British Hacker Love Wins Court Battle Over Encryption Keys (theintercept.com)

An anonymous reader writes: A judge in Westminster has ruled that alleged hacktivist Lauri Love cannot be forced to provide encryption keys to the National Crime Authority. This move has been called a "victory for all who use encryption in the UK" and a "great decision for privacy and personal freedom." The NCA's request was widely regarded as an attempt to circumvent the Regulatory of Investigative Powers Act of 2000, which specifically legislates police power to compel subjects to hand over encryption keys. The NCA originally tried to force Love to turn over encryption keys under RIPA in 2014 but were unsuccessful. So Love, whose property was seized two years ago, made an application to have it returned under the 1897 Police Property Act. In response, the NCA attempted to legally force decryption under the same act. The NCA argued, in the ruling documents, that they could only ascertain the contents of the devices if Love was forced to provide the encryption key. The district judge was not persuaded by this argument, saying, "The case management powers of the court are not to be used to circumvent specific legislation that has been passed in order to deal with the disclosure sought." Legal experts have noted that this case represents a civil action being put forth in a magistrate's court, which normally only deals with criminal issues.

Comments

Re: Why not turn over the keys?

[Anonymous Coward]

We are all criminals in someone's eyes.

Re:Why not turn over the keys?

[mark-t]

Because, perhaps, whatever one might be hiding is simply private?

Re:Why not turn over the keys?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because some law enforcement officers aren't above causing trouble if they don't like you or even if they see something in your house or on your computer that's perfectly legal but is out of the ordinary in their eyes. Because the right question to ask when privacy is concerned is not what you have to hide but why others are entitled to know about it. Simple example: most people close the door when they go to the toilet. It's perfectly legal, everyone does it, but still most people aren't comfortable when others watch them wipe their arse. Privacy isn't just about hiding criminal activities, it's about hiding perfectly innocent things too.

Re:Why not turn over the keys?

[Sparowl]

Your statement becomes ironic the moment you post as AC.

After all, if you have nothing to hide, why not post under your own name...

Re:Why not turn over the keys?

[delt0r]

Government first. They hide behind national security. They claim we have no business knowing their back door business deals. Well whats good for the goose and all that. They open their private lives and more importantly their government office lives they hide i may take such a claim seriously. But they don't. And the police are the worst offenders of this.

Spyware

[manu0601]

Will he get his machines back, loaded with police spyware. We know they can even stick that in hard disk's firmware.

Re:Why not turn over the keys?

[AmiMoJo]

I'd love to know why the CPS dropped their efforts to use RIPA to get the keys. I doubt they will ever tell us... Perhaps an FOI might work, but since it relates to an individual's potential prosecution it would probably fall under Data Protection rules.

Thing is, I can only think of three possible reasons, and two of them are quite worrying.

1) The CPS didn't want the bad publicity of sending someone with health issues to prison for two years for refusing to give up their privacy.

2) The CPS was hoping to subvert the law by holding his stuff and then pushing for a civil court order to disclose the keys.

3) The CPS felt that the prosecution was unlikely to succeed or that it wasn't in the public interest.