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Florida Court Says Suspected Voyeur Must Reveal His iPhone Passcode To Police (bbc.com)
A Florida appeals court has reversed a decision by a previous judge and ruled that a suspected voyeur can be made to reveal his iPhone passcode to police. "The defendant was arrested after a woman out shopping saw a man crouch down and aim what she believed was a smartphone under her skirt," reports BBC: Store CCTV captured footage of a man crouched down, holding an illuminated device and moving it towards the victim's skirt, according to court documents published by news site Courthouse News. Aaron Stahl was identified by law enforcement officers who reviewed the footage, according to court documents. After his arrest, Mr Stahl initially agreed to allow officers to search his iPhone 5, which he told them was at his home. However, once it had been retrieved by police - but before he had revealed his passcode - he withdrew consent to the search. The trial court had decided that Mr Stahl could be protected by the Fifth Amendment, which is designed to prevent self-incrimination. However, Judge Anthony Black's formal opinion to the court quashed the decision. Judge Black referred to a famous Supreme Court case, Doe v US 1988, in which Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that a defendant could be made to surrender a key to a strongbox containing incriminating documents but they could not "be compelled to reveal the combination to his wall safe." "We question whether identifying the key which will open the strongbox - such that the key is surrendered - is, in fact, distinct from telling an officer the combination," wrote Judge Black. "More importantly, we question the continuing viability of any distinction as technology advances."
BS the technology makes the wording irrelevant.
Stevens point was that if there's a key the police can find, they're entitled to use it. That includes finding the passcode on a sticky note or getting Apple to unlock the phone.
They are NOT allowed to compel a suspect to regurgitate words locked in his head... EVER... TECHNOLOGICAL REASONS BE DAMNED.
The Florida Supreme Court justices should be disbarred for such flimsy rationale.
You *DO* have the right to take photographs in public (at least, in the United States). But the defendant has an incorrect interpretation of this right.
The right to take photographs of individuals in public, from a public location, does not extend to situations in which the subject has a reasonable expectation of privacy. This means that "upskirt" photographs, or similar covert attempts to photograph people in a way that exposes that which is not visible under normal circumstances, is not a protected right. The basic reasoning is that by choosing to wear clothing that obscures your body in public, you have a reasonable expectation of privacy that no one is going to take photos from a point of view that would reveal what is under those clothes.
so if my lockscreen is an animation of a combo lock that you drag back and forth to enter the unlock code...
Would that make this judge's head explode?
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Fifth amendment violation. This judge isn't qualified to practice law in the United States.
-jcr
To further highlight the fucking idiot behind the bench referencing legal precedent:
"could be made to surrender a key... but could not be compelled to reveal the combination..."
A passcode is a fucking combination, moron.
Yes, you read it the same way I did. The appeals court judge in this case said he failed to see the distinction and disagreed with the earlier supreme court ruling.
And the Supremes were right and this judge wrong.
The portion of the Fifth that protects against self-incrimination is the US Constitution's answer to "Who will guard the guardians?" It's a practical measure to oppose torturing confessions out of people.
It's difficult to get a cop to bust another cop for torturing a suspect to force inforation out of him. But if forcing information out of a suspect means everything "tainted" by what he said is thrown out as evidence, torturing a suspect becomes, not just useless, but counter-productive. This is far more effective at reducing the use of rubber hoses, bright lights, kidney punches, and sleep deprivation on accused criminals that just a prohibition on doing so. (For starters, it's not good for career advancement if you blow a big case by getting all the evidence thrown out, including that which WASN'T, but MIGHT HAVE BEEN, developed from what the accused had said.)
"The judge says tell us the password." "I won't." What "or else" is next? It's pretty clear that forcing the password out of someone who doesn't want to turn it over is extracting info that might produce evidence to use against him. Fifth Amendment clear and simple.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The real problem is it places a legal status on your memory, that you are now committing a criminal act if you can not remember something. This is not a key or any other object it is an act of memory and not something that can be legally forced. Really with proper understanding of cerebral functionality and the provable plasticity of memory, how it can be changed by external and internal factors and as such only be considered some what reliable, even challenged false statements becomes questionable, letting alone demanding recollection as if the person is a machine with those memories permanently accurately engraved in space for all time, well, at least up until the time of death, well, at least for current legal practice.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
You have the right to remain silent. It's not illegal to exercise that right. The judge is wrong.
"Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America