4 ms·

To me it makes little sense. For Police work, time is "relative", as an example the cop that is held in the US for contempt of the Court for not revealing the

by jaclaz 9y ago

To me it makes little sense. For Police work, time is "relative", as an example the cop that is held in the US for contempt of the Court for not revealing the password to his drives is suspected of possessing child pornography, whether he is kept in jail because he won't reveal them or because as the sheer moment he reveals them he will be proved guilty doesn't change things much (there is anyway other evidence against him). Here it is not a "Police" case, but rather a "counter-intelligence" one, in these cases time is everything, a delay of hours, or at the most days in gathering the information is vital. AFAIK Mr.Rabani NEVER revealed the password(s), he refused revealing it/them on 20/Nov/2016, now, almost one year later, he is found guilty of obstructing the search, still there is no evidence that he is or was - even tangentially - connected with terrorism. So, £620+12 months' conditional discharge seem to me a lot of time/a very severe punishment if he was in good faith attempting to protect some sensitive data for his non-governement organization, and nothing if he was in bad faith or however protecting terrorism related info. In any case, whatever the Police expected to find on the device(s) they didn't access it/them, and much worse than that they didn't access it/them in a timely fashion (and no charges of terrorism or connections to it were made against Mr.Rabani in almost one year) so - besides seeming more a petty vengeance than anything else - it is not like it helped in ANY way the counter-terrorism.

tryingagainbro 9y ago
>> To me it makes little sense. It isn't supposed to make sense. it's suppose to reinforce the "you do whatever the police ask you or face the consequences." Apparently the law backs them....
- jaclaz 9y ago
  >It isn't supposed to make sense. it's suppose to reinforce the "you do whatever the police ask you or face the consequences." Apparently the law backs them... I meant "make sense" as a deterrent for next occasion AND useful for counter-terrorism. If you are "innocent" and refuse to give away your passwords, you now know that you have serious chances to be punished in a non-trivial way.(losing your electronic device + fine + 12 months conditional) If you are "guilty" (of terrorism or contiguity with it) you now know that you can refuse to give away your password, effectively preventing the police to read your data and maybe in one year time you will get a slap on the wrist (when compared to the punishments for actual being part of a terrorist plot). So, "real" terrorists will surely continue not giving away their passwords to the Police, whilst most innocent people will be giving them - fearing the punishment[1]. The net effect will be that Police will have not access to relevant terrorism related material but it will lose a lot of time on analyzing gigabytes of - say - lolcat videos. [1] a few innocent people will anyway refuse to give away the passwords for this or that principle, so among the "non-answering" will be both innocent and possibly guilty people, so it doesn't even work as a "screening" method.
  - tryingagainbro 9y ago
    >>If you are "guilty" (of terrorism or contiguity with it) you now know that you can refuse to give away your password, effectively preventing the police to read your data and maybe in one year time you will get a slap on the wrist Actually I think is why the law was passed, so the cops can keep harassing the people on a likely terrorist cell hoping they slip. Time and time again. Slap on a wrist? Not if it's one after the other. It's not like London doesn't have the police manpower
TACIXAT 9y ago
The key term is foregone conclusion, at least in the US. If the contents of the device are known, they can be ordered decrypted. If they are unknown, it is protected by the 5th amendment. >Whether the government can compel decryption in this manner depends on a legal doctrine called “foregone conclusion” that was first articulated in a 1976 Supreme Court ruling relating to paper documents in a tax fraud case. >Under the “foregone conclusion” doctrine as applied to digital documents, handing over files is not considered testimony if the government already knows that the files exist and what machines they live on. And when there is no testimony, the protection of the Fifth Amendment’s self-incrimination clause is not available. Prosecutors with specific information about the existence and location of files on encrypted hard drives are more likely to convince a court to order a suspect to decrypt them. 1. http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2012/03/encrypted_files_child_pornography_and_the_fifth_amendment_.html http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2012/0...
- BearGoesChirp 9y ago
  If it is a foregone conclusion that they have the file, then they already have enough evidence to prosecute the individual, since possession of the file is the crime, compared to the tax file where the contents may be evidence of a crime, but is itself not a crime to possess.
jacquesm 9y ago
> So, £620+12 months' conditional discharge seem to me a lot of time/a very severe punishment if he was in good faith attempting to protect some sensitive data for his non-governement organization, and nothing if he was in bad faith or however protecting terrorism related info. Or, the third option: he is not protecting anything or anybody but merely feels this law is unjust and one should stand up against it on principle.

by jaclaz 9y ago

tryingagainbro 9y ago

>> To me it makes little sense. It isn't supposed to make sense. it's suppose to reinforce the "you do whatever the police ask you or face the consequences." Apparently the law backs them....

jaclaz 9y ago
>It isn't supposed to make sense. it's suppose to reinforce the "you do whatever the police ask you or face the consequences." Apparently the law backs them... I meant "make sense" as a deterrent for next occasion AND useful for counter-terrorism. If you are "innocent" and refuse to give away your passwords, you now know that you have serious chances to be punished in a non-trivial way.(losing your electronic device + fine + 12 months conditional) If you are "guilty" (of terrorism or contiguity with it) you now know that you can refuse to give away your password, effectively preventing the police to read your data and maybe in one year time you will get a slap on the wrist (when compared to the punishments for actual being part of a terrorist plot). So, "real" terrorists will surely continue not giving away their passwords to the Police, whilst most innocent people will be giving them - fearing the punishment[1]. The net effect will be that Police will have not access to relevant terrorism related material but it will lose a lot of time on analyzing gigabytes of - say - lolcat videos. [1] a few innocent people will anyway refuse to give away the passwords for this or that principle, so among the "non-answering" will be both innocent and possibly guilty people, so it doesn't even work as a "screening" method.
- tryingagainbro 9y ago
  >>If you are "guilty" (of terrorism or contiguity with it) you now know that you can refuse to give away your password, effectively preventing the police to read your data and maybe in one year time you will get a slap on the wrist Actually I think is why the law was passed, so the cops can keep harassing the people on a likely terrorist cell hoping they slip. Time and time again. Slap on a wrist? Not if it's one after the other. It's not like London doesn't have the police manpower

TACIXAT 9y ago

The key term is foregone conclusion, at least in the US. If the contents of the device are known, they can be ordered decrypted. If they are unknown, it is protected by the 5th amendment. >Whether the government can compel decryption in this manner depends on a legal doctrine called “foregone conclusion” that was first articulated in a 1976 Supreme Court ruling relating to paper documents in a tax fraud case. >Under the “foregone conclusion” doctrine as applied to digital documents, handing over files is not considered testimony if the government already knows that the files exist and what machines they live on. And when there is no testimony, the protection of the Fifth Amendment’s self-incrimination clause is not available. Prosecutors with specific information about the existence and location of files on encrypted hard drives are more likely to convince a court to order a suspect to decrypt them. 1. http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2012/03/encrypted_files_child_pornography_and_the_fifth_amendment_.html http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2012/0...

BearGoesChirp 9y ago
If it is a foregone conclusion that they have the file, then they already have enough evidence to prosecute the individual, since possession of the file is the crime, compared to the tax file where the contents may be evidence of a crime, but is itself not a crime to possess.

jacquesm 9y ago

> So, £620+12 months' conditional discharge seem to me a lot of time/a very severe punishment if he was in good faith attempting to protect some sensitive data for his non-governement organization, and nothing if he was in bad faith or however protecting terrorism related info. Or, the third option: he is not protecting anything or anybody but merely feels this law is unjust and one should stand up against it on principle.