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Not sure if you live in the US or not, but in the US you are never required to be deposed or take the stand if you are the person being charged. A person charg

Not sure if you live in the US or not, but in the US you are never required to be deposed or take the stand if you are the person being charged. A person charged with a crime can never be forced to take the stand at all. If they choose to do so, they make that choice knowing that they are waiving their fifth amendment rights and can not take the fifth as that would hinder the right of the prosecution to cross-examine them. If a person is not the one being charged with the crime they can be required to appear in court and provide testimony but if during the course of testimony they would be giving an answer that exposes any illegal activity on their part, they can take the fifth. A good example of this is is someone witnessed a crime but they were buying drugs at the time when they happened to witness it and they were questioned about why they were at that location at that time and what they were doing there. Answering that question would force an admission of a felony on their part and would expose them to charges so they can legally refuse to answer by citing the fifth amendment. A lot of times this is rectified by being granted immunity in return for testimony since the criminal activity on the part of the person testifying is not usually of significance to the prosecution.

mirimir 8y ago
OK, but what about that ex Philly cop who's been in jail for a couple years, for contempt, for refusing to provide a device passphrase? His actual trial is basically on hold, until he answers. Unless the Supreme Court intervenes, anyway.
- turc1656 8y ago
  That's a fair point to bring up. The verdict is still out on that one, as far as I know. From what I remember the issue was that he wasn't going to incriminate himself because they already had separate evidence showing that there was child porn on that device and he was the one who downloaded it. So since this was already known to police it wouldn't be a violation of his 5th amendment rights since the information was already known. There were other rulings for other individuals for whom the government didn't have the evidence against already and they wanted the device access to give them that evidence. In those cases, as I recall, it was said that a defendant could not be required to decrypt unless the device was crossing the border and was subject to the standard lack of privacy at the border. Otherwise, since they didn't have proof, what they needed was the "content of his mind" and that was privileged. As for the border, they might not even be able to require decryption if you are a US citizen. They might demand it and even confiscate the device. But if you are a US citizen, you can't be blocked from entry. So they might just keep the device in those cases and allow you in. I can't swear to the accuracy of that one, though. But I'm pretty sure that's mostly correct. Non-citizens can be turned down at the border for pretty much any reason, including refusal to submit to searches and other privacy-related issues.
  - mirimir 8y ago
    Thanks. I didn't realize that they had independent evidence that there was child porn on the device. Or at least, I didn't realize that they had valid independent evidence of that. As I understand it, they had data from a hacked version of the Freenet client, showing that his node had received pieces of child porn files. They knew that because they were serving those files, and could identify pieces by hash value. Their expert testified that, contrary to claims by the Freenet Project about random routing of file pieces, they could determine that the defendant's node was in fact the recipient, and not just a relay. But, according to the Freenet Project, that's bullshit, which is based on a misunderstanding (perhaps intentional) of the Freenet protocol and mechanism. I wonder whether they have other independent evidence that's actually valid. But these are subtle points for a judge. And I'm guessing that the defendant doesn't have the expert muscle to dispute those claims. And/or that juries could follow any of that.

mirimir 8y ago

OK, but what about that ex Philly cop who's been in jail for a couple years, for contempt, for refusing to provide a device passphrase? His actual trial is basically on hold, until he answers. Unless the Supreme Court intervenes, anyway.

turc1656 8y ago
That's a fair point to bring up. The verdict is still out on that one, as far as I know. From what I remember the issue was that he wasn't going to incriminate himself because they already had separate evidence showing that there was child porn on that device and he was the one who downloaded it. So since this was already known to police it wouldn't be a violation of his 5th amendment rights since the information was already known. There were other rulings for other individuals for whom the government didn't have the evidence against already and they wanted the device access to give them that evidence. In those cases, as I recall, it was said that a defendant could not be required to decrypt unless the device was crossing the border and was subject to the standard lack of privacy at the border. Otherwise, since they didn't have proof, what they needed was the "content of his mind" and that was privileged. As for the border, they might not even be able to require decryption if you are a US citizen. They might demand it and even confiscate the device. But if you are a US citizen, you can't be blocked from entry. So they might just keep the device in those cases and allow you in. I can't swear to the accuracy of that one, though. But I'm pretty sure that's mostly correct. Non-citizens can be turned down at the border for pretty much any reason, including refusal to submit to searches and other privacy-related issues.
- mirimir 8y ago
  Thanks. I didn't realize that they had independent evidence that there was child porn on the device. Or at least, I didn't realize that they had valid independent evidence of that. As I understand it, they had data from a hacked version of the Freenet client, showing that his node had received pieces of child porn files. They knew that because they were serving those files, and could identify pieces by hash value. Their expert testified that, contrary to claims by the Freenet Project about random routing of file pieces, they could determine that the defendant's node was in fact the recipient, and not just a relay. But, according to the Freenet Project, that's bullshit, which is based on a misunderstanding (perhaps intentional) of the Freenet protocol and mechanism. I wonder whether they have other independent evidence that's actually valid. But these are subtle points for a judge. And I'm guessing that the defendant doesn't have the expert muscle to dispute those claims. And/or that juries could follow any of that.