eff.org — A federal appeals court has found a Florida man's constitutional rights were violated when he was imprisoned for refusing to decrypt data on several devices. This is the first time an appellate court has ruled the 5th Amendment protects against forced decryption – a major victory for constitutional rights in the digital age
Feb 24, 2012 View in Crawl 4
casspaFeb 24, 2012
+1 Justice system
ageofknowledge2012Feb 25, 2012
Absolutely.
bobosmitorFeb 24, 2012
This is "a major victory for constitutional rights in the digital age"!
anomaly100Feb 24, 2012
Fantastic!
leodinFeb 25, 2012
That's great news. From the way things are going, you'd almost think no one gave a s**t about the Constitution anymore.
ageofknowledge2012Feb 25, 2012
1 in 31 Americans are in jail/prison or on probation/parole currently. Here's an article on just the massive increase of federal laws criminalizing Americans. State and local criminal laws are enormous. Their number and severity continues to increase. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703749504576172714184601654.html
capnjohnusaFeb 26, 2012
And what it amounts to is that every one of us is probably breaking some law , whether local, state or federal. And then, the enforcement of these laws, with too few cops and so many laws, it's a crap shoot who gets busted or not....
And now they are pushing to privatize jails, etc. We'll soon be watching 'Running Man' live!
parasangerFeb 25, 2012
Great News! Unfortunately it comes from a 3 judge panel of the most liberal federal circuit, the 9th. This one is sure to go higher and more tempestuous.
rasyidridho07Feb 25, 2012
tegakan hukum
lilbambiFeb 25, 2012
As it should be!
Mark_LincolnFeb 25, 2012
The Supreme Junta, in it's pursuit of a totally fascist America, will overturn this decision.
Anything that would appoint Bush Resident, would betray America and the Constitution.
letherialFeb 25, 2012
Good news for us people. Truecrypt has a ability to have a hidden encrypted container...thanks in part to UK,
So...even if supreme court does overturn this, It doesn't matter much...you cannot prove a hidden container until you open it.
sikander86Feb 25, 2012
http://playraaziq.com/demolishing-starts-at-osama-bin-ladens-compound-in-abottabad-video/ Bin Laden's compound demolishing
herrerashana19837581Feb 25, 2012
my buddy's mom got paid $13198 the previous month. she works on the internet and got a $536700 home. All she did was get blessed and put into action the information exposed on this web page makecash16.com
gimiesomeFeb 25, 2012
That has got to bring a tear to Dick Cheney and the neocons eyes.
anglosaxongalFeb 25, 2012
What do people think 'DECRYPTION' is for???
letherialFeb 25, 2012
Decryption is for decrypting a encrypted drive...
anglosaxongalFeb 25, 2012
Like skinhead crooked Christian hackers to steal IDs?
letherialFeb 26, 2012
i dont know if your referring to decryption or encryption.
Encryption places the values in different order and requires a program to decrypt, or make sense of, what appears to be random data.
Encryption is used to thwart the 'skinhead crooked christian hackers'...of course, these 'bad people' can use it to hide illegal activities, much like a car can be useful in robing a bank.
anglosaxongalFeb 25, 2012
What do people think 'DECRYPTION' is for???
NightmarexpxFeb 25, 2012
Amazing..!
blackfireleadg09Feb 25, 2012
good, good for them - peter griffin voice
seigi_no_mikataFeb 24, 2012
I agree with the importance of 4th Amendment rights, but I'm not really sure how a court order requiring the suspect to decrypt a drive differs from a search warrant or subpoena which requires a suspect to hand over physical evidence.Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
record200Feb 24, 2012
Passwords are bits of information.
Information is not physical entity.
seigi_no_mikataFeb 25, 2012
Information can be in physical form like documents or in bytes on a drive. You can be required by the courts to turn over documents which will incriminate you and that is not considered unconstitutional. So, I don't see why the same rules wouldn't apply to information in digital form.
record200Feb 25, 2012
"is not considered unconstitutional"
Slavery was not considered illegal either.
Personally I was trying to tell the truth about life, about common sense, not about the things that are considered unconstitutional by lawyers.
Honestly I don't understand their language at all.
mtownFeb 25, 2012
You can be required to turn over hard drives but you can't be required to turn over the password for your encrypted files. A password is not the same thing as documents or evidence.
mtownFeb 25, 2012
Let me clarify: Lets say you are totally guilty and the information that you encrypted proves your guilt.
Now lets say you murdered somebody and hid the murder weapon. The murder weapon has your fingerprints all over it and would prove your guilt.
No warrant or subpoena could ever require a suspect to "show where you hid the murder weapon". The same thing is true for a password.
kingfootFeb 25, 2012
Correct!
But what does it say about "hacking" the password from an encrypted drive?
mtownFeb 25, 2012
Well, I think brute-forcing the password is technically legal if the court orders it. That would be like somebody discovering the "murder weapon" on their own.
I'm not sure though.
kingfootFeb 25, 2012
And what if it were something such as a TPM situation where the person has the physical "key" for the encryption otherwise it was impossible. Is that "key" specifically able to be warrant"ed" for?
By key I mean like a USB key using encryption through a TPM enabled computer.
fairdinkummateFeb 25, 2012
Bad analogy, let's try another one:
You are suspected of defrauding people in a bunch of real estate deals & a court issues a search warrant for your house. The documents that you have that incriminate you are inside a safe in your house. You are required by law to provide the key &/or combination to the safe, even though the documents inside will incriminate you.
