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PGP Ruled as Relevant For Criminal Case

Posted by Hemos on from the stupid-stupid-courts dept.

waytoomuchcoffee writes "A Minnesota appeals unamimously ruled in a child porn case that "the existence of an encryption program" on the defendants computer could be admitted as evidence of criminal intent. The article doesn't mention if this can be taken into account for sentencing too."

2 of 675 comments (clear)

  1. 5th Amendment violation? by Fookin · · Score: 5, Interesting
    IANAL, but if you refuse to give up your private key and you have something to hide, can the state force you to reveal it? Or is that tantamount to forcing you to incriminate yourself? I would think that any information concerning encrypted data in that scenario would be inadmissable since it would probably prejudice a jury.

    As a side note, with that earlier /. article about the MS guy saying to write your passwords down, is encrypting my password list an act with criminal intent?

  2. Re:Encryption use != evil by rpdillon · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Yes, but by this logic, if someone "takes the fifth", it could be used to incriminate them, which kind of destroys the purpose of the right.

    Why is this relevant? Well, if he is using encryption, and they ask him for his key to decrypt the files, I'd say that would be him testifying against himself. Along those same lines, if he refuses to give the key (because he has the right NOT to incriminate himself), they are basically saying "Hey, we don't need the key, because he wouldn't be hiding anything if he had nothing to hide, so he must be guilty!"

    This really represents a failure on the part of the judge. The only thing encryption represents is an unknown: not intent, not a particular set of data. You might as well hand they police a blank drive and infer from that "He must have erased it, and he wouldn't have done that unless he was guilty!"