Hey stupids at the DOJ: thanks for letting the world know the limitations of the NSA’s decryption capabilities.
Now, if you'll excuse them, the US Department of Justice has thousands of military weapons to give to the Mexican narco-trafficking cartels.
I don’t recall worked great for Hillary Clinton!
Need a whole disk encryption system that allows you to enter two passwords.
One password reveals the real stuff. Another password reveals the fake stuff while it deletes and rewrites random data over the real stuff.
But then that would be tampering with evidence or some other charge. So best to just take the 5th and stay quiet.
This will be an interesting case. What happens if they give you immunity to compel your testimony that the password you provided won’t be used to prove you had access to the machine? They could force your testimony then, no?
I FORGOT..............Steve Martin................
I’m surprised there haven’t been more of these cases, but then I’m surprised more people don’t take measures to protect their data both in terms of backup and security.
Clearly falls under the Fifth Amendment (assuming we still have one). Legal types will get hung up on what and what doesn’t constitute ‘testimony’ but the Fifth, of course, deals with bearing witness against oneself in or out of court.
I suppose the best defense for anyone in this spot is to simply say ‘I forget the password. I guess we’re both screwed.’
Ummmm.
No you can't.
You gonna bring back the rack?
The Iron maiden?
Drawing and quartering?
Water boarding that is prohibited from being used on mortal enemies?
Good luck with that.
“The Obama administration has asked a federal judge to order the defendant, Ramona Fricosu, to decrypt an encrypted laptop that police found in her bedroom during a raid of her home.”
Maybe she can say:
“My lawyer and I will gladly submit any questions you have for my laptop computer, and question by question, under my lawyers advice we will make my laptop computer answer any question that will not violate my Fifth Amendment rights. But no, we will not allow you to interrogate my laptop with any lower standard with which you are not allowed to interrogate me.”
Just trying to speak in “legalese” even though I am not totally convinced of that argument myself.
A few years back I used truecrypt to set up an encrypted drive on my computer to store tax returns, scanned receipts etc. Following the recommendations from the truecrypt instructions I set up a long password (more like a pass paragraph) with upper and lower case letter, numbers and symbols. Worked fine for a couple months, until I fell behind with my receipt scanning and didn’t mess with it for a few weeks, then of course I forgot the password and couldn’t find where I had written it down. So long story short, hours of work down the crapper. I guess if my computer had been confiscated by the feds, I could also be facing jail time for not being able to produce the password. That sure would add insult to injury...
I find this outrageous - there’s no clearer example of self-incrimination short of being compelled a gunpoint to say, “Yeah, I did it” and sign a “confession.”
Of course, one could always have an encryption program that wipes the hard drive if you enter the password incorrectly X number of times (3 or 5 or 10). One could fail to capitalize a letter, or get “fat fingers” or whatever...and good-bye data.
Your reminder of the simple Hillary Clinton defense of “I don’t recall” is a big winner - because they cannot prove otherwise, just as no one could prove that “the world’s smartest woman” remembered none of the multitude of details of what she was being questioned about. They could be very suspicious, but never prove a thing.
I don’t advocate breaking the law (even if the law is violative of the Constitution, as it often is). However, certain parts of the Constitution’s protections of our rights must be inviolate or we are dealing with nothing less than an outright dictatorship. The 5th Amendment protection against self-incrimination is one such. The data on a computer is certainly capable of incriminating a person - hence the reason the DOJ wants to see it - and being compelled to release it CANNOT be permitted. I, too, would rather be in jail on contempt than to release the information. Besides, I don’t put it past prosecutors to falsify what is there to suit their case (evidence tampering is not exactly a new concept), but they can’t do it if they haven’t had access to the data in the first place.
If this was in a book in a foreign language the DOJ would have to hire an interpriter.
When the Feds show up at your house with a search warrant, they can compel your cooperation in unlocking doors and opening safes and such. Demanding a laptop password is little different.
Did I read the article correctly to see that the laptop encryption was done with PGP?
I think I’ll set my encryption password to be “F-off, you DOJ Obambot monkeyslime. You can KMA if you think I am going to give you my password.” And I think I will have a case for wrongful imprisonment...
Hey they can force you to buy health insurance. Why not reveal a password?