At 10:29 PM 4/4/01 +0200, Anonymous wrote:
In light of recent "situations" involving cpunks and the courts, I've been thinking about the 5th Amendment.
I pose two questions:
If called to testify in a criminal case, and asked the question "Are you known by any other names" (or a derivative of that question), could one plead the fifth in order to prevent the disclosure of a pseudonym?
If asked the question "have you ever communicated with [third party]", could one plead the fifth if that communication was made through a pseudonym, and tying that pseudonym to oneself could potentially be incriminating?
Indeed the 5th is up to you to decide ---after all, only you know what you've done. You can only be forced to talk to a GJ if given immunity for anything you say, by arrangement beforehand; I think this came up during Monicagate. JY or DM could easily take the 5th if they so chose. How would anyone (including themselves or their council) prove to them that any answer associating them with JB would not be incriminating in the next wave? An interesting twist against compelled key disclosure is making your passphrase something incriminating.