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US District Ct. Says Defendant Must Provide Decrypted Data

Posted by timothy on from the narrow-ruling dept.

An anonymous reader writes "If you're planning on traveling internationally with a laptop, consider the following: District Court Overturns Magistrate Judge in Fifth Amendment Encryption Case. Laptop searches at the border have been discussed many times previously. This is the case where a man entered the country allegedly carrying pornographic material in an encrypted file on his laptop. He initially cooperated with border agents during the search of the laptop then later decided not to cooperate citing the Fifth Amendment. Last year a magistrate judge ruled that compelling the man to enter his password would violate his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Now in a narrow ruling, US District Judge William K. Sessions III said the man had waived his right against self-incrimination when he initially cooperated with border agents." sohp notes that "the order is not that he produce the key — just that he provide an unencrypted copy."

3 of 767 comments (clear)

  1. Re:5th Amendment by fastest+fascist · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Also if the defendant is not required to provide the encryption key/password, but an unencrypted copy, what's to keep them from providing a "sanitized" copy - how do you check if it's the same bunch of files if you can't see the encrypted data?

  2. Re:5th Amendment by couchslug · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What is needed is a destructive decryption program that produces files with innocent .zip or .rar file extensions that "decompress" into benign images or other files while destroying the original data. Unless the file is renamed and then opened with the appropriate program, no data is available.

    All defaults would appear "wholesome",

    The Thought Police request access to your flash drive. You hand it to them without comment, they open the files which display innocent images you personally selected beforehand. There is no steganography, the data is lost.

    --
    "This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
  3. Re:Whats on the laptop, son? by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You joke, but I've filled a U.S. visitor visa application form recently, and, among other gems, it included a row of checkboxes such as:

    • Do you belong to a terrorist organization, or do you intend to commit any terrorist acts on the U.S. territory? [Y/N]
    • Have you ever taken part or otherwise assisted in genocide, religious persecution, war crimes, or crimes against humanity? [Y/N]
    • Do you intend to smuggle drugs or other illegal substances into the U.S.? [Y/N]

    Etc. Somehow, I don't think they will be at all amused if you reply "yes" to any of those, but I always wondered about the point of those things.