Child porn suspect jailed indefinitely for refusing to decrypt hard drives

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

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

Well, that kills that theory i guess.

[breadisfunny]

Is it illegal to view child porn? Manufacturing and distribution - obviously - but I wasn't aware that viewing it was a criminal activity. If so, it seems unprecedented to me.

Either way, holding someone indefinitely without charges strikes me as unconstitutional.

your can't be serious. just wow. it's been illegal for over a century and a half. it's a sick and disgusting act done by people who are equally sick and broken people who have no place on this planet.

[Fugus]

Well, that kills that theory i guess.

I am thinking all the scripting they throw into the site now to even load all the advertisements around the boarder of the forums does it.

This is the only site that does it and forced me to completely exit and reload the tab many times to get the speed back. Had a few of my responses I ended up typing on Notepad and paste here to get out.

[Saradain]

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.

And for such belief you need to have more than a hunch. A child in immediate danger such as being shut behind some impenetrable wall is pretty different than just suspected of possibly having pictures of a child on a harddrive, where the pictures are going to stay in and not being spread around (which creates the harmful implication of the crime).

I think you need to start worrying about the competency of your police, if a single man can indeed defy the collective might of justice of the self-proclaimed best country in the world

The issue here is not that a warrant would be unjustified, as many crimes are solved through having a belief of a crime taking place. Issue here is that you demand an alleged criminal to help you to imprison him. That is no different to certain countries in the world where the police may simply beat the shit out of you to get a confession for a crime with no evidence, a crime that did not happen. No child is in immediate, life-threatening danger in this case.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

And for such belief you need to have more than a hunch.

Well, they have a forensic investigation that leads directly to him and a witness that confirms the presence of child porn. So it is more than "a hunch". Whether thats enough to justify holding him contempt...that's way out of our paygrade

[The Stormbringer]

I'm just wondering what there is for the guy to benefit from giving the police access to his hard drives, if they're full of child porn. If he's going to do time, better to do it over obstruction of justice and contempt of the court. At least then he can claim innocence. Whereas, if he'd give access, and they'd find a ton of child porn there, he'd be a kiddy fiddler for the rest of his life, which might be quite short to begin with.

So, yeah... Absolutely no point for the guy to comply. None that I can see, anyway.

The possession of child porn is worse than actually murdering or raping someone? You've lost your marbles.

...sarcasm. I was using sarcasm. Contempt of court is bullshit and should not be used to hold people indefinitely. I'm pretty damn sure you can't hold people indefinitely for the crimes I listed, but you can for contempt of court. That's the distinction I'm trying to make here.

[Saradain]

Well, they have a forensic investigation that leads directly to him and a witness that confirms the presence of child porn. So it is more than "a hunch". Whether thats enough to justify holding him contempt...that's way out of our paygrade

I referred to the example of child hostage with "more than a hunch", not to case presented in the opening post. Read my edited post above.

[PaladinBash]

He's clearly hiding something there and I don't care about his right to hide it there. If he wasn't guilty, he'd show them to avoid all this bullshit.

[Jaxsz]

And for such belief you need to have more than a hunch. A child in immediate danger such as being shut behind some impenetrable wall is pretty different than just suspected of possibly having pictures of a child on a harddrive, where the pictures are going to stay in and not being spread around (which creates the harmful implication of the crime).

I think you need to start worrying about the competency of your police, if a single man can indeed defy the collective might of justice of the self-proclaimed best country in the world

The issue here is not that a warrant would be unjustified, as many crimes are solved through having a belief of a crime taking place. Issue here is that you demand an alleged criminal to help you to imprison him. That is no different to certain countries in the world where the police may simply beat the shit out of you to get a confession for a crime with no evidence, a crime that did not happen. No child is in immediate, life-threatening danger in this case.

How is this a police competency issue? It's not exactly that simple to get through Apple encryption to access the evidence. Do you actually think it is?

Obviously a living child in a basement and a hard drive with child porn are very different in reality, but not really when it comes to these cases. Both are locked behind theoretically impenetrable doors inside locations that a search warrant has deemed the suspect must provide law enforcement access to.

If he refuses to grant access, he is held in contempt until he does.

