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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.
Period. End of discussion. They cannot compel your testimony. Not one word can they force you to utter. It is your choice to stand mute and that cannot be used against you.
Anything more than this, compelling you to utter even a single syllable in order to prove your own innocence or guilt, and we don't live in the land of the free anymore.
This is incorrect if you are speaking of the United States.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashcroft_v._Free_Speech_Coalition
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PROTECT_Act_of_2003
I knew that I read this somewhere... Prohibits computer-generated child pornography when "(B) such visual depiction is a computer image or computer-generated image that is, or appears virtually indistinguishable from that of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct; (as amended by 1466A for Section 2256(8)(B) of title 18, United States Code).
This is exactly why the ACLU gets so much hate: they have to go to bat for civil liberties to try to prevent bad precedent, even though public opinion on the case is more like "Due process? Just lynch them!"
That this happens so often leads me to believe that a number of prosecutors pick these opportunities specifically to force judges to choose between civil liberties and looking like they support the Prime Evils.
...when you're writing a game...tweak the difficulty of "Easy" to something [your mother] can cope with. -- onion2k
The prohibition of virtual child pornography was overturned in the United States with Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition (2002). It is still illegal in the European Union however.
Hey, at least they didn't post an article stating that Duke Nukem Forever was almost ready to come out on Xbox Live, when the article itself clearly stated that it was about Duke Nukem 3D. Oh wait, kdawson did that this morning.
kdawson seems to be an "editor" in only the absolute vaguest sense of the word.
Sturgeon was an optimist.
Actually, child pornography is such a witchhunt that even animated child pornography is illegal.
Actually, It's not. Here's a quote from Wikipedia's listing under Child pornography.
Child pornography may be simulated by the use of computers[13] or adults made to look like children.[14] For simulated child pornography that is produced without the involvement of children, there is some controversy regarding whether or not such simulated child pornography is abusive to children. The legal status of simulated or "virtual" child pornography varies around the world; for example, it is legal in the United States, it is illegal in the European Union, and in Australia its legal status is unclear and so far untested in the courts.
Linux is only free if your time has no value. Windows is only free if you threaten to use Linux.
The European Union does not have a common penal code. So Wikipedia is sort of misleading on this point.. The only example in the article is Germany, and Germany!=EU.
In a decision announced in May of this year, the Supreme Court upheld the conviction of a man who offered to trade obscene pictures of his toddler for similar pictures with a federal agent posing as a pedophile. United States v. Williams, S.Ct. case #06-694, http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=000&invol=06-694.
*IMHO, our legislators seem to be more concerned with making up a memborable title (USA PATRIOT ACT, PROTECT, etc.) than dealing with the actual content of the laws.
You'd probably get thrown in jail for that, and it'll probably stick. Refusing to divulge your passphrase is protected by the Fifth Amendment, but if you give them a self-destruct phrase and tell them it's the passphrase, you have just destroyed potential evidence that is in their possession, and I'd be surprised indeed if that is not against one or more laws.
There's no way to recover the missing passphrase from a PGP-encrypted partition, Linux or not. When PGP encrypts data, it uses the passphrase as the parameter to generate an encryption key, which is used to modify the data in a way unique to that key. The key is never stored on the drive, and neither is the passphrase.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
The US "doesn't torture" only because it asserts that it doesn't. It also asserts that inflicting pain would not be considered torture unless it caused "death, organ failure or permanent damage."
Even the current Republican presidential candidate, John McCain, considers waterboarding to be torture, saying, "it was used in the Spanish Inquisition, it was used in Pol Potâ(TM)s genocide in Cambodia, and there are reports that it is being used against Buddhist monks today."
Besides, many consider any form of pain compliance, for forced information extraction, to be torture. Waterboarding is essentially forced drowning with a medic in attendance, to revive the "patient" in case his/her vitals falter.
O lord, bless this thy holy hand grenade, that with it thou mayest blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy.
He is not the one being an idiot, you are. Do you know ANYTHING about the law?
