Guy locked-up forever for forgetting his password.

[TheRealJoeFish]

The way I see it -- and perhaps I'm alone in this line of thinking -- presumption of innocence is important, and so is the fifth amendment.

Forcing the accused to unlock a laptop with a password for the purposes of an investigation, if that laptop contains incriminating information, is self incrimination. The test for self-incrimination should be "could the police have obtained that exact piece of evidence without the help of the accused?" If the answer is "yes", then it is not incrimination.

I would rather see 1,000,000 guilty people go free, that sacrifice the 5th amendment and presumption of innocence.

I agree with you in this line of thinking. The problem is that in our legal system, the presumption of innocence is a nice myth and the fifth amendment means nothing in the face if getting re-elected which they need lots of convictions for.

See my comment above; I think this is a misinterpretation of the fifth amendment. An officer can force you to let them in your house if they have a warrant. So too can the officer force you to let them into your computer if they have a warrant. This is like saying "having to hand an officer a key to your storage space is self-incrimination for fifth amendment purposes." (Edited to add: if it's not clear, such an argument is specious) The password (like the key) isn't what's incriminating; it's whatever physical stuff is in the computer (storage space).

The fifth amendment is wayyyyy less expansive than most people think. TV has something to do with that.