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Because one hard drive still gives him a considerable degree of deniability. The court is essentially arguing that there is a threshold of suspicion beyond whic

• gamblor956 13y ago
  Well, no. The number of hard drives is irrelevant. They already have enough to prosecute him and put him away (effectively, for life, using a civil commitment regime). The purpose of attempting to compel the decrypting of the other drives is so that they can attempt to (1) identify new victims, (2) identify new predators, and (3) to identify new sources/trading sites for CP. From a legal standpoint the 5th Amendment is not an issue if decrypting the drives would simply reveal more evidence of the crimes already charged (because guilt is not a matter of the quantity of evidence but rather its persuasiveness). However, if decrypting those drives would yield evidence of uncharged crimes, it would be a 5th Amendment issue which would bar the use of any such decrypted evidence against this defendant...but not against other defendants. They already have him dead to rights, so they would be perfectly happy to acquire evidence they can't use against this guy if it means they can go after others CP collectors/distributors/predators.
• Anderkent 13y ago
  >The court is essentially arguing that there is a threshold of suspicion beyond which it is OK to punish someone into admitting guilt. Assuming actual guilt, of course, as decrypting the harddrives is not a confession if he does not have child porn there.