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Man Jailed For Refusing To Reveal USB Password
judgecorp writes "Syed Hussain, already serving time for helping to plot attacks against UK targets, got another four months for refusing to divulge the password of a USB stick the police and GCHQ wanted to examine. The USB was believed to contain data about a suspected fraud unconnected with national security, and Hussain claimed to have forgotten it under stress, He later remembered it and it turned out to be a password he had used on other systems investigated by the police."
Chalk said the USB contained material linking the defendant to an alleged fraud. He added that it was only when investigators told Hussain he was being investigated for fraud that he gave up the password. Investigations into the alleged fraud are ongoing.
The memory stick did not contain any information on potential threats to national security.
It's right there in the article summary:
Human beings are capable of doing multiple things, and thus getting multiple criminal charges against them, at once. He may well be a terrorist, but this particular story deals with fraud.
Maybe the point wasn't to get into the USB stick? Maybe the point was to find a reason to incarcerate him longer?
Cynical, yes. Feasible, quite yes.
OTOH, Hanlon's Razor does favor your reasoning.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
In the UK, the right to remain silent has been around since the 17th Century. However, it was removed by the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1984.
Since the UK doesn't have a written constitution, it's impossible to argue that a law is unconstitutional. The question cannot be taken to the European Court of Human Rights, because the tight to remain silent is not mentioned in the European Convention on Human Rights, although the majority of E.U. countries have laws giving that right.
Further, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 make it a crime not to disclose an encryption key to police when asked.
That's not the moral of this story. He was given 4 months because he wasted police time - that was because he actually gave them the password in the end.
If he had continued not to give them the password, even if it were actually true that he had forgotten it, they could have imprisoned him for considerably longer, the current maximum is 10 years, which is more than you get for cutting someone's throat with a smashed beerglass in the pub, and considerably more than the slap on the wrist you get for killing an unarmed civilian if you're a police marksman.
This warped and clearly unfair legislation was brought to you courtesy of this total bastard.
Since it defines what is and isn't criminal it cannot, by definition, be a criminal organization.
The Constitution defines what is criminal and what is not.
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