Why should whether you choose to store documents in a safe or in the electronic equivalent(encrypted on your hard drive) change the scope of the warrant?
mtownFeb 25, 2012
I'm pretty sure that we while they CAN make you give them a key to a safe, they cannot require you to give them the combination.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2012/01/can-a-court-make-you-give-up-your-password/
^states the same.
fairdinkummateFeb 25, 2012
The password to a safe(or encryption software) may be "testimonial evidence", but obviously the contents of the safe or a hard drive are not. As is pointed out in the article, police(or prosecutors) aren't asking for the password, just the documents(or files) that it protects(the "non testimonial items").
This will have to at some time in the future be cleared up & made law, or the days of prosecuting anyone based on evidence of their wrongdoing, either paperwork or computer files, will be over as every criminal puts encryption software on their PC/Laptop, or someone like an OS manufacturer includes it as standard!
letherialFeb 25, 2012
"And what if it were something such as a TPM situation where the person has the physical "key" for the encryption otherwise it was impossible. Is that "key" specifically able to be warrant"ed" for?"
Well if the USB was near by when the warrant was executed then they have it, though chances are they dont realize it. a suspect in now way is forced to help the police find what they are looking for. I suppose the judge could order that the key file be turned over, but that doesnt go against self-incrimantion; before the judge orders that he has to know, or be rather sure, there is a key file...any decent encryption program wont announce itself as needing a keyfile.
Also, key files often use a passwords as well...Assuming the suspect knew what he was doing.
I guess the police are going to need to do police work now, bummer for them...if a crime is committed, its traces are not only one the suspects computer...there are other ways to do investigations.
parasangerFeb 25, 2012
Technically, bits are electron/physical entities when stored, encrypted or not. Or to be really wonky, is the password legally protected and ephemeral but the hashed/encrypted version stored version not protected legally?
record200Feb 25, 2012
>bits are electron/physical entities
No, a bit of information is not an electron, circuit or whatever. It is the state of the physical entity.
And the state is meaningless without an interpreter, a man or a device.
parasangerFeb 25, 2012
So states of being are not evidentiary w/out an observer. Sounds like a Koan. Who is the observer in this case. The password knower or the technician probing the physical state of the stored key?
parasangerFeb 25, 2012
Trucrypt as observer? Ok, I thought corporations are people was out there, but software as legal observer tops it.
record200Feb 25, 2012
>Who is the observer in this case.
Truecrypt observes the information that is passed to it and meaningful for it in order to produce the other information that is meaningful for people.
record200Feb 25, 2012
The information can lead to self-incrimination, you can't force free people to reveal it.
craig1958Feb 24, 2012
You had to ask?
aadainFeb 24, 2012
Think of it this way. If a warrant was issued requiring a person to confess to a crime, would that be self incrimination? Under the 5th amendment it would because no person can be forced to testify against themselves.
Decrypting information is equivalent to giving a confession or information that can be used against you, thus self incrimination. If they have a warrant for the hard drive they have already exercised it when they seized it. Most judges don't understand this yet because they remember when TVs changed to color.
seigi_no_mikataFeb 25, 2012
If the courts issue a subpoena for documents that incriminate the suspect, isn't that the same? That is done all the time and is not considered to be unconstitutional. Information is the issue, not whether it is in a particular form or not. I am less concerned about this than I am about warrantless searches and wiretaps.
aadainFeb 25, 2012
What if the documents were written in a secret language only you and you accomplise knows? Can the court force you to translate them? That would be a better analogy to being forced to decrypt a hard drive. The police/Feds can have the papers, but they have to learn to read them themselves.
macparrotFeb 25, 2012
In essense he DID turn over the documentation when the hard drives were seized. It isn't the defendent's fault that the prosecution doesn't know how to read.
It still comes down to the courts are trying to force someone to incriminate themselves.
gimiesomeFeb 25, 2012
I remember that.My grampa had the first color tv I ever saw.....
But I agree with you on this issue.If they have a seach warrant they can search the house, But I don't have to tell them were my hiding places are.
theunlearnFeb 24, 2012
Depends on what the warrant's for. Since, most likely, it was for the devices and their contents, the evidence was seized. The defendant isn't required to make the information seized by law enforcement useful to the prosecution.
neondistractionFeb 25, 2012
The main problem against forced decryption is that it is entirely possible for someone to forget their password. Or if they were using a key file if it were lost or corrupted.
If the court orders you to decrypt a file but you have genuinely forgotten the password, what then? Legally they can hold you in jail indefinitely for contempt of court until you agree to comply, but if you cannot comply then what? How does one prove that they no longer remember something?
Also, keep in mind that the philosophy behind our justice system is you are considered innocent until proven guilty, and that it is better to let 100 guilty people go free than to falsely imprison a single innocent person.
ageofmasteryFeb 25, 2012
So encrypt all your kiddy porn and you'll never have to worry about going to jail.
Why am i not as thrilled about this ruling as so many people seem to be?Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
ljseinfeldFeb 25, 2012
Because you're projecting your own douchey tendencies onto others?
gimiesomeFeb 25, 2012
You do know they only catch the stupid ones....
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