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18th Century Law Dredged Up To Force Decryption of Devices
Cognitive Dissident writes The Register has a story about federal prosecutors using a law signed by George Washington to force manufacturers to help law enforcement access encrypted data on devices they manufacture. The All Writs Act is a broad statute simply authorizing courts to issue any order necessary to obtain information within their jurisdiction. Quoting the Register article: "Last month, New York prosecutors successfully persuaded a judge that the ancient law could be used to force an unnamed smartphone manufacturer to help unlock a phone allegedly used in a credit card fraud case. The judge ordered the manufacturer to offer 'reasonable technical assistance' to make the phone's contents available." What will happen when this collides with Apple and Google deliberately creating encryption that they themselves cannot break?
Assumming that you're talking about the Fifth Amendment's prohibition on compelled self-incriminaton, no. If you're suspected of a crime, *you* can't be compelled to incriminate yourself. But third parties that aren't protected by a privilege (spousal, attorney-client, doctor-patient, etc.) can be compelled to produce evidence, testify against you, and definitely to provide technical manuals and expertise. Third parties can be compensated for the cost of complying with subpoenas in cases that they are not party to.
The protection against self-incrimination isn't well-defined either. There's conflicting case-law as to whether you can be compelled to hand over encryption keys.
And even if you specify chicken eggs, it's *still* the egg. By the process of evolution, the first chicken would have been a mutation from parents that were almost, but not quite, chickens. The almost-but-not-quite-chicken mother would have laid an egg, out of which hatched the first chicken. So the egg came first.
Citations, please.
I found the following related to the above quotes. The first one I couldn't find anything in context, only that Bush supposedly said it, and the second one is part of the the Constitution being just a piece of paper quote which was false. As to the rest. . .
"I'll be long gone before some smart person ever figures out what happened inside this Oval Office." George W. Bush - Link
"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda." - George W. Bush - Link
"You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on." - George W. Bush - Link
"You know, one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror." - George W. Bush - Link
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower