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Man jailed 16 months, and counting, for refusing to decrypt hard drives

arstechnica.com

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Re: Man jailed 16 months, and counting, for refusing to decrypt hard drives

#41

Post by michaelmrose »

planetjones wrote: post #15

As expected on HN I am not surprised to see people defending one's right to privacy and encryption. However, what's the solution then ? If all the "bad guys" who distribute illegal material do so encrypted volumes and refuse to give up the decryption key then what do we do ? It's a different world now; the police can't just take a drill out and open the safe.

They can hack his computer before nabbing him, grab tons of his data from connected providers, get a warrant to sneak in and plant one of several type of bugs that would allow them to aquire his pass phrase. Burst in while the machine is on and aquire the unlocked data or get the key from ram.

Failing that they can convict him based on other evidence or at least convince him that they can and cut a deal for access.

In the vital cases which are normally cited as examples of why we must allow cops to violate our right options abound.

What's left is petty crap and police incompetence which serve as poor justification for giving up our rights.

Re: Man jailed 16 months, and counting, for refusing to decrypt hard drives

#42

Post by onion2k »

BigChiefSmokem wrote: post #22
AckSyn wrote: post #17

He shouldn't have to decrypt his hard drives, and I support his decisions. The problems with this are numerous. First of all no one has any duty to provide the police with evidence as a 5th amendment protection. It's not a "right" for the police at all to have. Imprisoning someone for failure to disregard their constitutional rights is absurd. They have no evidence to hold him period.

But I bet something led police to the hard drive in question in the first place. I wonder what "that" something was. In the U.S. you can be arrested and held for Reasonable Suspicion (or Probable Cause)

Whatever that was it clearly wasn't a criminal act or he'd have been charged for whatever it was. No further evidence has come to light after 16 months. That's far beyond "reasonable suspicion."

If the police can't find evidence of a crime then this guy should be released, even if he's the reason they can't find it.

Re: Man jailed 16 months, and counting, for refusing to decrypt hard drives

#43

Post by ust »

Professor Orin Kerr has wrote about this exact case extensively, and provides a good insight into all legal aspects. I think it is well worth a read, especially the part about the 'forgone conclusion'.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...

Re: Man jailed 16 months, and counting, for refusing to decrypt hard drives

#44

Post by EGreg »

This is a good reason to have TrueCrypt hidden volumes and other forms of steganography. You can decrypt and still have more stuff that looks like random junk. No one can be sure you decrypted everything.

The best idea however is to have sensitive stuff stored encrypted on freenet, and log in using incognito browser sessions.

Re: Man jailed 16 months, and counting, for refusing to decrypt hard drives

#45

Post by hdhzy »

spaceboy wrote: post #19

I thought the U.S had better key disclosure law[1] than other countries? Personally I would rather not self-incriminate myself by revealing a key, no matter how draconian and lengthy the sentencing was. Why, you ask? Well I consider all my own personal data likened to an extension of my own mind, and revealing a key is like slicing a thin part of my brain and attempting to pick its contents. Never a gentlemanly thing…

Very interesting. You don't have any need for persistent storage that exceeds the amount of information that can be remembered? (E.g. work artifacts, photos, passwords)

Re: Man jailed 16 months, and counting, for refusing to decrypt hard drives

#46

Post by baobrain »

droithomme wrote: post #37
AckSyn wrote: post #17

He shouldn't have to decrypt his hard drives, and I support his decisions. The problems with this are numerous. First of all no one has any duty to provide the police with evidence as a 5th amendment protection. It's not a "right" for the police at all to have. Imprisoning someone for failure to disregard their constitutional rights is absurd. They have no evidence to hold him period.

"no one has any duty to provide the police with evidence as a 5th amendment protection" I like that idea. However, the 5th amendment's protection is something different: "No person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself." Consider the case of someone running a drug lab or counterfeiting press in their residence. Police show up with a warrant based on probable cause to search the resid…

> In these cases with encryption the courts have consistently been finding that the password is comparable to unlocking the door to a house to which the police have a search warrant.

I thought it was the exact opposite, where things such as a lock combination or a memorized password could not be compelled, whereas things like a fingerprint or a key can be since they are physical possessions.

_DISCLAIMER_ (IANAL and above is IIRC)

Edit: clicked some links in the article

[0] https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/530/27/case.html

[1]https://www.wired.com/2012/02/laptop-decryption-appeal-rejec...

So it's a mixed bag. [1] was never enforced because authorities got the password from elsewhere.

Re: Man jailed 16 months, and counting, for refusing to decrypt hard drives

#47

Post by kabdib »

intrasight wrote: post #23

Why don't they let him out on bail until the court is able to hear the case?

He might encrypt something again! :-)

It's a contempt-of-court thing; he's been order to take an action, and hasn't. (He might not remember the encryption passphrase, in which case the question is really, "Does he rot?" and so far the answer appears to be "Yup").

Re: Man jailed 16 months, and counting, for refusing to decrypt hard drives

#48

Post by grogenaut »

BigChiefSmokem wrote: post #22
AckSyn wrote: post #17

He shouldn't have to decrypt his hard drives, and I support his decisions. The problems with this are numerous. First of all no one has any duty to provide the police with evidence as a 5th amendment protection. It's not a "right" for the police at all to have. Imprisoning someone for failure to disregard their constitutional rights is absurd. They have no evidence to hold him period.

But I bet something led police to the hard drive in question in the first place. I wonder what "that" something was. In the U.S. you can be arrested and held for Reasonable Suspicion (or Probable Cause)

Not indefinitely

Re: Man jailed 16 months, and counting, for refusing to decrypt hard drives

#50

Post by droithomme »

baobrain wrote: post #46
droithomme wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"no one has any duty to provide the police with evidence as a 5th amendment protection" I like that idea. However, the 5th amendment's protection is something different: "No person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself." Consider the case of someone running a drug lab or counterfeiting press in their residence. Police show up with a warrant based on probable cause to search the resid…

> In these cases with encryption the courts have consistently been finding that the password is comparable to unlocking the door to a house to which the police have a search warrant. I thought it was the exact opposite, where things such as a lock combination or a memorized password could not be compelled, whereas things like a fingerprint or a key can be since they are physical possessions. _DISCLAIMER_ (IANAL and a…

This case has typical arguments compelling disclosure and dismissing the arguments against. BTW, I don't agree with this stuff, I'm just summarizing how courts for the most part are presently handling these cases.

http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?q=GELFGATT&hl=en&as_s...

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