Makes sense in the abstract, but inasmuch as they both would have been tacit acknowledgements that the hard drives were his, it seems like a distinction without a difference in this case.
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Child-porn suspect ordered to decrypt his own data
- Thread starter ToxicAdam
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Makes sense in the abstract, but inasmuch as they both would have been tacit acknowledgements that the hard drives were his, it seems like a distinction without a difference in this case.
This seems an odd grey area to me.
Like someone said, if police have a warrant to search your property, and you have a locked room or box locked by a combination lock, can they force you to open it or do they have to find a way to force it open themselves?
Like someone said, if police have a warrant to search your property, and you have a locked room or box locked by a combination lock, can they force you to open it or do they have to find a way to force it open themselves?
No, because they already have evidence of child porn and identifying information on one of his other drives.... which means essentially all of his electronic storage devices are now under suspicion.
They've already retrieved evidence of a crime, and that the drive was his (And it was stored along with the other drives)... now they have the right to determine the extent of his crime, and they know he did it, and they know that if one of the drives contained evidence, there's reason to believe that the others do as well.
Now, he could have a hidden volume (essentially, an encrypted volume within an encrypted volume), and as long as he doesn't have information leaks from his inner volume, then he has plausible deniability.
The fact that they decrypted one of his drives though makes me believe that this guy isnt' using trucrypt with a hidden volume (or he fucked up and had an information leak from his inner volume to the outer volume), though, so this is moot.
They've already proven sufficiently that the hard drive is his, which is the key. Without that, the judge felt that forcing him to unlock the drive would be testimonial, because he would be showing that he had access to the drives.
Right, and given that they're now aware that the drives are his, whether his act of producing the key is testimonial is irrelevant, since any information that act would attest to is a foregone conclusion.
To me, it like locking a document in a safe. The court can order you to open it up with a warrant, since you are simply withholding evidence.
The tricky thing is what if he claims not to know the password. Cracking a safe is easy for a professional, while decrypting a file can take months or years.
Depending on the encryption, it can take billions of years to decrypt.
speculawyer
Member
The say is "Hard cases make bad law."
BTW, I always thought that the person should make their password something like "I love child porn" such that they could refuse to give their password on 5th amendment grounds.
RiccochetJ
Gold Member
Ok yea, I was more looking at the length of the term but that clears it up a bit. Indefinite is a long time.
Deified Data
Banned
You broke the system, time to start over from scratch.
ultrazilla
Gold Member
As heinous as this monster's crimes are, I don't agree with courts forcing
him to basically testify against himself which clearly violates the 5th amendment.
Sounds like they already have enough evidence to put him away forever anyways.
All this will do is set precedent for the rabid erosion of the 5th.
BladeoftheImmortal
Member
better to be put in jail for non-compliance than for child porn.
When we grow brains and start teaching critical thinking skills, logic, and philosophy in schools.
grandjedi6
Master of the Google Search
Not necessarily. Claiming to not know the password is going to throw this case even further into no man's territory.
I'm definitely torn about this.
On one hand, fifth amendement.
On the other hand, the safety and well-being of children.
One is tangible and affects real life everyday, while one is a collective ideal, but I can't help but think that bending that ideal will have disastrous consequences.
It's like the terrorist scenario where if there is a bombing imminent, do you torture the terrorist to get the info or not...
On one hand, fifth amendement.
On the other hand, the safety and well-being of children.
One is tangible and affects real life everyday, while one is a collective ideal, but I can't help but think that bending that ideal will have disastrous consequences.
It's like the terrorist scenario where if there is a bombing imminent, do you torture the terrorist to get the info or not...
No it's not.
Opus Angelorum
Member
If you are encrypting stuff with the intention that no-one will ever be able to view it, use a second hidden partition.
You provide the password for the main, and simply deny the seconds existence.
You provide the password for the main, and simply deny the seconds existence.
In my opinion the fifth amendment is not applicable here. More comparable to police asking you to unlock a room in your possession that they have a search warrant for. Only because this is a storage system which they already linked to him by decrypting a drive and finding his information on it.
If I was the guy though and knew I was guilty I would definitely have a different state of mind and I sure as hell would not remember that password, I can tell you that much. I don't really understand though--if they already decrypted a drive and found child porn and linked it to him he's already fucked. They just want more evidence?
If I was the guy though and knew I was guilty I would definitely have a different state of mind and I sure as hell would not remember that password, I can tell you that much. I don't really understand though--if they already decrypted a drive and found child porn and linked it to him he's already fucked. They just want more evidence?
Angelus Errare
Banned
Except when they notice your HDD's capacity is 500GB but the OS only sees 290GB. And then they go into disk management and see the second partition...
Obvious and terrible violation of the 5th.
Decrypting each individual drive is tantamount to testifying that it is your drive.
Declaring that he probably owned one of the drives doesn't remove his rights for any of the other drives, especially when the state will add new charges for each offending file found on the new drives.
Decrypting each individual drive is tantamount to testifying that it is your drive.
Declaring that he probably owned one of the drives doesn't remove his rights for any of the other drives, especially when the state will add new charges for each offending file found on the new drives.
Eh. You have a point but if one drive in a storage system is linked to him common sense says the entire storage system is his. They know it's his after finding his information on it, this is just playing a game of technicalities. Either way the dude's already screwed as they found child porn and linked it to him. He doesn't have any incentive to cooperate.
The Faceless Master
Member
they can make you open it. all they need are some screwdrivers to open a hard drive.
no, this is like they have a search warrant for your room and you open it and then they say "there has to be some sort of secret vortex in this room that opens a pocket in space in this room that shows an alternate version of this room with the evidence, we want you to open a wormhole to that pocket of space/time"
That's not how it works.
How do you figure that? A search warrant gives you permission to search something specific of course--not free reign for the entire premises. They cannot search this very specific thing they have permission to search because he will not open it. Your example is nonsense and it is more akin to a room in his possession, except they may not be able to just brute force the door open. Digital property is still property; it's not immune to search and seizure.
PreyingShark
Member
The key part in the article here is "Among other reasons". In other words, this article doesn't seem to be giving us all of the details. I'd imagine that details like the location of the storage system played a role here in their decision.
I love this.
Does anyone actually know what the article is referring to by the 'host of legal issues' that would arise if you refused to give your password?
undrtakr900
Member
This reminds me of all those 24 episodes where they're raiding a "bad guys" base/headquarters and right before they capture/kill the leader he activates a fail safe and clean wipes all the harddrives.
Just going to quote this for posterity.
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