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The Failing Right of Laptop Privacy
davidwr writes "Wired has an interesting editorial on laptop searches and seizures. It raises some interesting issues, including employee rights against police searches in the workplace, routine vs. non-routine searches at ports of entry, and police use of unrelated data found in a database search. The article ends saying: 'Of course, there's a chance that the courts will not recognize the different scope of privacy interests at stake in computer searches, or will not be adept at crafting a rule that gives enough leeway and guidance to law enforcement, while also protecting privacy. At that point, the Constitution may fail us, and we will have to turn to Congress to create rules that are better adapted for the information age.'"
Many countries, such as Britain, criminalize witholding encryption keys from law enforcement to the extent that unless you are actually a terrorist with detailed and executable plans of action labeled 'evil plot' stupidly stored on your laptop, you are probably better off (in the criminal liability sense) just giving it to them. Sadly, I don't think that the US is far behind on this one, either.
All the techniques ever used to make men moral have been themselves thoroughly immoral... (Nietzsche)
Uh, but it does, and plainly so. Not only is a laptop part of a person's "effects" as protected explicitly in the fourth amendment, but the contents of a laptop are ones papers. The search of papers inside of a laptop is thus the same as the search of papers inside of an envelope. The transmission of a paper via email is no different than the transmission of a paper via postal mail. The constitution plainly and clearly provides protection for this, and it is simply a question of whether the courts will acknowledge this now, or come to their senses later. It is not exactly a matter of interpretation when the language is that clear.