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Similarly, if the police have a reasonable suspicion that there are illegal materials in your home, they should never be allowed to enter and search it against

by wfo 10y ago

Similarly, if the police have a reasonable suspicion that there are illegal materials in your home, they should never be allowed to enter and search it against your will. Either they have enough evidence to charge you or they don't, right? So why bother searching? It doesn't matter if you have a nuclear weapon in your basement, if you say no they aren't allowed to come in and check/collect evidence that makes them certain no matter what the Geiger counter outside says. Your reasoning invalidates all searches, all warrants, and it's everywhere in this thread, it's insane. I'm all for security, privacy, encryption, Tor, but if the police have a strong enough reason to think I'm committing a horrible crime, and have convinced a judge to sign off on it, then yeah absolutely they should be allowed to search my computer. I don't get to say "Joke's on you g-man, we both know I'm a criminal and the evidence is right here and I can get into it, but I won't let you in until you've cracked my secret code!" The alternative is for them to just always assume encryption/Tor == criminal. The point is they can search /when they have a very good, explicit reason given to a judge/, not go on fishing expeditions or passively collect everything. You probably will lose your privacy for a little while if you're a reasonable target in a serious police investigation, that's always been the case, and it always will be.

braveo 10y ago
It's a bad analogy, the police don't need your permission to gain access to your home. It'd be akin to the police coming across a written document in rot13 and jailing you indefinitely until you show them how to decrypt it. What if it turns out to be a grocery list and you used rot13 just as a matter of course? You went to jail over a grocery list? I don't think you can compare searching a house to forcing the decrypting of the hard drive. I run my own XMPP server to keep in contact with a few people (1 friend in china, and my gf during the day). I absolutely encrypt all of it, you're telling me it's ok for them to jail me indefinitely because they believe I've said something in the logs that I shouldn't have. And that's bullshit, there are legitimate reasons why people encrypt things.
- wfo 10y ago
  The fact that police can't access your data without your permission is a technical reason, not a legal reason. Warrants say the police can search your home. Everything in your home. The data on the machines in your home. If a police officer knocks on your door and presents a valid warrant and you say "good luck, I've booby trapped my home as a fortress with shotguns and explosives and I refuse to disable them" you will be locked in jail until you do. Police don't have to deal with your bullshit when a judge orders you to do something and you refuse to comply. They just lock you in jail until you do what they say. And no, none of your examples are appropriate. If the police could prove you had a grocery list had all of the items used in a crime and could tie you to it, went to a judge, got a warrant, and ordered you to turn over that list, you'd have to do it. If it's encrypted in some scheme you have to show them the real data. It's not the cops' job to work their way around every weird little obstacle you put in their way when they have a lawful order requiring you to hand over information. In your scenario, if they had a warrant for your grocery list or XMPP server data, you wouldn't be "jailed indefinitely", you'd be jailed until you complied with a lawful order to turn over the data you possess. I don't know where you got the idea you'd be jailed indefinitely because of the content of the chats, that one came out of nowhere. If they discuss crimes you've committed you'd be jailed for those crimes, not indefinitely. After you turn over the logs. If you refuse you're breaking the law. If you don't have access, you can go ahead and try to prove that to the judge, or convince the judge you forgot your password. But the police can provide evidence to suggest you DO have access, you are just willfully refusing to give it up. Like, e.g. logs of you accessing it successfully, recently. Yes there are legitimate reasons people encrypt things. I encrypt everything, all the time, just for the sake of doing it. I use Tor for my fairly mundane browsing all the time because I value my privacy. But encryption does not mean "I never have to give anything to the authorities, under any circumstances, no matter what, and there can't ever be any consequences for me if I refuse when they go through proper channels and ask". Encryption does not mean you don't have to comply with the law.
  - braveo 10y ago
    > The fact that police can't access your data without your permission is a technical reason, not a legal reason. Warrants say the police can search your home. Everything in your home. The data on the machines in your home. If a police officer knocks on your door and presents a valid warrant and you say "good luck, I've booby trapped my home as a fortress with shotguns and explosives and I refuse to disable them" you will be locked in jail until you do. Police don't have to deal with your bullshit when a judge orders you to do something and you refuse to comply. They just lock you in jail until you do what they say. When you start using such bullshit, outlandish arguments, you've lost the point. > In your scenario, if they had a warrant for your grocery list or XMPP server data, you wouldn't be "jailed indefinitely", you'd be jailed until you complied with a lawful order to turn over the data you possess. They have the data. What they don't have is an ability to interpret the data, but they most definitely have been given the data. If that's really your measuring stick, then they need to let this guy go because they have the data in their possession. What next, we're going to jail someone indefinitely (oh I'm sorry, not indefinitely, just "until they comply"...) because they refuse to read off their grocery list, which they wrote down in french because the police can't find someone else to read it for them? no, fuck that, it's all splitting hairs. "We don't want him to give us the password, just force him to unlock it for us, so it's totally not the same thing!". Right... Oh also.... you're wrong about the warrant point. http://criminal-law.freeadvice.com/criminal-law/arrests_and_searches/search-anywhere-with-warrant.htm http://criminal-law.freeadvice.com/criminal-law/arrests_and_... > Actually, the police might not be able to search anywhere just because they have a search warrant, there is a requirement that a warrant describe specifically the place to be searched and the items to be seized. Although it is possible that a warrant will give police a general license to search anywhere in a home, it is also possible that the search might be limited to specific areas in the home. Maybe you live in a different country, but in the US it's typically understood that a warrant is meant to be specific to avoid the issue with police getting a warrant to look for a stolen bike and going through your toilet looking for hidden drugs.