"Don't be an idiot. Enforcing would be done exactly as it is done in any other case of someone refusing to comply with an order issued by a court. You hold them in contempt of court and lock em up until they obey or they can get a higher court to reverse. No rubber hoses required."
Not so. Physical compliance is one thing. Compelling someone to speak is something entirely different. They are different areas of the law, and covered by different parts of the Constitution. Further, once again: this has to do with the 5th, which prevents compelling someone to testify against himself. AND, as I mentioned elsewhere, there are MANY perfectly legitimate reasons why someone would not want -- very much not want -- the "authorities" to access their files, even if there is nothing illegal in them!
("Gee, let's see... I am a border guard, and I have this bogus "do not fly" list, consisting largely of people who are political activists... let's accuse him of child pornography and see what's in his secret files!")
If you think that scenario is unrealistic, then you have not studied your history.
"But since the testimony of two sworn peace officers will almost certainly convict beyond a reasonable doubt in the absence of any defense, going that route is a sure fire path to a "pound me in the ass" federal prison."
Bullshit. In order to convict on "say-so" only, the two witnesses would have to be VERY credible. If I were a juror, it is unlikely I would vote to convict without physical evidence. And as for being credible witnesses, especially when it comes to identifying children on grainy video... heck, it's a stretch even calling most border guards "law enforcement"!
By the way, I should mention that a couple of years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that in order for something to be judged "child pornography", it must be proven that (1) it is actual pornography, and (2) that the subjects are actual children. Good luck proving those with no videos. Do you think the guards recognized those particular children? Do you think that they names and addresses were flashed on the screen? I doubt it.
"Basically this guy is saying "That laptop over there doesn't have anything illegal on it. Those pigs are just lying ignorant bastards who wouldn't know a playboy bunny shot from japanese tentacle porn. But you guys on the jury are just going to have to trust me on that..."
Yep. And that is enough, legally and Constitutionally. As it should be. You don't seem to appreciate how horrifically "the system" could be abused, if we did not have such safeguards. History is full of such stories... are you going to be one of those people doomed to repeat history because you did not bother to learn it? I hope not.
-- "That it is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer, is a Maxim that has been long and generally approved." - Benjamin Franklin
Waterboarding is essentially forced drowning with a medic in attendance, to revive the "patient" in case his/her vitals falter.
Actually, it's not drowning at all. If they wanted to force drowning all it would take would be a kitchen sink. For waterboarding, the subject is placed at a slight head-down angle and the cloth over the face prevents aspiration of any meaningful quantity of water, so drowning is actually mechanically impossible. It just gives a thoroughly convincing sensation of drowning. al Zarqawi lasted almost 2 1/2 minutes (a superhuman feat) before he gave in and agreed to talk--- which means he wasn't drowning. This is the reason the technique is used. Asphyxiation due to drowning limits one to as long as it takes for the subject to pass out, then requires medical attention. Waterboarding, it can go on and on....
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
http://wizbangblog.com/content/2004/10/29/livejournal-blo.php
Before the detective can answer, the defense has objected because the detective is not an expert and thus not permitted to express an opinion on the stand. The judge then sustains the objection and the question is withdrawn.
What most people don't understand is that in court, an expert witness is somebody who knows enough about that subject to be allowed to express an opinion and only an expert witness can do so. As an example, a nurse can testify as to what happened in the OR but can't express an opinion as to whether or not what happened constituted malpractice. In this case, a regular detective can tell the court what he saw, but not express an opinion as to whether or not the images are real or CGI, because he doesn't have the training and experience to be qualified as an expert witness on the subject.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
Here in the U.S., we don't have to prove our innocence, the cops have to prove that we are guilty.
/usr/games/fortune
It's getting to the point, at least for me, where I automatically disbelieve and distrust every law enforcement official on every single statement they make. I view them all as worthless scum first, and leave it up to them to prove otherwise.
A late uncle of mine who served as a U.S. Marshal for many, many years once told me basically the same thing.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
Actually, it *is* pretty much drowning. The main advantage of it is that you can handwave and pretend that you aren't slowly drowning someone.
Have you seen
Christopher Hitchen's experience of waterboarding?