As far as the 5th amendment goes this has already been decided in a court case. 
 I will try to find a reference but in a nutshell it was determined that the 
5th does not apply to password or certificate based encryption.  This decision 
had something to do with the fact that an encryption scheme is like a safe.  
With a warrant you are expected to provide access to the safe.  Failure to do 
so is not oj it's contempt of court.  A contempt charge can result in immediate 
incarceration at the pleasure of the judge this can be perpetual until you 
cough up the password.

I remember a discussion on this ruling where someone was mentioning that this 
meant that, if you had an enemy you could place a hidden and encrypted volume 
on their computer, make an anonymous report that you looked over their shoulder 
at work and saw that they had somethimg illegal.  Boom instant perpetual 
incarceration because your enemy doesnt know the password.



Nicholas Leippe <[email protected]> wrote:

>On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 5:23 PM, Henry Paul <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Perhaps the police would not be able to break the encryption, but what
>> is to stop them from simply obtaining a court order to compel you to
>> unlock the drive for them?
>
>It's called the 5th amendment. You can plead it forever and there's
>nothing they can do about it.
>They might then try to get you on obstruction of justice, but IANAL.
>
>/*
>PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net
>Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug
>Don't fear the penguin.
>*/

/*
PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net
Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug
Don't fear the penguin.
*/

Reply via email to