261–270 of 413 posts
This should be simple, either they have enough to charge him or not.
Here's a recording of the oral arguments for the US Court of Appeals, Third Circuit back in September: http://www2.ca3.uscourts.gov/oralargument/audio/15-3537USAv.... The gov's argument seems to be that because the defendant doesn't have to give the government the password but rather produce the decrypted hard drives, his actions aren't protected under the fifth. Analogy drawn with unlocking a safe. EFF counter-argum…
Can you be compelled to provide something that you don't have access to? Were anyone else in this situation, wouldn't it be plausible to simply claim you don't know that password?
If there is reason to believe that you are telling the truth (say, you're being asked which of two parking spaces you saw a car in 10 years ago) then you're fine.
Same thing goes here. Rational disinterested people (a judge or a jury) will look at the available evidence and make their best judgement about whether you are telling the truth when you say you can't remember.
This reads as extremely bizarre. I mean, reading the fifth amendment makes it pretty clear - no one should be compelled to witness against oneself. However, it looks like the current executive and judicial are thinking "well, those Founders were just idiots for putting such an amendment in, clearly it'd be much easier to prosecute people if we could compel them to witness against themselves, so why don't we just igno…
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…
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…
What would happen if, after your bank records were subpoenaed, you hand over the falsified records?
Well, you'd be committing a crime. Maybe you get away with it, or maybe law enforcement figures it out and you get caught. Depends on how clever of a criminal you are.
Same thing here with your double-plaintext encryption.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The defendant provided the password to his iphone (that contained highly-unsavory media of his nieces), which contained an unlock code for his laptop (filevault backup decrypt key). He connected the external drives to this laptop, and when he'd transfer media from his laptop to the drives, logging would occur with the file checksums. The hash/checksum is on the laptop with the filepath to the identified external driv…
This is about the only way I'm ok with what they are doing. If this is the case, then I'm 100% ok with compelling him to unlock the drive for the sole purpose of accessing those files. Anything else on the drive should be off limits as it then becomes testimonial. To me the danger is, what if this person committed other crimes and by unlocking the drive he give the prosecution info about those crimes. In a world wher…
So I am of the opposite opinion. If the hash information isn't enough to try him with, then I'd rather he go free, than set a precedent that it's acceptable for a court to compel someone to decrypt information because someone in law enforcement just "knows" the evidence is there. Because once this order is allowed to stand, the level of certainty required to compel decryption is going to continually be lowered.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They could also plant an unencrypted drive and skip the whole getting the password step.
If they're going to ignore that pesky 'staying within the law' step they might as well just lock him up indefinitely right now.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your interpretation of the 5th amendment is quite different than it has been historically interpreted by the courts. For example, in a trial, the prosecutor might subpoena some documents and you cannot refuse to turn over those documents, unless doing so would trigger a 5th amendment assertion. Turning over the documents implicitly testifies to at least two important pieces of information: that the documents exist an…
>Your interpretation of the 5th amendment is quite different than it has been historically interpreted by the courts. Part of the issue seems to be the courts are very proficient in coming up with very interesting interpretations. It feels a lot like a literature or art interpretation class, where everything is BS but a lot of people have a bunch of rules convincing them they aren't. Then again, the founding father's…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the hashes are known to match, there is really no need for the original pictures, the evidence is already there? This makes it sound more like it's a fishing expedition for evidence to use in other investigations, or to find evidence for a more severe punishment, both of which one can morally agree or disagree with, but is it how justice should work? I honestly don't know, but I think probably not. It's a detestab…
I'm confused by your reasoning here. If we agree that the files are definitely on the system how is it a "fishing expedition" to want to see those files for further investigation. A fishing expedition would be forcing everyone to submit their devices for inspection on the off chance of finding evidence - this case is one where the evidence is known to exist and a person is refusing to hand it over. The less emotive c…
If that's the case the files aren't needed, they want to see the drive contents on the off chance of finding some other evidence.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Your interpretation of the 5th amendment is quite different than it has been historically interpreted by the courts. Part of the issue seems to be the courts are very proficient in coming up with very interesting interpretations. It feels a lot like a literature or art interpretation class, where everything is BS but a lot of people have a bunch of rules convincing them they aren't. Then again, the founding father's…
Have you ever read up on why Jefferson chose those words?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your interpretation of the 5th amendment is quite different than it has been historically interpreted by the courts. For example, in a trial, the prosecutor might subpoena some documents and you cannot refuse to turn over those documents, unless doing so would trigger a 5th amendment assertion. Turning over the documents implicitly testifies to at least two important pieces of information: that the documents exist an…
So here's my concern: guy's now been in jail without charge for 18 months. The prosecutors say his guilt is a foregone conclusion, but apparently it's not foregone enough that they're willing to go ahead and prosecute without the contents of his hard drive. They're gonna hold off until they get what they need. We're starting to get to the edge of the point where this guy might legitimately forget his password. I thin…
That's not what the "foregone conclusion" stuff is about, at all. They're not saying "it's obvious he's guilty so the 5th amendment does not apply." The 5th amendment doesn't apply to handing over evidence, period. It's about the circumstances under which handing over evidence (which ordinarily does not implicate the 5th amendment) involves implicit statements or assertions by the defendant (which does). Read the subpoena example in the opinion, it clarifies.