Forced Decrypt: US Judge Jails Defendant Six Months for Contempt re Phone Unlock

[jim bell]

 Well, I agree that this kind of case ought to be pre-empted by the Fifth Amendment.   And I say that as a person who has spent many thousands of hours in a (prison) law library.  However, law sometimes takes a long time to come to that correct conclusion.  There was a SC case in 2000, called Kyllo, which prohibited the use of thermal IR viewing to develop probable cause, for example in marijuana grow cases.     Kyllo v. United States    The SC came to the correct conclusion, though I disagreed with the reasoning they used.  (it depended on their NON-understanding of the science and technology of thermal-IR viewing.)
Similarly, in 2012, the SC decided that it was necessary to get a warrant for placing a GPS device on a car, to "following it around".   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Jones

That, despite the argument that the information collected could, in theory, have been collected merely by placing a cop on every streetcorner, and then taking records.  The contrary argument prevailed.  I agreed with the contrary argument:  In principle, I think that as a society, we don't want to operate on a principle that every new technology should automatically be useable against people.
One can imagine a technology someday usable, which takes a continuous movie from, say, a vantage a few hundred miles up (using multiple passing satellites) of any given city.  Would police be right if they consulted such a movie for evidence of a moving vehicle?
Even more recently, just a month ago, the SC decided a case involving cell-phone metadata, and tracking people by their cell phones.  They decided that such were "searches" and thus a warrant was required.    https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/22/politics/supreme-court-ruling-cell-phone/index.html     I also agreed with this decision.  

                Jim Bell
×









    On Wednesday, July 18, 2018, 12:02:31 PM PDT, \0xDynamite <dreamingforward at gmail.com> wrote:  
 
 This is ridiculous.  There is ZERO obligation for anyone to unlock
their phone anymore than unlocking your house.  If any "law
enforcement" officer wants to insist on such, THEY BETTER HAVE AN
EXECUTIVE ORDER.

On 7/18/18, John Newman <jnn at synfin.org> wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 17, 2018 at 06:37:19PM -0400, grarpamp wrote:
>> https://gizmodo.com/florida-man-jailed-for-failing-to-unlock-his-phone-1827600878
>> http://www.fox13news.com/news/local-news/judge-jails-man-for-failing-to-unlock-phones
>> https://old.reddit.com/r/PoliticalDiscussion/comments/8yz2za/a_man_got_6months_in_jail_for_not_unlocking_his/
>> https://old.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/8y8yd1/man_faces_6_months_in_florida_jail_for_not/
>> https://old.reddit.com/r/news/comments/8yx73q/judge_jails_defendant_for_failing_to_unlock_phones/
>> https://old.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/8ypu6s/guy_gets_tossed_in_jail_for_contempt_charges/
>> https://old.reddit.com/r/law/comments/8z9zjr/judge_jails_man_for_180_days_for_refusing_to/
>> https://yro.slashdot.org/story/18/07/15/2012230/judge-jails-defendent-for-failing-to-unlock-phones
>> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17547562
>> https://old.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/8z63lz/us_courts_can_force_you_to_decrypt_or_provide/
>> http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/rodriguez-v-united-states/
>>
>> https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4597748/Emergency-Writ.pdf
>> https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4597747/Search-Warrant-and-Affidavit.pdf
>>
>> In a Tampa courtroom, Judge Gregory Holder held William Montanez
>> in contempt of court for failure to unlock a mobile device. What
>> led to this was a frightening slippery slope that threatens our
>> Fourth Amendment rights to the core. Montanez was stopped for failing
>> to yield properly. After being pulled over, the officer asked to
>> search his car; Montanez refused, so the officer held him until a
>> drug dog was brought in to give the officer enough probable cause
>> to search the vehicle. They found a misdemeanor amount of marijuana,
>> which they used to arrest Montenez, but they asked to search his
>> two cellphones, which he also refused. They were able to secure a
>> warrant for those as well, but Montenez claimed he had forgotten
>> his password. The result: Montanez is being held in contempt of
>> court and is serving a six-month jail sentence.
>>
>> "I don't know the code, sir," he stated.
>> So the judge found him in civil contempt and threw him in jail.
>
> ARG! Fucking disgusting. At least he didn't have a fingerprint or
> "FaceID" unlock setup, or they could've manhandled him into unlocking it
> biometrically. So, basically: keep using a PIN code (which can still be
> broken, but is rather a PITA for the pigs).
>
> John
>
>>
>>
>> http://www.decidethefuture.org/
>
> --
> GPG fingerprint: 17FD 615A D20D AFE8 B3E4  C9D2 E324 20BE D47A 78C7
>
  
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