At 4:49 PM -0800 5/21/97, Jim Choate wrote:
Forwarded message:
Subject: Re: encryption laws (fwd) From: dlv@bwalk.dm.com (Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM)
If they had reasonable cause to believe you had knowledge of the key and were refusing to divulge it under direct order of the court you would be held in contempt until you were very old and gray.
Yes - the 5th Amendment is useless like all the other consitutional "rights".
The 5th is meant to apply ONLY to persons being accussed of a crime, it is not nor was it ever meant to protect non-accussed persons from turning over evidence of criminal acts.
So you are saying the police may compel any and all information from someone just so long as that person has not been formally accused of a crime? The Miranda precedent ("you have the right to remain silent...") establishes that someone under arrest may remain silent. And someone _not_ under arrest is under no obligation to cooperate, unless subpoenaed, right? The latest example being the Ramsey case in Boulder ("Home of PGP"). Much is made of the fact that the Ramseys, not being under arrest, are not required to *say anything* to the police. (Left unanswered is why innocent parents whose daughter has been brutally murdered would choose to say nothing to the police...even I, a skeptic about much that modern cops are involved in, am suspicious of the Ramseys for their noncooperativeness.) --Tim May There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws. Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!" ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1398269 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."