U.S. Court Extends Fifth Amendment to Encrypted Data
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
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Except that their encryption is for passing on messages and ours is for hiding information of varying descriptioncobra_ky said:
And once again, you confuse the difference between "obstruction of justice" and "refusing to help" (in this case help IDENTIFY the robber, which isn't even close to helping his escape).Thyunda said:
As for whether or not it's acceptable: Legally it's perfectly acceptable.
Morally: Like i said, you reap as you sow. If i don't get along with my neighbor, it's entirely up to him whether or not he wants to help catch my burglar. But like i said, you reap as you sow, and if he later gets targeted by the burglar, then he will probably regret not handing over those tapes. Nonetheless, it's a great incentive to help each other out instead of not getting along.
No it's not. That's what YOU call aiding. Your definition is (legally) off.Thyunda said:
You cannot force people to care about whether or not there are criminals on the street. Now luckily, most people DO care because they have common sense and can see reason. But for the more stupid people out there, you sadly cannot prevent people from being stupid.
No it's not. The law is in place to in an attempt to prevent anarchy. There are many laws that doesn't protect people, and some laws that can be considered directly harmful to the people. In fact, calling the legal system for the 'justice' system is wrong in so many ways, because justice is a very definable size. Try travelling to some middle-eastern Muslim countries and ask the women there how the law protects them (hint: it doesn't, and they are often entirely at the mercy of their abusive husbands).Thyunda said:
I'll just quote the Supreme Court again:Thyunda said:
"One of the 5th Amendment's basic functions is to protect innocent men who otherwise might be ensnared by ambiguous circumstances. Truthful responses of an innocent witness, as well as those of a wrongdoer, may provide the government with incriminating evidence from the speakers own mouth."
Again, watch the video i linked several times in this thread. It might enlighten you. I'll remind you that the United States is one of the western countries with the highest conviction rate of innocent men.
Then how come so many people have been convicted through history while they were innocent? Because the legal system isn't perfect, that's why.Thyunda said:
'Deconstructing' a case against you, even if you're innocent, isn't easy. Again, watch the video i linked (you only need to watch the first half). It shows perfectly well how innocent men who doesn't invoke the so called "criminal protection" (as you described it) can easily get convicted without having done anything wrong.
Who says we might not be in 10 years? 20 years? You are trying to tell me you can predict the future here. Sorry for not biting.Thyunda said:
Also, I'd like you to link me this "Critical thinking and philosophy" study you seem to have taken, because I've never heard of it.
You're not a criminal until you are convicted.Thyunda said:
That, and like i said again, there are ways around this. You can't beat encryption, ever, because hidden volumes deconstructs the very thing you are trying to do, and there is nothing you can do about it.
Of course, if you actually knew anything about how encryption actually works... Ah, the bliss of discussing with ignorant people
)Your comparison is flawed. Encryption isn't tantamount to destroying evidence because nothing is destroyed. It is simply stored in a state which renders it unreadable unless you either know how to decrypt it or can crack the decryption. No information is lost, just the meaning is hidden, and this is no different than if you had physical documents written in code.reonhato said:
And you can absolutely bet that being able to decrypt physical documents would be used as evidence against you in court, just as possessing the means to decrypt computer files would be. Especially if there was something incriminating contained within. Which is why the 5th amendment absolutely should apply here.
If you're going to argue otherwise, at least use legitimate comparisons rather than comparing two things which aren't equivalent at all.
And that distinction is relevant how?Tipsy Giant said:
Link you to this 'critical thinking and philosophy'?!Athinira said:
Alright. Fine.
http://www.stokesfc.ac.uk/st/curriculum_courses/humanities
Oh. Wait. Did you want some hastily Googled video from some guy? No, see, I'm one of them educated types.
And once again - I can't comprehend how you can defend actively refusing to aid an investigation. Your neighbour doesn't hand the tapes over? Because of him, the criminals are not identified. Because of him they can strike again. See, with your attitude, we can't remove the stupid. But with a more...forward-thinking approach, then yes, we CAN. People need to respect the police. 'Never trust a copper' is 70s talk. I like to think we've come past that. If the officer asks 'what's in the box', you open the box. The law enforcement has a job to do. An important job.
And the Middle East is an excellent example of why religion and state should remain totally separate. That doesn't apply here. We're talking about the fair, democratic, safe-for-all, equality-driven West.
Course, it's not safe at all, because you can avoid jail by simply telling the FBI "No, I won't let you see the evidence against me."
Well it's relevant as the "Founding Fathers" could not have known that an entire libraries worth of text with moving images proving fault could be stored and encrypted, can't believe i'm arguing whether a bunch of dudes from 1776 predicted hard drive encryption....!Vivi22 said:
...and similarly, being in possession of a computer with encrypted contents doesn't mean you know what the password for that content arereonhato said:
)No, no and no.reonhato said:
First of all, nothing is hidden. The police have access to the data, they just don't have the knowledge of how to read it. Shredding papers is DESTRUCTION of data. An entirely different thing. Destructed things can't necessarily be reconstructed, and those papers can therefore be irrecoverably lost. Decrypted data can ALWAYS be recovered if someone knows how to do it.
Second of all, you assume beforehand it's evidence. Until the content is actually decrypted, you don't know if it was just random data, of if there was actually something of interest to the case.
