re it had to happen
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Bill Stewart writes;
Assuming the arrest warrant was good not revealing the key to a duly authorized court representative would be illegal (ie interfereing with a police investigation). If the courts serve a warrant for your arrest and the confiscation of data on your hard drive (and you refuse to turn the data over even after talking w/ an attorney) is specificaly mentioned you are opening yourself up for another whole world of legal hurt.
A citizen would have the legal right to refuse prior to talking w/ an attorney but not after, at that point it becomes witholding evidence.
If the process is legal there should be no reason a citizen can refuse to turn over his private keys (I don't believe self-incrimination holds here).
Bill, help me out here, if the warrant allows them to confiscate your harddrive that part I can understand, But if being forced to provide the decryption isn't self-incrimination, what the hell good is what we're doing here. Brian Williams Extropian Cypherpatriot -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a iQCVAgUBLRnOTdCcBnAsu2t1AQEoaQQAllNzsD/MtKPC9awQbxKepja2zOAWaHvO IzOymSR3KizhwLOlFDXm3xEOx5kUfKYk6QDMk35Oz3GZXC0FRjnu2fLzc2SQInHo xprUvh/kmdaaDx220asohVjwDzoYLJC6UnB6lXhhp140If1Bvk7YcUGaBQvET26h EvYA9iS4XRY= =zZv+ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Here's the deal, as this certified non-lawyer sees it: * There is ample precedent for forcing suspects to hand over materiel other than spoken or written data. Keys to safe deposit boxes come to mind, as do of course blood and urine samples. * The tricky case is one in which the key is actually a phrase like "I am a drug dealer and I did the crime". I'm not exactly sure how this would be used in court; maybe something like "I refuse to reveal that information on the grounds that the key itself is in the form of a statement which could be construed to be incrimintating." Of course, I don't know why you couldn't always say that... If Mr. Godwin isn't too bothered by the re-emergence of this thread, he may choose to share with us further thoughts on the topic raised in the second bullet. My guess is that such a situation will have to be tested in court, and I can only hope that it gets tested with the assistance of some very skilled counsel. -- Mike McNally : m5@tivoli.com : Day Laborer : Tivoli Systems : Austin, TX ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Remember that all experimentation does not produce extrapolated results. - k. pisichko
Mike McNally writes:
* The tricky case is one in which the key is actually a phrase like "I am a drug dealer and I did the crime". I'm not exactly sure how this would be used in court; maybe something like "I refuse to reveal that information on the grounds that the key itself is in the form of a statement which could be construed to be incrimintating." Of course, I don't know why you couldn't always say that...
If Mr. Godwin isn't too bothered by the re-emergence of this thread, he may choose to share with us further thoughts on the topic raised in the second bullet. My guess is that such a situation will have to be tested in court, and I can only hope that it gets tested with the assistance of some very skilled counsel.
I am now convinced that even if the key were a statement of the form "I did crime X", it could still be compelled, because the actual statement is not testimonial, and would not be used as evidence (e.g., as an admission). --Mike
Brian Williams writes -
Bill Stewart writes;
Assuming the arrest warrant was good not revealing the key to a duly authorized court representative would be illegal (ie interfereing with a police investigation). If the courts serve a warrant for your arrest and the confiscation of data on your hard drive (and you refuse to turn the data over even after talking w/ an attorney) is specificaly mentioned you are opening yourself up for another whole world of legal hurt.
A citizen would have the legal right to refuse prior to talking w/ an attorney but not after, at that point it becomes witholding evidence.
If the process is legal there should be no reason a citizen can refuse to turn over his private keys (I don't believe self-incrimination holds here).
Bill, help me out here, if the warrant allows them to confiscate your harddrive that part I can understand, But if being forced to provide the decryption isn't self-incrimination, what the hell good is what we're doing here.
That's a good question, Bryan, and one I'm sure we'd all like to explore further. Can one be legally compelled to divulge the secret key(s) to encrypted data? Or does it fly in the face of self-incrimination? I CC:'d Mike Godwin on this because I'd value his views on this topic, if he'd care to express them. Being an attorney with considerable experience in digital matters, he may have an insight into this that we may be overlooking. Cheers, ____________________________________________________________________________ Paul Ferguson Sprint Managed Router Network Engineering tel: 703.904.2437 Herndon, Virginia USA e-mail: ferguson@icp.net
participants (4)
-
Brian D Williams -
ferguson＠icm1.icp.net -
m5＠vail.tivoli.com -
Mike Godwin