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I mean... police can force you to open your door, your safe, or virtually any other container of secrets. The 5th Amendment doesn't give you broad protection to
by ethanbond 3y ago
I mean... police can force you to open your door, your safe, or virtually any other container of secrets. The 5th Amendment doesn't give you broad protection to hide things from police when they have a warrant.
A phone is unique thing not because it contains so many secrets, but because you have to give testimony (as opposed to property, like a key) in order to open it, and it's impossible to open by bashing the door down or cutting it open. It's a technological coincidence, not a legal/philosophical doctrine, that makes phones secure against compulsion by law enforcement.
- anonymousab 3y ago> police can force you to open your door, your safe, or virtually any other container of secrets. Is it different from compelling someone to enter a text password to unlock a vault? What if it's self-destructive otherwise? What happens if the password itself - or act of unlocking - is something self-incriminating (in form, in contents, or otherwise)?
- ssl232 3y ago> What happens if the password itself - or act of unlocking - is something self-incriminating (in form, in contents, or otherwise)? Reminds me of Ian Watkins: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/11/26/lostprophets-singer-ian-w-0_n_4344523.html https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/11/26/lostprophets-sin....
- snickerbockers 3y agoYou might be able to argue that decrypting the phone's filesystem is forcing you to provide them with information which is not relevant to the case at hand but still incriminating in other ways, since a phone could reasonably be expected to hold vast amounts of unrelated days.
- dghlsakjg 3y agoSubtle distinction: I don't think the police, even with a warrant, can force you to open anything. They can use force to open something if you refuse (or seemingly, if they feel like it), but they can't make you do it. A court on the other hand, can compel you to open something.
- reactordev 3y agoA court can compel you to open something within the warrant as well. In which case they can force you to open anything.
- dghlsakjg 3y agoYes, but that is a court order issued by the court not the police. An order to unlock something coming from the cops is entirely different, even if they have a warrant. Warrants would allow them to seize a phone, but you don’t have to provide the password.
- tantalor 3y agoA court can compel you to do pretty much anything, within the law.
- zlg_codes 3y agoThe only thing we must do in this world is die. Everything else is up for debate.
- tantalor 3y ago> police can force you to open your door, your safe, or virtually any other container of secrets No, they can't
- ethanbond 3y agoGotta love the insane legal opinions people come to on this site.
- u32480932048 3y agoYou should see the ones written by actual lawyers!
- Manuel_D 3y ago> I mean... police can force you to open your door, your safe Actually, the government cannot compel you to give the combination to a safe [1]. If it's locked with a key, not a keypad or combination lock, they can force you to give the key. The distinction is that the former is a product of the mind, while the latter is a physical object. Furthermore, what if you forgot the combination? There's no real way to tell if someone has forgotten the combination or is deliberately withholding it. https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/530/27/ https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/530/27/
- ethanbond 3y agoCorrect. The “have combination in head” is directly analogous to encryption key. But they are allowed to open the safe by other means.
- kwhitefoot 3y agoIn the UK forgetting a password is not a defence.
- Manuel_D 3y agoTFA, and my above comment pertain to the US. The UK's laws to compel people to give up passwords seems to make it a de facto crime to forget one's password. Worse yet, it seems like it's illegal to possess random bytes on your devices. I wonder if the UK would change course if people started emailing random bytes to politicians and other supporters of this law, while giving tips to law enforcement that these individuals are coordinating criminal acts over encrypted communications.
- lelanthran 3y agoI know. But ... If you're going to compell someone to give up the contents of their mind under threat of being found guilty if their mind isn't working properly, you may as well just do away with trial. IOW, if you're going to compell speech, just compell the suspect to confess; it's the same thing.
- tshaddox 3y ago
- alkonaut 3y agoIf the government hadn't always have the possibility and right to break into a safe you wouldn't give up the combination to, then that would have been a debate for decades. The reason this is a debate is because they can't crack it.
- JoshTriplett 3y ago> I mean... police can force you to open your door, your safe, or virtually any other container of secrets. No, they can't. They can force you to let them try to open it, but they can't force you to open it for them. If you have some mechanism like "if you try to open this incorrectly it destroys the contents", and you intentionally don't disclose that with the expectation that they're going to try and fail and destroy the contents, you might get charged with destruction of evidence. (EDIT: Replies suggest that disclosure may not suffice.)
- pc86 3y agoFor what it's worth you'll still be charged with destruction and/or obstruction even if you warn them.
- JoshTriplett 3y agoInteresting, and surprising. Is there case history and purported rationale on that?
- ska 3y agoWhy is that surprising? The 5th isn't some sort of blanket gotcha, it's just there to curtail abuse.
- JoshTriplett 3y agoThere's a huge difference between "get out of the way" and "compelled to help".
- ska 3y agoRight, but that doesn't cover "and I booby trapped it". Why wouldn't you be open to charges in that case? Obstruction, destruction of evidence, contempt of court - such mechanisms exist in part to cover such cases.
- chasil 3y agoIf you save incriminating documents into an encrypted .ZIP file, the state cannot compel you to provide the password, because the password is in your mind. The contents of the mind cannot be demanded to incriminate self. The state can install a keylogger if they have a warrant, and the results of the keylogger can be admitted as evidence.
- ethanbond 3y agoAgain, a coincidence of the technology. It’s “you can’t be forced to open it because it requires you saying the password,” not “you can’t be forced to open it because it contains important secrets.” Right, if they can figure out a way to reveal your secrets without forcing you to say something, they’re allowed to do that (with warrant of course).