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>Your interpretation of the 5th amendment is quite different than it has been historically interpreted by the courts. Part of the issue seems to be the courts

>Your interpretation of the 5th amendment is quite different than it has been historically interpreted by the courts. Part of the issue seems to be the courts are very proficient in coming up with very interesting interpretations. It feels a lot like a literature or art interpretation class, where everything is BS but a lot of people have a bunch of rules convincing them they aren't. Then again, the founding father's weren't too much different. Founding fathers: "All men created equally". Also founding fathers: owns slaves (some at least)

brightball 10y ago
Have you ever read up on why Jefferson chose those words?
- samfisher83 10y ago
  They thought British would beat confessions out of people which still somewhat happens.
rayiner 10y ago
The word "witness" is a legal term with a specific meaning. It requires providing testimonial evidence. The landlord that unlocks the defendant's apartment where the bodies are stored in the fridge is not a "witness" even though he helped the police get evidence.
- marcosdumay 10y ago
  And here we are, talking about a guy presumed to have some information on his head, arrested for refusing to disclose that information, in a thread about legal professionals creating BS, with somebody arguing that "witness" has a legal meaning that does not cover people disclosing information they have on their heads... Or, at least not on this case.
  - rayiner 10y ago
    > arrested for refusing to disclose that information The information in the guy's head is the password. They're not asking him for the password. They're asking him to perform the action of decrypting the drive. They explicitly told him he could keep the password secret.
    - marcosdumay 10y ago
      Yep, that's really a very good non-BS interpretation that does not harm common sense in any way. In related murder news, murder suspect detained indefinitely until he shows hidden body to the police. They don't want him to tell them where is the body, they just want him to drive them there so they can dig it up.
      - harryh 10y ago
        Your comparison between decrypting a file and locating a body neatly demonstrates the conflict at the heart of this case. The conflict is formally known as the "foregone conclusion doctrine." There was an excellent discussion of this case and the principles behind this doctrine in the Washington Post last year: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/06/07/the-fifth-amendment-limits-on-forced-decryption-and-applying-the-foregone-conclusion-doctrine/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201... Orin Kerr does an excellent job explaining why he thinks the doctrine applies to decrypting files. You might enjoy reading it. The appropriate analogy to this case is not "until he shows hidden body to the police" but "until he opens the door to his garage where they have reason to believe there is a body".
        marcosdumay 10y ago
        Yet another article assuming that telling a decryption key is the same as delivering a document you possess.
        harryh 10y ago
wfo 10y ago
You are correct in that as a non-lawyer (I am a non-lawyer as well) you cannot read the law and reliably, confidently understand what it means, much in the same way a non-programmer cannot read read code and understand what it means. There is a problem with this which is that non-lawyers are required to comply with the law but that's not really the issue here. If you're trying to argue courts have gone through mental contortions to derive radical insane re-interperetations of the law that completely change its intent and meaning 180 degrees, and that the entire legal orthodoxy has gone through the same contortions in order to be able to practice law in its current state, you can do that and it's reasonable, but you should use better examples like e.g. the commerce clause, not slavery. Slavery was most definitely intentionally allowed, no interesting interpretation necessary.
- BearGoesChirp 10y ago
  >Slavery was most definitely intentionally allowed, no interesting interpretation necessary. Legally yes. I was talking referencing how the founding fathers were not consistent in matching the government they created with some of their prior statements which were part of the reason they were in a position to create the government. Largely I said this to preempt the oft response that the founding father's weren't consistent with their own view of rights.
  - setr 10y ago
    Well, they were consistent; its just that their definition of "men" is different from yours, and its been shifting with time. And hence we have lawyers and judges interpreting the law. Because the whole foundation (the people, and their opinions) is unstable over time.

brightball 10y ago

Have you ever read up on why Jefferson chose those words?

samfisher83 10y ago
They thought British would beat confessions out of people which still somewhat happens.

rayiner 10y ago

The word "witness" is a legal term with a specific meaning. It requires providing testimonial evidence. The landlord that unlocks the defendant's apartment where the bodies are stored in the fridge is not a "witness" even though he helped the police get evidence.

marcosdumay 10y ago
And here we are, talking about a guy presumed to have some information on his head, arrested for refusing to disclose that information, in a thread about legal professionals creating BS, with somebody arguing that "witness" has a legal meaning that does not cover people disclosing information they have on their heads... Or, at least not on this case.
- rayiner 10y ago
  > arrested for refusing to disclose that information The information in the guy's head is the password. They're not asking him for the password. They're asking him to perform the action of decrypting the drive. They explicitly told him he could keep the password secret.
  - marcosdumay 10y ago
    Yep, that's really a very good non-BS interpretation that does not harm common sense in any way. In related murder news, murder suspect detained indefinitely until he shows hidden body to the police. They don't want him to tell them where is the body, they just want him to drive them there so they can dig it up.
    - harryh 10y ago
      Your comparison between decrypting a file and locating a body neatly demonstrates the conflict at the heart of this case. The conflict is formally known as the "foregone conclusion doctrine." There was an excellent discussion of this case and the principles behind this doctrine in the Washington Post last year: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/06/07/the-fifth-amendment-limits-on-forced-decryption-and-applying-the-foregone-conclusion-doctrine/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201... Orin Kerr does an excellent job explaining why he thinks the doctrine applies to decrypting files. You might enjoy reading it. The appropriate analogy to this case is not "until he shows hidden body to the police" but "until he opens the door to his garage where they have reason to believe there is a body".
      - marcosdumay 10y ago
        Yet another article assuming that telling a decryption key is the same as delivering a document you possess.
        harryh 10y ago

wfo 10y ago

You are correct in that as a non-lawyer (I am a non-lawyer as well) you cannot read the law and reliably, confidently understand what it means, much in the same way a non-programmer cannot read read code and understand what it means. There is a problem with this which is that non-lawyers are required to comply with the law but that's not really the issue here. If you're trying to argue courts have gone through mental contortions to derive radical insane re-interperetations of the law that completely change its intent and meaning 180 degrees, and that the entire legal orthodoxy has gone through the same contortions in order to be able to practice law in its current state, you can do that and it's reasonable, but you should use better examples like e.g. the commerce clause, not slavery. Slavery was most definitely intentionally allowed, no interesting interpretation necessary.

BearGoesChirp 10y ago
>Slavery was most definitely intentionally allowed, no interesting interpretation necessary. Legally yes. I was talking referencing how the founding fathers were not consistent in matching the government they created with some of their prior statements which were part of the reason they were in a position to create the government. Largely I said this to preempt the oft response that the founding father's weren't consistent with their own view of rights.
- setr 10y ago
  Well, they were consistent; its just that their definition of "men" is different from yours, and its been shifting with time. And hence we have lawyers and judges interpreting the law. Because the whole foundation (the people, and their opinions) is unstable over time.