211–220 of 413 posts
What happens if this guy just claims that he forgets the password and sticks to his story? Will he be effectively imprisoned for life, whether true or not?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And for ease of reading, I'll reply to my own comment with other interesting issues: * "The fact remains that the government has not brought charges," [his attorney] Donoghue said in a telephone interview . It seems a warrant is at issue, if I understand correctly. * The contempt-of-court order against Rawls was obtained by authorities citing the 1789 All Writs Act. The All Writs Act was the same law the Justice Depa…
It could be that they want the drives unencrypted in order to help other investigations into the sources of the material, and think it will be better to compel him to release it before sentencing so he can't use it as leverage to lessen his sentence.
What would happen if he lobotomized(carefully and mildly) himself, and legitimately could not remember his encryption keys/pw nor the reason he performed lobotomy?
Sitting directly in front of me are two moderately large encrypted hard drives the passwords for which I forgot. If I get a subpoena to produce their contents, I will potentially remain in jail of the rest of my life for the crime of being forgetful. That judge's behavior and (the laws that enables it) is sickening. You either have enough evidence to convict a person, or you don't.
Unless you've been engaging in online noncery and have amassed a gigantic collection of photographs and videos of child abuse like the scumbag described in the article has evidenced, you should be absolutely fine. It's certainly not the judge's behaviour that is sickening here.
Thought experiment: What if there were an encryption system whereby if a user inputs one decryption key, the encrypted data decrypts to one set of values and if the user uses a second key, it decrypts to a second set of values. Sure, in order to encode both sets of data into a single encrypted result would require more storage space, but that is a small price to pay for protection against self incrimination from our…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Reading this story actually makes me ill. When a technical defense protects you from the state, they jail you for contempt. When you say, "but we have a constitutional amendment that protects us from self-incrimination", they say "sure but that doesn't apply here." And of course it is child porn that is in question. It is a mere crime to "possess" it, that is to say, possess a hard drive on which images are found. It…
If that's all they had, I'd probably agree with you. But that's not. They have: * Backup logs that show hashes of files that match that of known child porn image files. * Testimony from the guy's sister that she has seen him decrypting the drives, and that he showed her child porn from the drives. So yes, what you're saying is true, but in this case, I'm (reluctantly) on the side of the authorities.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The supreme court is unelected, and are the supreme authority in this nation, above president and congress. the solution is simple - make the supreme court stand up to elections. America has had atrocious decisions from the supreme court. In Dred Scott, they said black people have no rights because they are black. In Roe v Wade, the abortion laws of 47 states were struck down by 5 oligarchs. No matter what you believ…
I agree that the sheer power and reach of SCOTUS today, and increased partisanship in practice (even though everyone pretends it's a non-partisan body), does necessitate some reform. But electing judges makes no sense - you might as well then just give the fullness of power to Congress, a la UK's parliamentary sovereignty. What I think we should do is revisit what exactly SCOTUS does, and why. Right now they basicall…
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You need to distinguish between requiring the defendant to turn over incriminating evidence (which the 5th amendment does not protect), and requiring the defendant to make incriminating statements ( i.e. to provide incriminating testimony). Sometimes, the act of producing evidence in response to a government request involves the defendant making implicit incriminating assertions. If the government says "produce all y…
I must say I find this logic quite unconvincing. What is a confession but a piece of evidence stored in memory made of biological matter? How is it different to grant a confession where the memory is electronic rather than biological?
"Lay inside this fMRI machine for an accurate brainscan if you are lying, and image retrieval of the time in question. Or you will be put in jail until you do."
And I also seem to remember a certain dead salmon who in an fMRI, showed amazing brain activity(!).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And for ease of reading, I'll reply to my own comment with other interesting issues: * "The fact remains that the government has not brought charges," [his attorney] Donoghue said in a telephone interview . It seems a warrant is at issue, if I understand correctly. * The contempt-of-court order against Rawls was obtained by authorities citing the 1789 All Writs Act. The All Writs Act was the same law the Justice Depa…
"My completely amateur thoughts: If they already can prove he has child porn, then they don't need the additional evidence. If they do need the additional evidence, then he is incriminating himself." That's a good point. They either have proof he downloaded child porn or they don't. They're definitely trying to do more than prove it. Probably set a precedent increasing their power as usual.
You can't answer the question "if they can prove" before court, as it's decided only then. You must finish the evidence gathering before you have a judgement on that.