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Feds Can't Force You to Unlock Your iPhone with Finger or Face, Judge Rules

forbes.com

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Re: Feds Can't Force You to Unlock Your iPhone with Finger or Face, Judge Rules

#221

Post by arcturus17 »

supernova87a wrote: post #108

I doubt this will hold up. You can be compelled by a court to have your blood withdrawn if a warrant is issued while you're under suspicion of DUI. Why would it not be similarly allowable to have your finger placed on the unlock button? Testimonial privilege (against being forced to testify) is about not being made to say / speak statements against your own prosecution. Speech. Testimony. Having evidence taken is not…

In the eyes of the law, how is this different to being compelled to give your passcode though? Of course it’s easier and they could maybe even unlock a phone with your corpse but in jurisdictions where the law protects the individual’s privacy above all else this shouldn’t make a difference.

Re: Feds Can't Force You to Unlock Your iPhone with Finger or Face, Judge Rules

#222

Post by mrunkel »

xfer wrote: post #216
5ML wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fear I'll be barbecued for asking, but I must: What's the alternative? I am a privacy advocate and understand that the law can (and likely will) abuse a forced decryption law. However, the story you linked is about a _police officer_ who was suspected of child pornography. His sister reported him to the police and 'content stored on the encrypted hard drive matched file hashes for known child pornography content'.…

> 'content stored on the encrypted hard drive matched file hashes for known child pornography content Sounds like BS to me, how can they match hash of encrypted content without the key?

This. It's encrypted data. You can't even see where the files are.

I can only surmise that this means that they scanned the content of the hard drives and found data sequences that matched some file hashes of known child pornography.

Re: Feds Can't Force You to Unlock Your iPhone with Finger or Face, Judge Rules

#223

Post by stordoff »

DannyBee wrote: post #204
richardthered wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with forcing someone to reveal a secret (e.g. a password), is that ultimately, there's no way to prove that someone actually knows the password. If I say that I forgot the password, and a judge throws me in jail for contempt of court, I could rot there forever. There is absolutely no way for me to ever prove that I truly forgot the password. You can't prove a negative. With fingerprints or face scanning,…

You've completely misunderstood the law here, unfortunately, and argued something that that goes in the opposite direction of this ruling. The law is actually that physical features/etc can be compelled because they are not testimonial. “[i]t is compulsion of the accused to exhibit his physical characteristics, not compulsion to disclose any knowledge he might have.” United States v. Wade "“the task that Diamond was…

> Passcodes, on the other hand are often testimonial. Entering the combination to a safe proves you probably had ownership/control of the safe, for example.

Is this not also true for face/fingerprint ID? Proving the face/fingerprint ID proves you probably had ownership control of the device.

Re: Feds Can't Force You to Unlock Your iPhone with Finger or Face, Judge Rules

#224

Post by jonny_eh »

vxNsr wrote: post #209
5ML wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fear I'll be barbecued for asking, but I must: What's the alternative? I am a privacy advocate and understand that the law can (and likely will) abuse a forced decryption law. However, the story you linked is about a _police officer_ who was suspected of child pornography. His sister reported him to the police and 'content stored on the encrypted hard drive matched file hashes for known child pornography content'.…

> How can you look in the mirror and think he should go free without the evidence being examined? I couldn't live in a world where a suspect could say "Well, I forgot the password" and walk away Scott-free on such an ugly crime. This is the price we pay for an imperfect world, I'd rather a few murderers walk than many innocent men be imprisoned. Your balanced, nuanced idealism simply doesn't work at scale, you cannot…

LEO?

Re: Feds Can't Force You to Unlock Your iPhone with Finger or Face, Judge Rules

#225

Post by nerdponx »

int_19h wrote: post #195
jdc wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably obstruction of justice IMHO

Doesn't that require intent and planning? If the arrangements were in place before the crime was even planned, how can it be obstruction?

It's obstruction if they didn't actually lose the key, or the deliberately "lost" the key.