Thirdly, you don't know if anyone is "refusing" anything. Until the data actually gets decrypted, you cannot conclusively prove that the defendant is actually capable of decrypting the data to begin with. The law states that you cannot be held in contempt of court for not doing something you are incapable of doing.
.
Since you decided to bring in the example with you knowing your moms password, allow me to extend your example:
Imagine that your mom gives you her computer since she has gotten a new one. A few months later, the feds knock on your door with a search warrant because they believe to have evidence that there are illegal content on your computer (or maybe they believe you are tax frauding and wants to seize any documents that could be relevant, including digital ones). On your computer they find a file of random data (from back when your mom had the computer), which they suspect is an encrypted file.
Now first, they demand you decrypt it. You deny being able to decrypt it, stating that it's a leftover file from when your mom was the proprietor. The feds talk to your mom, but she says she forgot the password (or maybe she isn't sure what file they mean or can't remember) since it's some months since she used the computer.
Now, by your logic, the feds can now charge both you and your mom for withholding evidence, even though they cannot conclusively prove that the file is actually an encrypted file, or that either of you actually know (remembers) a valid password for the file.
And once again, i will remind you that real criminals CAN and WILL cheat the feds with a hidden volume, one which you cannot prove the existence of.
a hard drive can only store binary data, which can be interpreted as text, images, or what have you. In any case, means of encrypting or hiding data, whether visual or textual, has existed for millenia and the Founding Fathers were certainly aware of the methods available to them, as they used them extensively throughout the Revolution.Tipsy Giant said:
They certainly knew that written documents, which can be equally incriminating, could be encrypted.Tipsy Giant said:
No one is arguing that the Founding Fathers predicted modern computing technology. We are arguing that the principle of data encryption is identical to the one the Founding Fathers protected in the Bill of Rights.
They are irrelevant nowadays, the world is so different today than it was then, they need to write a new constitution, that's right I said it.cobra_ky said:
He's not defending it, he's pointing out it isn't illegal to not cooperate so long as police aren't knocking on the door with a warrant for evidence they believe you possess. I'm surprised such a distinction seems to be slipping past "one of them educated types."Thyunda said:
What world are you living in these days? Yeah, police have an important job to do. But mistakes do happen, abuses of power are surprisingly common, particularly in America, and not only do you have the right to consult with a lawyer before helping the police, it's a good idea to because anything has the potential to be taken out of context and misconstrued to land yourself or other innocent people in prison. It does happen, and you'd have to have your head in the sand not to realize that.
The scale doesn't matter though because the principal is the same regardless of how much content is involved. If someone wanted to they could encode every physical document they ever produced, so again, how is the distinction your trying to make supposed to be relevant just because the potential scale has changed?Tipsy Giant said:
This is very interesting as it on the one hand its preventing catch 22, but on the other its just going to help pedophiles etc. to not be caught.
Yay, it's always good to see individual rights finally catch up with technology. A lot like last month when they said planting a GPS on someone's stuff violates the 4th.
Now let's not bring in the faults of the legal system here - that's an argument for a larger battlefield. I, personally, despise the fact that you need a lawyer to speak to the law. Or that you can be jailed on a misinterpretation.Vivi22 said:
But then, I'm not just talking from a legal standpoint. My studies were in social humanities, not in legal. I'm seeing it from a moral and practical standpoint. We've managed to breed a culture of every man for himself, and it's just not right. It's wrong to withhold evidence from the law, no matter who the evidence is against and who is doing the hiding. If he needs to have a lawyer look over the files first, to make sure there's nothing incriminating, I can't see a problem with that. He should be permitted to decrypt the files in privacy at least. But those files need to be decrypted. And that's the end of it.
You wouldn't agree that stating Lobbying to be illegal would help to make bribery clearer? Oh and stopping Corporations from being classified as humans?cobra_ky said:
Again, not equivalent. The police have full access to the data, they simply lack the means to read it.reonhato said:
Let's put it another way, if I possess documents which the police confiscate that are written in German, I'm not obligated to translate them for them. If they want to read them, they have to have them translated. Just as if they want to read encrypted data, they have to try and crack it.
It absolutely is bearing witness as it proves you had access to the data. It may not prove you had sole access, but prosecutors can easily make the argument that someone who took the trouble to encrypt a hard drive is not giving out the password to others, especially if it contained evidence which may indicate criminal activity. By helping them decrypt it you make their case stronger than if they have to access it on their own. How you can argue that isn't equivalent to testimony that incriminates you is beyond me, especially when explaining how to decrypt something essentially is giving testimony.
But that's just it, it's the governments job to make the case against a defendant. They don't have to help them do it, and even the act of showing them how to decrypt files can be used against a defendant, whether rightly so or not.Thyunda said:
Yes, in an ideal world, I'd like to see criminals go to jail because prosecutors have all of the evidence against them and can build a solid case. But such protections aren't there to protect criminals from prosecution, but potentially innocent suspects from helping the government convict them. Whether you like it or not, a choice has to be made between giving government broad power to investigate and protecting innocent people from abuse of government power and wrongful conviction. Personally, I value the latter more than convicting a few more criminals, or perhaps more accurately, convicting them sooner since most repeat offenders slip up eventually, and particularly when prosecution and punishment play a fairly minor role in actually preventing crime.