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Often not if the phone is password protected, though increasingly popular biometrics provide no such protections. The idea is that providing a password is equiv
by slaymaker1907 6y ago
Often not if the phone is password protected, though increasingly popular biometrics provide no such protections. The idea is that providing a password is equivalent to providing testimony and is thus protected. The law on this is not fully settled yet and varies by jurisdiction.
- indigochill 6y agoAre there issues with removing that protection from providing passwords? Intuitively, it feels to me like if police can compel an individual to let them search a house with a warrant, the same should be true of a computer (there may be incriminating evidence on it, but there may be incriminating evidence in the house, too, so I don't see this as being any more or less self-incriminating than textbook warrants). Moreover, if this didn't introduce glaring problems I'm overlooking, it would be a great way to cut out the legs from the "let's just backdoor everything" agenda. The key thing being the law enforcement agent has to present their warrant to the suspect.
- chillacy 6y agoSearching your phone might be more like searching your mind, as phone usage is almost an extension of your mind: containing notes, photos, messages, etc. That it's protected with a password which would require compelling self incriminating speech for makes it even more troublesome to acquire.
- indigochill 6y agoI've seen that argument while reading up on the current state supreme court cases, but I disagree that it's more like searching your mind than searching ahouse is. To mirror your examples, a house may have handwritten notes, photos, and voicemail messages (well, if it still has a landline) all of which can potentially contain incriminating evidence. Yet we compel people to grant entry to an officer with a search warrant. As to the protection afforded by a password, a house is protected with a lock and ordinarily someone cannot compel you to grant them access, which is what the warrant is for, stating that they have reason to believe there is evidence on the premises. If we want to say, "But unlocking a door doesn't require speech while telling someone your password does" then fine, silently punch that password into the device. Mainly I'm looking for problems with this in the vein of "If we install backdoors into our software, that compromises security for everyone and grants unprecedented surveillance power to the government". A hand-delivered court-issued warrant to the owner of an individual device seems like a promising compromise to let law enforcement get on with investigating specific crimes without broadly crippling everyone's security in the process.
- vageli 6y agoSlightly tongue-in-cheek: what if the password itself is an admission of a crime?
- dane-pgp 6y agot3H_b0dIE$-R_unD3r-T3h_p4Ti0
- suizi 6y agoWhat if you "forgot"? Do you imprison someone for forgetting their password?
- bhhaskin 6y agoThey do and has been done before.
- suizi 6y agoCreating a barrier to entry makes it harder for the government to use it for prosecuting frivolous crimes.