It's really that simple. Law enforcement has enough evidence to grant a search warrant for X location. Suspect is required to grant access to X location. If he refuses, he is defying the court order, hence contempt of court. Will be release when he complies. Not hard, not crazy, not violating his constitutional rights, not some insane new revelation. Just the way it has always worked, and probably should continue to work.

[breadisfunny]

He's clearly hiding something there and I don't care about his right to hide it there. If he wasn't guilty, he'd show them to avoid all this bullshit.

i say we let general population sort him out.

[The Stormbringer]

i say we let general population sort him out.

Yes, sure. Throw the potentially innocent, uncharged, no-evidence-against-them person in with the general population and let slip that they 'are pretty sure' he had child pornography on some hard drives. Also known as a death sentence.

Seems totally fair. Completely, utterly fair. /sarcasm

[Deleted]

I always keep a "child_porn.jpg" on all my devices that shows a very badly drawn naked MSPaint character with the text "Charlotte 8 years old" next to it. Just in case.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

I referred to the example of child hostage with "more than a hunch", not to case presented in the opening post. Read my edited post above.

On the one hand he has protection from being forced to incriminate himself.
On the other he is defying a court order demanding he unlock the drive.

The issue is whether simply unlocking the hard drives is grounds for self incrimination.

It's a matter to be decided by people with more understanding of the issue than we have. As it stands right now, the appeals court has sided that the contempt charge itself is enforceable. The next appeal might reverse that.

[breadisfunny]

Yes, sure. Throw the potentially innocent, uncharged, no-evidence-against-them person in with the general population and let slip that they 'are pretty sure' he had child pornography on some hard drives. Also known as a death sentence.

Seems totally fair. Completely, utterly fair. /sarcasm

a death sentence is exactly what he deserves. and yes it is completely fair. pedophiles and child molestors have no rights.
i am 100% for the death penalty so your anti death penalty arguments fall on "i don't give a shit" ears.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

Yes, sure. Throw the potentially innocent, uncharged, no-evidence-against-them person in with the general population and let slip that they 'are pretty sure' he had child pornography on some hard drives. Also known as a death sentence.

Seems totally fair. Completely, utterly fair. /sarcasm

Well, while I disagree they should just throw him in Gen-Pop...it's not accurate to say there is no evidence against him.

[Kellhound]

How is this a police competency issue? It's not exactly that simple to get through Apple encryption to access the evidence. Do you actually think it is?

Obviously a living child in a basement and a hard drive with child porn are very different in reality, but not really when it comes to these cases. Both are locked behind theoretically impenetrable doors inside locations that a search warrant has deemed the suspect must provide law enforcement access to.

If he refuses to grant access, he is held in contempt until he does.

It's really that simple. Law enforcement has enough evidence to grant a search warrant for X location. Suspect is required to grant access to X location. If he refuses, he is defying the court order, hence contempt of court. Will be release when he complies. Not hard, not crazy, not violating his constitutional rights, not some insane new revelation. Just the way it has always worked, and probably should continue to work.

He did grant them access to the drives, and they have them in custody. That is where his obligation to cooperate ends.

[Bushtuckrman]

If only every single pedophile maggot could be locked away for life in a rat infested shit hole for a prison cell. Here in Australia they are treated like they are VIP's. We even have a guy that was recently arrested, charged with murder AND refused bail because he accidently killed a pedophile while restraining him. The pedophile broke into the guys house and was found in the guys child's room and was previously arrested and given a slap on the wrist already for molesting a child. Disgusting!

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

They either need to make the case, or to get the fuck off. If they don't want to make the case now they need to release the man. They physically have the hard drives so they can work on it at their leisure.

Well, the 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals seems to feel differently. It really has nothing to do with the prosecution at this point.

[Jaxsz]

He did grant them access to the drives, and they have them in custody. That is where his obligation to cooperate ends.

In your opinion, but not the opinion of our laws and the courts. As many examples have pointed out, just because a suspect has evidence locked away behind impenetrable physical or virtual barriers doesn't mean he is no longer required to grant access.

He has to open the door to his basement just like he has to open the door to his hard drive. This might change some day, who knows, but right now it's pretty clear... and makes sense.

[xenogear3]

Is that why Steve Jobs dead for refusing decrypt an iphone?