At 12:42 AM -0400 6/4/01, Declan McCullagh wrote:
>Yes, no, and it depends.
>
>Even ardent libertarians will probably agree with the idea of some kind
>of search warrants in some situations, so in those cases you don't have the
>right to "hide stuff" (though you can try).
>
>But those are exceptional conditions, or at least should be.
>
>This is not a meaningful question, truly.
_Before_ a search warrant is served, a person may generally do as he
wishes to "hide stuff." He may write in secret code, he may whisper
so that bugs cannot pick up his words, he may shred his diaries, he
may literally hide physical objects under the floorboards of his
house. None of these actions violates any law in the U.S., not even
the broad conspiracy laws...at least not yet.
(I only add the qualifier "generally" to avoid the anticipated
comeback about how someone may be obligated by his job at the CIA to
not shred his diaries, whatever. The basic point is valid.)
_During_ the serving of a search warrant, the target is neither
obligated to help with the search ("Tell us where you hid the loot!")
nor is he allowed to take further actions to "hide stuff."
_After_ the serving, that warrant is a dead letter. (Maybe there's
some strange ruling that says a target of a search warrant can't then
take later steps to "hide stuff," but I doubt it.)
So, neither before, during, or after does the "right to hide stuff"
even become a meaningful question, as Declan notes.
In this sense there's a practical "right to hide stuff." Part of the
more general point that there is no obligation to arrange one's
words, one's stuff so as to make some future police raid easier.
This doesn't have to be spelled out as a "right to hide stuff,"
though. Same reason there is no need to spell out some "right to
privacy." (And in fact, attempts to spell out such a right end up
doing all sorts of harm to liberty, e.g, by limiting what _others_
can do with information they lawfully obtained.)
--Tim May
--
Timothy C. May [EMAIL PROTECTED] Corralitos, California
Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon
Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go
Personal: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns
