Child porn suspect jailed indefinitely for refusing to decrypt hard drives

[Jaxsz]

it is self incrimination, he is being held and they are trying to force him to do something. they cannot force the suspect/accused to do anything. He has the right to remain silent.

You seem new to the law and how things like warrants and searches work.

[Mormolyce]

So he can't simply plead the 5th Amendment?

[Fugus]

Well, the court of appeals has apparently upheld the decision...so the testimony must have been convincing enough.

Then they aren't looking for justice at that point, they are a kangaroo court trying to railroad him. He should appeal to a higher court.

Witness testimony is not considered enough evidence for something like that to my knowledge. Witnesses aren't considered reliable enough overall.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

Then they aren't looking for justice at that point, they are a kangaroo court trying to railroad him. He should appeal to a higher court.

Witness testimony is not considered enough evidence for something like that to my knowledge. Witnesses aren't considered reliable enough overall.

It's witness testimony + expert testimony based on the investigation that lead the authorities to this man's doorstep in the first place.

The other was a forensic examiner who testified that it was his "best guess" that child pornography was on the drives," Donoghue wrote. The investigation began in 2015 when Pennsylvania prosecutors were monitoring the online network Freenet and executed a search warrant of the man's home.

[Kellhound]

Contempt of Court and the All Writs Act need to go away.

[Jaxsz]

if you could imprison people based off "very likely" then we might as well just get rid of the court system and send everyone to Guantanamo.

"Very likely" aka reasonable suspicion aka probable cause is what law enforcement uses to get warrants to search. The evidence gathered during the search is what they utilize to press charges and get a conviction.

In this case they had reasonable suspicion to get a warrant and search. They found the hard drives which likely hold the evidence they need. The suspect is now defying the court order to gain access to the evidence they have found. He is now being held in contempt until he agrees to give them access to the evidence (ie. if they found a safe in your house that may hold a murder weapon and they cannot brute force their way inside, you would need to provide them access).

If he grants them access, he can walk right out of prison, and if there is indeed no child pornography on the drives then he is free to go... just like if law enforcement gets a warrant to search your house, you have to step aside while they search it and if they find nothing you are free to go.

This is not the 5th amendment. People really need to get a grip on how some basic shit works.

He is refusing to obey a court order to grant access to evidence. Law enforcement had a warrant to search for this evidence. He holds the keys to his salvation here.

Cops tracked his internet activity providing ample evidence that he was likely the one downloading child porn. They got a warrant to search his property. They found the hard drives that the evidence says the downloads were likely stored on. He now has to grant access to this evidence or he will continue to be held in contempt. He is not a saint and they are not violating his constitutional rights.

[zhero]

Well, the court of appeals has apparently upheld the decision...so the testimony must have been convincing enough.

the appeals court hasn't looked at this case yet.

[Sunseeker]

We should repeal the All Writs Act.

I'm seriously LOLing at the people who are ignoring the fact that this is breaking at least 2 constitutional amendments soldily and several more depending on interpretation.

The 4th, compelling a person to provide possible evidence against themselves could constitute an unreasonable search and seizure. Or a little more clearly, they lack probable cause to want access to the drives. Expert testimony amounting to "there's probably porn there(but I haven't seen it so I don't know)" isn't worth shit.
The 5th, for starters, self incrimination. If the cops can't get dirt on you, you can't be compelled to give them evidence against you.
the 6th, the right to a trial by jury of his peers (the court hearing is not this). Among other violations of the 6th. Basically the 6th Amendment was tossed out the window for this case.
May be a violation of the 8th as this could constitute an excessive fine/bail even cruel, and likely unusual punishment.

Basically, this is a gross miscarriage of justice and anyone defending it is taking a shit all over the Constitution and any reasonable sort of justice system.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

the appeals court hasn't looked at this case yet.

Yeah, they have

The suspect's attorney, Federal Public Defender Keith Donoghue, urged a federal appeals court on Tuesday to release his client immediately, pending the outcome of appeals. "Not only is he presently being held without charges, but he has never in his life been charged with a crime," Donoghue wrote (PDF) in his brief to the 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals.

The government successfully cited a 1789 law known as the All Writs Act to compel (PDF) the suspect to decrypt two hard drives it believes contain child pornography.

Right from the OP

[Fugus]

It's witness testimony + expert testimony based on the investigation that lead the authorities to this man's doorstep in the first place.

A witness may lead an investigation to your doorstep, but it isn't enough to count as evidence in and of itself. And the expert testimony needs to have some reason behind the decision which could be used as evidence as his emotion is worthless without a reason to back it up.

[Krawu]

I don't know the specifics of the case, but citing a piece of legislature from 1789 seems like they're really digging deep. This kind of law shouldn't be applicable to as modern a topic as IT security.
Now, I don't give a shit about what this guy has on his drives, but if police can't produce evidence to make the conviction, why should it be legal for them to force anyone to incriminate themselves? Encrypting data means nothing if any body of law can just make you decrypt it at a whim. This kind of law to compel cooperation with police work is way too easily abused for political reasons and the way down this kind of slippery slope is too high a price to pay for one scumbag.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

A witness may lead an investigation to your doorstep, but it isn't enough to count as evidence in and of itself. And the expert testimony needs to have some reason behind the decision which could be used as evidence as his emotion is worthless without a reason to back it up.

