(June 26, 2016 at 4:47 am)Cthulhu Dreaming Wrote:(June 25, 2016 at 1:44 pm)Tiberius Wrote: 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 don't have the time.e or inclination to do the legwork ATM but if you were to investigate jurisprudence in that matter, you will likely be disappointed .
My view on this is that it's analogous to disclosing a safe combination to satisfy a warrant. Search the safe all you want, but you can't compel me to help you. The difference here being that they're still going to bust the safe open, the encryption - not so much.
If he doesn't know the password (say, the hard drives are "spoof" containers created by someone else -- maybe, an enemy of his), then how long should he remain in jail due to that fact? Creating spoof containers is very, very easy:
1) Download VeraCrypt. (Just Google). Install and follow the directions.
2) Open notepad and close your eyes. Type random gibberish; select 60 or so characters (I think that the limit is 64) and copy into your clipboard.
3) Create a VeraCrypt container; copy and paste your "passphrase" from #2. Delete VeraCrypt, run a cleaning program (to remove all evidence) and then reboot.
4) Claim that someone whom you know and hate has child porn on their computer.
5) Some forensics "expert" will say that the file from #3 contains child pornography.
6) Watch & laugh as your enemy from #4 goes to jail for life.
