Defendant Ordered To Decrypt Laptop Claims She Had Forgotten Password

wiedzmin writes "A Colorado woman that was ordered by a federal judge to decrypt her laptop hard-drive for police last month, appears to have forgotten her password. If she does not remember the password by month's end, as ordered, she could be held in contempt and jailed until she complies. It appears that bad memory is now a federal offense." The article clarifies that her lawyer stated she may have forgotten the password; they haven't offered that as a defense in court yet.

Comments

Re:Inside my HD there are two very important files

[Taco Cowboy]

You're either a troll or an idiot

Oh well ...

'Legally speaking' the judge can hold you in civil contempt if they believe you know the password and refuse to disclose it

A. I have stated in another message in this thread that if they want to lock me up they can use any excuse to lock me up.

B. By providing a plain-text-file with a clear description of where I got the parts of the passwords from, I am, legally speaking, not withholding anything.

If they still insist that I lie, then, legally speaking they must prove that I lie.

But of course, the above will only be true if the United States of America remains a land of law, not a land of lawlessness tyranny.

Just because you created a file with 'instructions' doesn't mean that the judge is going to believe that is actually how you created the password.

Let me re-state it again --- I did what I did to protect myself legally.

I am not doing it to convince the judge because the judge can think any which way he wants, but still, if the judge respect the law of the land, he still have to act according to the law.

But if the judge wants to lock me up no matter what, hey, he or she can lock me up with whatever excuse they can find