by wfo 10y ago

braveo 10y ago

It's a bad analogy, the police don't need your permission to gain access to your home. It'd be akin to the police coming across a written document in rot13 and jailing you indefinitely until you show them how to decrypt it. What if it turns out to be a grocery list and you used rot13 just as a matter of course? You went to jail over a grocery list? I don't think you can compare searching a house to forcing the decrypting of the hard drive. I run my own XMPP server to keep in contact with a few people (1 friend in china, and my gf during the day). I absolutely encrypt all of it, you're telling me it's ok for them to jail me indefinitely because they believe I've said something in the logs that I shouldn't have. And that's bullshit, there are legitimate reasons why people encrypt things.

wfo 10y ago
The fact that police can't access your data without your permission is a technical reason, not a legal reason. Warrants say the police can search your home. Everything in your home. The data on the machines in your home. If a police officer knocks on your door and presents a valid warrant and you say "good luck, I've booby trapped my home as a fortress with shotguns and explosives and I refuse to disable them" you will be locked in jail until you do. Police don't have to deal with your bullshit when a judge orders you to do something and you refuse to comply. They just lock you in jail until you do what they say. And no, none of your examples are appropriate. If the police could prove you had a grocery list had all of the items used in a crime and could tie you to it, went to a judge, got a warrant, and ordered you to turn over that list, you'd have to do it. If it's encrypted in some scheme you have to show them the real data. It's not the cops' job to work their way around every weird little obstacle you put in their way when they have a lawful order requiring you to hand over information. In your scenario, if they had a warrant for your grocery list or XMPP server data, you wouldn't be "jailed indefinitely", you'd be jailed until you complied with a lawful order to turn over the data you possess. I don't know where you got the idea you'd be jailed indefinitely because of the content of the chats, that one came out of nowhere. If they discuss crimes you've committed you'd be jailed for those crimes, not indefinitely. After you turn over the logs. If you refuse you're breaking the law. If you don't have access, you can go ahead and try to prove that to the judge, or convince the judge you forgot your password. But the police can provide evidence to suggest you DO have access, you are just willfully refusing to give it up. Like, e.g. logs of you accessing it successfully, recently. Yes there are legitimate reasons people encrypt things. I encrypt everything, all the time, just for the sake of doing it. I use Tor for my fairly mundane browsing all the time because I value my privacy. But encryption does not mean "I never have to give anything to the authorities, under any circumstances, no matter what, and there can't ever be any consequences for me if I refuse when they go through proper channels and ask". Encryption does not mean you don't have to comply with the law.
- braveo 10y ago
  > The fact that police can't access your data without your permission is a technical reason, not a legal reason. Warrants say the police can search your home. Everything in your home. The data on the machines in your home. If a police officer knocks on your door and presents a valid warrant and you say "good luck, I've booby trapped my home as a fortress with shotguns and explosives and I refuse to disable them" you will be locked in jail until you do. Police don't have to deal with your bullshit when a judge orders you to do something and you refuse to comply. They just lock you in jail until you do what they say. When you start using such bullshit, outlandish arguments, you've lost the point. > In your scenario, if they had a warrant for your grocery list or XMPP server data, you wouldn't be "jailed indefinitely", you'd be jailed until you complied with a lawful order to turn over the data you possess. They have the data. What they don't have is an ability to interpret the data, but they most definitely have been given the data. If that's really your measuring stick, then they need to let this guy go because they have the data in their possession. What next, we're going to jail someone indefinitely (oh I'm sorry, not indefinitely, just "until they comply"...) because they refuse to read off their grocery list, which they wrote down in french because the police can't find someone else to read it for them? no, fuck that, it's all splitting hairs. "We don't want him to give us the password, just force him to unlock it for us, so it's totally not the same thing!". Right... Oh also.... you're wrong about the warrant point. http://criminal-law.freeadvice.com/criminal-law/arrests_and_searches/search-anywhere-with-warrant.htm http://criminal-law.freeadvice.com/criminal-law/arrests_and_... > Actually, the police might not be able to search anywhere just because they have a search warrant, there is a requirement that a warrant describe specifically the place to be searched and the items to be seized. Although it is possible that a warrant will give police a general license to search anywhere in a home, it is also possible that the search might be limited to specific areas in the home. Maybe you live in a different country, but in the US it's typically understood that a warrant is meant to be specific to avoid the issue with police getting a warrant to look for a stolen bike and going through your toilet looking for hidden drugs.