illicit video, too. So that's their basis for this "foregone conclusion" apparently. That at one point in time it was witnessed. That is very dangerous logic. The sadest thing in this is that it took child pornography to make the headlines, not political activism or journalism but th…
A witness and some traces of keywords used on the suspect computer. I would not be too surprised if that was enough for a conviction, but the question remains on why the decryption should be necessary if the judge is already convinced beyond doubt that the accused is guilty. Its not like the courts put convicted murderers under contempt orders for failing to say where the body is buried.
Re: Indefinite prison for suspect who won’t decrypt hard drives, US government says
#40Contempt is appealable, and in stories about appeals for long contempt sentences it appears that the likely sentence for the underlying matter is a factor. So, as a practical matter, this might mean that refusal to unlock a drive will net you the same sentence as if you were tried and found guilty for whatever crime was supposed to be on the drive.