Re: Feds Can't Force You to Unlock Your iPhone with Finger or Face, Judge Rules

#226

Post by mch82 »

rayiner wrote: post #206
kevin_b_er wrote: post #2

I won't believe this ruling is safe until it goes thru higher levels. The Executive Branch has over the past 2 decades has shown a large propensity for attempts to disregard the 4th and 5th amendments, and I see no change in this posture or the attempts to subvert them with the current political climate.

It’s okay if you think we should not force people to unlock their phones pursuant to a criminal investigation. But it’s disingenuous to paint this as an attempt to “disregard” the 4th and 5th amendments. The Supreme Court in the 1950s and 1960s expanded the scope of those amendments far beyond the text. They turned the 4th amendment into a general purpose “privacy” amendment, even though the amendment doesn’t use tha…

What about Ammendments 9 and 10 that leave all rights and powers to the people unless they’re explicitly given to the government?

Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Re: Feds Can't Force You to Unlock Your iPhone with Finger or Face, Judge Rules

#227

Post by renholder »

xfer wrote: post #216
5ML wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fear I'll be barbecued for asking, but I must: What's the alternative? I am a privacy advocate and understand that the law can (and likely will) abuse a forced decryption law. However, the story you linked is about a _police officer_ who was suspected of child pornography. His sister reported him to the police and 'content stored on the encrypted hard drive matched file hashes for known child pornography content'.…

> 'content stored on the encrypted hard drive matched file hashes for known child pornography content Sounds like BS to me, how can they match hash of encrypted content without the key?

> how can they match hash of encrypted content without the key?

Right!? This sounds like, "We know you have it and we can see it, we just want the password to prove it was _you_ who did it."

Also, whilst I'm here, it does strike me as very odd that the justice system in the United States has such a raging evangelicalism about getting to the truth, that it will impose against a person's rights, just to get at that truth.

To refer to the old Eddie Izzard joke:

"If you commit perjury, I don't care. Don't give a shit. I don't think you should because you grade murder. You have Murder One and Murder Two. You realize that there can be a difference in the level of murder.

So there must be a difference in the level of perjury. Perjury One is when you're saying there's no Holocaust when, you know, 10 million people have died in it, and Perjury Nine, is when you said you shagged someone and you didn't."

The whole precept of the truth being this infallible end-gaol, which must be attained - no matter what, is just as abusively dehumanising as the phrase, "Well, if they weren't doing anything wrong..."

Sorry, wrong meeting... I'll see myself out.

Re: Feds Can't Force You to Unlock Your iPhone with Finger or Face, Judge Rules

#228

Post by sbov »

jonny_eh wrote: post #224
vxNsr wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How can you look in the mirror and think he should go free without the evidence being examined? I couldn't live in a world where a suspect could say "Well, I forgot the password" and walk away Scott-free on such an ugly crime. This is the price we pay for an imperfect world, I'd rather a few murderers walk than many innocent men be imprisoned. Your balanced, nuanced idealism simply doesn't work at scale, you cannot…

LEO?

Law Enforcement Officer

Re: Feds Can't Force You to Unlock Your iPhone with Finger or Face, Judge Rules

#229

Post by stordoff »

rayiner wrote: post #206
kevin_b_er wrote: post #2

I won't believe this ruling is safe until it goes thru higher levels. The Executive Branch has over the past 2 decades has shown a large propensity for attempts to disregard the 4th and 5th amendments, and I see no change in this posture or the attempts to subvert them with the current political climate.

It’s okay if you think we should not force people to unlock their phones pursuant to a criminal investigation. But it’s disingenuous to paint this as an attempt to “disregard” the 4th and 5th amendments. The Supreme Court in the 1950s and 1960s expanded the scope of those amendments far beyond the text. They turned the 4th amendment into a general purpose “privacy” amendment, even though the amendment doesn’t use tha…

Read on their own, I'd be inclined to agree - neither the 4th or the 5th on their own appear to prevent this. However, taken together, I'm not so sure. Clearly a person can be searched under the 4th, and the discovered evidence used. However, when the accused has to take a more active role (Face ID/Touch ID/password), that would seem to go towards being a witness against yourself. As such, any search under the 4th would go towards being an unreasonable search, warrant notwithstanding, as it is predicated on a potential breach of the 5th.

It's a bit of a stretch, but I don't think it's _wholly_ without merit.

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