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Phone Passwords Protected By 5th Amendment, Says Federal Court
Ars Technica reports that a Federal court in Pennsylvania ruled Wednesday that the Fifth Amendment protects from compelled disclosure the passwords that two insider-trading suspects used on their mobile phones. In this case, the SEC is investigating two former Capital One data analysts who allegedly used insider information associated with their jobs to trade stocks—in this case, a $150,000 investment allegedly turned into $2.8 million. Regulators suspect the mobile devices are holding evidence of insider trading and demanded that the two turn over their passcodes.
However, the court ruled, "Since the passcodes to Defendants' work-issued smartphones are not corporate records, the act of producing their personal passcodes is testimonial in nature and Defendants properly invoke their fifth Amendment privilege."
...of common sense no doubt! I love hearing stories of correct implementations.
Tough for the prosecutors but this is a flash of some sense.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Part of the point is that confessing under pressure or torture doesn't mean that the confession is real. If one is being tortured, one may say anything that one believes will end the torture, if the torturer has stated that saying that thing will cause the torture to stop.
Also, don't forget, everyone is innocent until they're convicted in a court of law. Right now, in the eyes of the law, Bill Cosby is completely innocent of any and all accusations that have been made against him. Individuals may choose whether or not to believe that he has or has not done the things that he has been accused of, but he has not been indicted or convicted of anything, and given that it doesn't sound like any evidence exists to substantiate these claims of acts a long time ago, it's very likely that he will not see criminal charges based on the accusations. That doesn't mean that people will trust him like they did before, but in the eyes of the law he is an innocent man.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
As an American, I find the concept of throwing out evidence somewhat questionable is well, as in, if someone is guilty, they are guilty, no matter how the evidence was obtained.
This should be "despite being American, ...". Guilt is determined by the courts and it is done so using evidence gathered. If a person of questionable guilt is found guilty in a court of law, then ALL evidence that was used against them to do so is suddenly retroactively converted into having no requirements for its gathering. The person is guilty because of the evidence, and the evidence is admissable because they will be found guilty. This might be a nice system if we could pause the universe and question God as to whether we're correct or not, but we cannot, and if we could, we would probably not need arcane concepts like legal systems in the first place.
How could you possibly hold someone accountable for destroying your property if it's perfectly acceptable for them to destroy your property if you will eventually be convicted? It's just an incentive for everyone involved to convict you regardless of whether you did anything or not.
Both you and the non-American OP are viewing this in a simplistic manner as if a trial exists of questions such as "did you do it?" with a yes or no response. They are not. A skilled prosecutor can make it seem like your 8:59 quick trip to a convenience store reeks of guilt when it was information you happily provided to police. If "evidence" were always as evident as a bloody knife, then the criminals would just clean up after themselves without fail.
It's fucking crazy that a place like /., where people so greatly appreciate the overreaching of the NSA, some people can so quickly do a 180 and justify the same behavior so long as they come up guilty in the end! The 4th and 5th amendments, protecting searches without warrant and protecting you from having to testify against yourself, are intricately and irrevocably linked together. How can you justify not consenting to a search if you can be forced to consent to provide evidence incriminating yourself?