Judge orders defendant to decrypt PGP-protected laptop

[Florian Weimer]

* Stephan Somogyi:

> At 13:08 -0500 03.03.2009, Adam Fields wrote:
>
>>When compelled to give out your password
>
> Unless I'm misunderstanding the ruling, Boucher is not being compelled
> to produce his passphrase (like he could under RIPA Section 49 in the
> UK), but he is being told to produce the unencrypted contents of the
> drive.
>
> Assuming I'm interpreting the ruling correctly, this seems little
> different than a judge approving a search warrant for a residence,
> whose execution could produce incriminating evidence that is usable
> in court.

The difference is that having your residence searched does not require
active cooperation from you.  You don't even have to disclose all your
residences which should be searched.  Forcing a suspect to decrypt
data is rather questionable because it is difficult to draw a line
between decrypting, decompressing, selecting, and producing relevant
data.

FWIW, the case which sparked this thread is rather special because
when the laptop was searched at the border, the files were visible to
a border guard.  I guess this constellation is highly unusual.

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