7 ms·

5th amendment: "No person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself." How does this not apply here?

• icebraining 10y ago
  Providing your fingerprint (or blood, or DNA) is not considered testimony.
  • talles 10y ago
    But is kinda silly how "numeric passcodes are protected individual privacies, but fingerprints are not" in this case. The use of your blood or DNA in the case should dictate if it's applicable or not, not the nature of the evidence itself.
    • bendykstra 10y ago
      The purpose of the right against self-incrimination is to prevent forced confessions and torture. With that in mind, it makes sense to draw a line between compelling someone to provide their fingerprint or DNA and forcing someone to divulge something they know. When the state has the right to make someone talk, how does it go about it? Also, it's impossible to know whether someone actually knows the passcode to a device, so someone could end up imprisoned indefinitely just for forgetting a password.
  • Lawtonfogle 10y ago
    Once they can read minds, what then? And this isn't just science fiction; I've read reports that a persons inner monologue is soon to be accessible because when you talk in your head, it causes ever so slight commands to be sent to the voice box, which in turn reacts slightly. Not enough to produce sound or even be noticeable to a person, but which technology is being developed to pick up on.
• superuser2 10y ago
  The same way a search warrant can force you to hand over your diary.