Post by Don on Mar 21, 2017 7:25:19 GMT -5
Rick Falkvinge, founder of the Swedish Pirate Party, thinks so. The argument in a nutshell?
...and a little more detail.
Ars Technica center-stages some of the details that Falkvinge passes over rather lightly, but I'm not sure that's germane, other than the squick factor that would make one tend to side with the prosecution. OTOH, they explain the court's logic, which I personally find less than compelling.
So how did they reach this "foregone conclusion?"
So even though a single picture and gossip from his sister isn't enough evidence to charge him with a crime, they can lock him up anyway, indefinitely, until he decrypts the drives that supposedly hold the evidence they need to charge him, but that isn't violating his rights?
Also, what does "logs that suggested the user had visited groups with titles common in child exploitation" even mean? (italics mine) It certainly does not translate to "the user visited groups involved in child exploitation" although that seems to be the interpretation the court is hoping for.
I think Falkvinge is right. If they can tap-dance their way to this conclusion, believing that file encryption is "legal" is simply another great way to end up illegally incarcerated, IMO.
An appeals court has denied the appeal of a person who is jailed indefinitely for refusing to decrypt files. The man has not been charged with anything, but was ordered to hand over the unencrypted contents on police assertion of what the contents were. When this can result in lifetime imprisonment under “contempt of court”, the United States has effectively outlawed file-level encryption – without even going through Congress.
Authorities are justifying the continued detention of this person – this uncharged person – with two arguments that are seemingly contradictory: First, they say they already know in detail what documents are on the drive, so the person’s guilt is a “foregone conclusion”, and second, they refuse to charge him until they have said documents decrypted. This does not make sense: either they have enough evidence to charge, in which case they should, or they don’t have enough evidence, in which case there’s also not enough evidence to claim with this kind of certainty there are illegal documents on the drive.
In any case, this loss in the Appeals Court effectively means that file level encryption is now illegal in the United States.
In any case, this loss in the Appeals Court effectively means that file level encryption is now illegal in the United States.
In deciding against Rawls, the court of appeals found that the constitutional rights against being compelled to testify against oneself were not being breached. That's because the appeals court, like the police, agreed that the presence of child porn on his drives was a "foregone conclusion." The Fifth Amendment, at its most basic level, protects suspects from being forced to disclose incriminating evidence. In this instance, however, the authorities said they already know there's child porn on the drives, so Rawls' constitutional rights aren't compromised.
The court also noted that the authorities "found [on the Mac Book Pro] one image depicting a pubescent girl in a sexually suggestive position and logs that suggested the user had visited groups with titles common in child exploitation." They also said the man's sister had "reported" that her brother showed him hundreds of pictures and videos of child pornography. All of this, according to the appeals court, meant that the lower court lawfully ordered Rawls to unlock the drives.
Also, what does "logs that suggested the user had visited groups with titles common in child exploitation" even mean? (italics mine) It certainly does not translate to "the user visited groups involved in child exploitation" although that seems to be the interpretation the court is hoping for.
I think Falkvinge is right. If they can tap-dance their way to this conclusion, believing that file encryption is "legal" is simply another great way to end up illegally incarcerated, IMO.
