> The 5th amendment guarantees that you can't be forced to incriminate yourself. It does, and my example was hyperbolic to my detriment by bringing in the 5th.

> The 5th amendment guarantees that you can't be forced to incriminate yourself. It does, and my example was hyperbolic to my detriment by bringing in the 5th. The point I was trying to make was that the act you described (a manual signature to enable a search) was equally transgressive in my eyes. The 1st Amendment does prohibit government-compelled speech, of which the act of digitally signing is (by analogy to signing) expressive conduct that merits protection. That alone should be sufficient to stop this case. Your example doesn't apply here. For one, as far as I can tell, being forced to reveal one's own encryption key remains an unsettled matter (I would argue 5th Amendment protections apply, were I before the court). Apple is not being asked to supply something that they possess, they are being asked to use something that they possess, to create something that doesn't exist, to give to the government in order to enable a search. The government hasn't established if they have exhausted their own resources, they haven't (to my knowledge) proposed payment for Apple's services (which would as I see it constitute taking), and they haven't established the probative value of what might be on the phone (probably zip). And, if the product of this search were to come up in court, Apple would have to testify to their methods and be subject to cross-examination. This whole situation is a tire fire.