Child porn suspect jailed indefinitely for refusing to decrypt hard drives

[Celista]

I can simultaneously lack sympathy for the guy and still think he deserves to have his rights upheld.

This is par for the course in contempt of court cases. I'm not sure why the OP decided to bring to light some dude in jail on kiddie porn when, if one wanted to piss upon the concept of contempt, there are far better means and examples from which to do so.

[Forgettable]

I don't think his being jailed in this manner is correct - Without being found guilty of a crime... But come on. If he didn't have child porn (or something else illegal) on those drives, he would have unlocked them already.

[Mayhem]

This has happened to you has it? Where do you live? Mexico?

Please give me one example of when police have used their stop and search powers and proceeded to confiscate money from the subject despite finding no evidence of criminal activity.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/inv...top-and-seize/

Under the federal Equitable Sharing Program, police have seized $2.5 billion since 2001 from people who were not charged with a crime and without a warrant being issued. Police reasoned that the money was crime-related. About $1.7 billion was sent back to law enforcement agencies for their use.

[Deleted]

No. To acquit yourself and prove your innocence, you simply need to provide the authorities with access to your hard drive. Stop being so obtuse.

No, Just no.

The Fifth Amendment protects individuals from being forced to incriminate themselves. Incriminating oneself is defined as exposing oneself (or another person) to "an accusation or charge of crime," or as involving oneself (or another person) "in a criminal prosecution or the danger thereof."[34] The privilege against compelled self-incrimination is defined as "the constitutional right of a person to refuse to answer questions or otherwise give testimony against himself. ... "[35] To "plead the Fifth" is to refuse to answer any question because "the implications of the question, in the setting in which it is asked" lead a claimant to possess a "reasonable cause to apprehend danger from a direct answer", believing that "a responsive answer to the question or an explanation of why it cannot be answered might be dangerous because injurious disclosure could result."

Also how is this not clearly a violation of the Fifth amendment? - has someone already chimed in with this one before?

[anon5123]

the Philadelphia man is keeping himself in jail by not unlocking his drive

its a choice
his choice that keeps him locked up

Oh yeah, let's just allow the government to flagrantly ignore the 4th and 5th amendment and just jail people on a suspicion, then demand that they incriminate themselves in order to be released.

I think the country you're looking for is North Korea.

[Gheld]

Wouldn't that line of reasoning mean that all warrants are illegal since giving the police access to your house is self-incriminating?

So let's compare it to a warrants.
This is like physically blocking the entrance to your house so they cannot find the information.
The Fifth seems to protect your mind and thoughts, not your property.

The password and/or encryption key is in his mind.

[Mehrunes]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/inv...top-and-seize/

This, and asset forfeiture in general, is among the most amazing US laws ever written. Around the levels of the Hague Invasion Act in terms of how amazing it is.

[Deleted]

Yeah it is pretty clear cut. You cannot force the accused to incriminate themselves. They need to figure out a way to decrypt it or prosecute him without that piece of evidence. I mean they must have other evidence that led them to him.

Cop stops driver due to tail light being out.
Cop hears a small child in the boot, crying.
Cop orders driver to open boot so he can investigate the sound.
Driver refuses, under the defence that opening the boot would incriminate himself.
Cop agrees, apologises and forgets all about small child locked in boot.

Yeah...no, it doesn't work like that.

At the end of the day a court order has been produced stating that this guy must make the data available to authorities. He's refusing, so he's been placed in prison due to contempt of court. Guy is an asshole. An apparently very guilty asshole.

[Tyrianth]

But aren't you required to unlock doors, etc, for a warrant?
The only difference is that they can physically break down a door if you refuse, so they don't have to keep you locked up.

You said it yourself, the 5th amendment is to protect a persons mind, not their property. Law enforcement can legally take his hard drive just as much as they can legally take the key to his house or, with no key, legally forcing their way in.

[Kujako]

But aren't you required to unlock doors, etc, for a warrant?
The only difference is that they can physically break down a door if you refuse, so they don't have to keep you locked up.

There are more differences in the 4th & 5th amendments than are dreamt of by your philosophy.

[Tyrianth]

Cop stops driver due to tail light being out.
Cop hears a small child in the boot, crying.
Cop orders driver to open boot so he can investigate the sound.
Driver refuses, under the defence that opening the boot would incriminate himself.
Cop agrees, apologises and forgets all about small child locked in boot.

Yeah...no, it doesn't work like that.

At the end of the day a court order has been produced stating that this guy must make the data available to authorities. He's refusing, so he's been placed in prison due to contempt of court. Guy is an asshole. An apparently very guilty asshole.

That's not even remotely comparable. Cops have the right to search property normally with a warrant, but they also have the ability to search without a warrant if they have reason to believe someone is in immediate danger (your scenario). An encryption key isn't property. They can't take it with force as it's not a physical object. They can take the hard drive and try to brute force their way in though. And no, refusing to give up your rights does not make you guilty. It makes you a person who knows their rights.

[Deleted]

I think the moral of this story is essentially that the United States Bill of Rights is fucking retarded.

