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Judge Rules Man Cannot Be Forced To Decrypt HD
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "In Vermont, US Magistrate Judge Jerome Niedermeier has ruled that forcing someone to divulge the password to decrypt their hard drive violates the 5th Amendment. Border guards testify that they saw child pornography on the defendant's laptop when the PC was on, but they made the mistake of turning it off and were unable to access it again because the drive was protected by PGP. Although prosecutors offered many ways to get around the 5th Amendment protections, the Judge would have none of that and quashed the grand jury subpoena requesting the defendant's PGP passphrase. A conviction is still likely because prosecutors have the testimony of the two border guards who saw the drive while it was open." The article stresses the potential importance of this ruling (which was issued last November but went unnoticed until now): "Especially if this ruling is appealed, US v. Boucher could become a landmark case. The question of whether a criminal defendant can be legally compelled to cough up his encryption passphrase remains an unsettled one, with law review articles for the last decade arguing the merits of either approach."
Update: 08/19 23:49 GMT by KD : Several readers have pointed out that this story in fact did not go unnoticed.
Update: 08/19 23:49 GMT by KD : Several readers have pointed out that this story in fact did not go unnoticed.
This comment was inflammatory, not insightful. I doubt the author could give one single example of how he has experienced semi-totalitarian rule from the US government outside of some paranoid delusion that George W. Bush is listening to his personal phone calls to his psychiatrist or his local tin-foil hat helpline.
Comments like this is are nothing more than ignorant straw-man arguments. Nothing insightful about the ravings of a fool.
Do you even know what waterboarding is? I doubt so because you said it's basically drowning. They attempt to force a drowning RESPONSE from your body which causes and adrenaline rush and intense state of fear/vulnerability in the person receiving it. My friends and I have done it to each other to see what it's all about, and it's not bad at fucking all if you have any willpower/brains.
You know those girls in fashion ads with miniskirts/dresses/bikinis on that every guy who doesn't love cock are actually just entering puberty (10-14) right? No real woman can fit into a lot of those things due to their hips getting wider. Once a guy hears the age they go 'omg i wouldnt fuck that' but they are still thinking 'id fuck the living shit out of her.'
> As someone above points out, "It's not up to the defendant in a criminal case to prove his innocence.
> It's up to the prosecution to prove his guilt."
Ok, last attempt to drive this through you folks's thick skulls. On one side you have the eye witness testimony of two officers. On the other you have a guy saying "But I didn't do it. And no I won't allow anyone to see the evidence which I swear would clear me." So the score for those following along is two eyewitnesses to "I didn't do it." If two eyewitnesses, sworn officers no less, who apparently had ample time to look at the evidence before somebody shut the machine down, aren't enough to get 'beyond a reasonable doubt' then we better fucking empty the prisons. If this guy wants to beat the rap he needs to put on a defense and the only realistic one available is to unlock that laptop and show a jury that he just has normal porn on it. Of course this is all just wanking because I don't think a single poster believes this guy isn't guilty as hell and if he unlocked the drive he would spend the rest of his natural life behind bars. A very short life. Leaving it locked the court system will eventually get tired and offer a plea deal, he will take it and do a few years.
Democrat delenda est