Encryption in Court

Apuleius writes "Adam Penenberg's current column in Forbes uses the Mitnick case to show the risks of letting technology case law be written by clueless judges. Raises some good points aboute CESA. "

The point I like most in the article concerns encryption. The Fifth Amendment prohibits the State from forcing an individual to testify against himself; this should include the right to keep your encryption keys secret (assuming that you've memorized them - if you've written them down somewhere and the prosecution finds them, you're out of luck). In Mitnick's case the prosecution justified withholding evidence from the defense on the grounds that they, the prosecution, couldn't understand what it said, and the Judge bought that story. (Of course, the Judge was a clueless fool who bought ALL of the prosecution's stories, including that Mitnick could hack his way out of prison if provided with a modemless computer, but we won't go into that here.)

The Question of Encryption, as it were, remains to be decided. Will defendants be forced to divulge their encryption keys? Will the FBI be granted the ability to break into your house and install trojan programs on your computer (as the CESA bill would allow them), so the Feds will already have your keys in hand? Or is there some other solution?