[Torgent]

While if he is guilty of child porn he's a disgusting freak, he is being treated in an unconstitutional manner and has a very large lawsuit that will be easily won. The court may not ask him to incriminate himself, nor may they ask him to hand over passwords. If they want the evidence, they must find it. On their own, with search warrants. This man is going to become very wealthy and that judge is about to become in a lot of trouble. He is being illegally detained by order of this judge, fair chance this judge faces jail time in his stead.

Again, if he has child porn, he's disgusting. But that doesn't mean they can treat him any way they want under suspicion.

- - - Updated - - -

Wouldn't that line of reasoning mean that all warrants are illegal since giving the police access to your house is self-incriminating?

So let's compare it to a warrants.
This is like physically blocking the entrance to your house so they cannot find the information.
The Fifth seems to protect your mind and thoughts, not your property.

No, that's not comparable. Warrants means the officers themselves can search your home. You cannot refuse if there is a warrant.

What would be comparable would be if the officer handed you a warrant and that meant you had to go around your house collecting all of the drugs and evidence that they wish to find.

[In Ogres We Trust]

It's like that XKCD cartoon where the criminal gloats that nobody can decrypt his drive but then authorities hit him with a wrench until he agrees to comply.


http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2...t-hard-drives/

A Philadelphia man suspected of possessing child pornography has been in jail for seven months and counting after being found in contempt of a court order demanding that he decrypt two password-protected hard drives.

The suspect, a former Philadelphia Police Department sergeant, has not been charged with any child porn crimes. Instead, he remains indefinitely imprisoned in Philadelphia's Federal Detention Center for refusing to unlock two drives encrypted with Apple's FileVault software in a case that once again highlights the extent to which the authorities are going to crack encrypted devices. The man is to remain jailed "until such time that he fully complies" with the decryption order.

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.

The authorities have called two witnesses. One was the suspect's sister who claimed she looked at child pornography with her brother at his house. 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.

Donoghue wrote that investigators had decrypted a Mac Pro using a recovery key discovered on the iPhone 5S the authorities seized from his client's residence. He said no child pornography was found. The authorities want the suspect to decrypt two external drives discovered in the search.

He's not required to comply with the Prosecution, and there's a limited amount of time that they can detain him before violating his rights. In short, the judge is being an ass, and a good lawyer will get him out.

- - - Updated - - -

While if he is guilty of child porn he's a disgusting freak, he is being treated in an unconstitutional manner and has a very large lawsuit that will be easily won. The court may not ask him to incriminate himself, nor may they ask him to hand over passwords. If they want the evidence, they must find it. On their own, with search warrants. This man is going to become very wealthy and that judge is about to become in a lot of trouble. He is being illegally detained by order of this judge, fair chance this judge faces jail time in his stead.

Again, if he has child porn, he's disgusting. But that doesn't mean they can treat him any way they want under suspicion.

- - - Updated - - -



No, that's not comparable. Warrants means the officers themselves can search your home. You cannot refuse if there is a warrant.

What would be comparable would be if the officer handed you a warrant and that meant you had to go around your house collecting all of the drugs and evidence that they wish to find.

In short, this post.

[Torgent]

I think the moral of this story is essentially that the United States Bill of Rights is fucking retarded.

Works in the advantage of one potentially bad guy, must be shit.

Protects millions of people constantly, fuck that, it helped that one bad dude!

[In Ogres We Trust]

Cop stops driver due to tail light being out.
Cop hears a small child in the boot, crying.
Cop orders driver to open boot so he can investigate the sound.
Driver refuses, under the defence that opening the boot would incriminate himself.
Cop agrees, apologises and forgets all about small child locked in boot.

Yeah...no, it doesn't work like that.

At the end of the day a court order has been produced stating that this guy must make the data available to authorities. He's refusing, so he's been placed in prison due to contempt of court. Guy is an asshole. An apparently very guilty asshole.

The 5th Amendment prevents the Court and the Prosecution from forcing him to incriminate himself. In short, his rights are being violated, and this will be an easy issue to win on with a higher court.

[Deleted]

Works in the advantage of one potentially bad guy, must be shit.

Protects millions of people constantly, fuck that, it helped that one bad dude!

Yeah, that stuff about bearing arms has saved way more lives than it has cost!

[Torgent]

Yeah, that stuff about bearing arms has saved way more many lives than it has cost!

And that's the only amendment I would agree is fundamentally flawed. But please, keep your US bashing out of here. That's not what this is about.

[Deleted]

And that's the only amendment I would agree is fundamentally flawed. But please, keep your US bashing out of here. That's not what this is about.

It's not US bashing. It's amendment bashing. Please don't feel I'm singling out the U.S. I have plenty I could bash about my own country too.

[Torgent]

No, what it comes down to is people thinking some BoR-nonsense applies.
I don't see his advocate trying to claim that, I don't see that preventing the judge from giving him this punishment.

But on the internet everyone is a lawyer!

Lol BoR nonsense? The 5th amendment is very real and this is about as obvious of an infraction as there can be. Quote me in your sig. Come back to me when this case is over.

He will be freed even if he doesn't comply and decrypt his HD (on the contempt charge, what they find thereafter is another story), and he will win a large lawsuit against the court.