The investigation of Freenet led to his IP. Means they must have tracked suspect data packets directly to his IP. They know the data made it to his IP address. The "Best Guess" of the forensic investigator is that, because it wasn't found on his computer itself, it's most likely on the external drives.

[Fugus]

It's witness testimony + expert testimony based on the investigation that lead the authorities to this man's doorstep in the first place.

Sorry, just read the last part you quoted. That makes the difference. They DO have circumstantial evidence to go with the witness testimony to back it up. Those two combined would satisfy it I would think.

In what you quoted, it states they were monitoring Freenet at which point I am thinking his IP address came up in that given what I know about how Freenet works.

The monitoring they did of Freenet which had his IP address show up (the investigators were probably hosting a node) combined with the witness testimony would be enough I would think.

[Steve French]

Hoookay.

1> If they have grounds for the search, they should have grounds to file charges, and should have done so. They can delay the trial until they get access to the files. No grounds to hold him if he hasn't even been charged with anything.

2> People are claiming 5th Amendment privileges, but this is more like refusing to give the cops your car keys so they can see what's in your trunk. That's obstruction. It's not asking you to testify. As much as I think this is wrong, it's not a 5th Amendment issue.

3> If they HAD charged him, and he'd refused like this, contempt of court can't keep you imprisoned longer than the charges would have. That said, the maximum sentence in that case would be 5 years in PA for a first offense, so 7 months is just getting started.

But seriously; charge the guy or let him go. I'm on the side of "charge the guy".

Charge him with what? That's the whole point they don't seem to have a shred of evidence, yet still arrested and imprisoned him and told the public hes a child molester. I agree if they find any child porn he should be jailed but they have nothing.

[Mormolyce]

I looked it up, apparently it's a bit of a legal grey area that's currently under dispute. The US doesn't have any official "key disclosure laws" that would clarify the matter, so it's just up to case law which is currently inconsistent.

We might see this make it to the SCOTUS, especially in light of the Apple case.

Not if they are in contempt.

Yeah I looked it up and in cases of contempt there is no principle of proportionality, and the longest such case was 14 years. For refusing to pay a $2.5m fine.

[Fugus]

The investigation of Freenet led to his IP. Means they must have tracked suspect data packets directly to his IP. They know the data made it to his home. The "Best Guess" of the forensic investigator is that, because it wasn't found on his computer itself, it's most on the external drives.

Yeah, was typing up about that but the whole site is running like crap for me for now. Something with this site is screwing with my browser (Google Chrome). Took me a bit to type it out.

[Jaxsz]

We should repeal the All Writs Act.

I'm seriously LOLing at the people who are ignoring the fact that this is breaking at least 2 constitutional amendments soldily and several more depending on interpretation.

The 4th, compelling a person to provide possible evidence against themselves could constitute an unreasonable search and seizure. Or a little more clearly, they lack probable cause to want access to the drives. Expert testimony amounting to "there's probably porn there(but I haven't seen it so I don't know)" isn't worth shit.
The 5th, for starters, self incrimination. If the cops can't get dirt on you, you can't be compelled to give them evidence against you.
the 6th, the right to a trial by jury of his peers (the court hearing is not this). Among other violations of the 6th. Basically the 6th Amendment was tossed out the window for this case.
May be a violation of the 8th as this could constitute an excessive fine/bail even cruel, and likely unusual punishment.

Basically, this is a gross miscarriage of justice and anyone defending it is taking a shit all over the Constitution and any reasonable sort of justice system.

Definitely not an unreasonable search. 5th amendment says nothing about "self incrimination," it's primarily about being forced to testify against yourself. Not relevant.

6th is also irrelevant, trial hasn't begun because he is still sitting in contempt for refusing to provide reasonable access to evidence acquired during a legal search with probable cause.

You just don't know all the evidence that was utilized to set up the case against the suspect to gain access to the search warrants etc where the evidence was gathered. The suspect is in law enforcement - if anything, they're far more likely to REALLY gather a lot of evidence before considering granting a warrant and walking down that road.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

Yeah, was typing up about that but the whole site is running like crap for me for now. Something with this site is screwing with my browser (Google Chrome). Took me a bit to type it out.

No worries. I've had similar problems with this site and chrome. I think it may be related to my adblocker

[Fugus]

No worries. I've had similar problems with this site and chrome. I think it may be related to my adblocker

Nope, I have no adblocker and it still runs like butt and keeps crashing the Shockwave Flash plugin built into Chrome.

[Jaxsz]

People seem really hung up on the idea that because it's digital or has a password protecting it that he shouldn't have to grant access to it when he is presented with a warrant to search.

That isn't how things work, and it isn't how things should work.

Let's say law enforcement had probable cause to believe you were holding a child hostage in your basement. They arrive with warrants and bust in. You have some epic doors blocking any access to the basement, so they can't get in to look. You refuse to tell them the code to get in. They're never able to force their way in.

This suspect will not just get off free, with police saying "shit, the guy won't let us in, he must be clean!" He will be in prison for contempt of court until he opens that door, which makes sense. Otherwise he can sit in prison for contempt for the entire duration of the likely charge, which at that point would be kidnapping and murder etc.

This isn't a case of being held in contempt because he won't tell us where a body is buried, or where he hid a murder weapon in the woods. This is simply "we have a warrant to search this area, and the court has ordered you to grant us access to search it." The suspect just has to comply.