
Man jailed until he unlocks encrypted hard drives in child abuse images case - chirau
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/mar/23/francis-rawls-philadelphia-police-child-abuse-encryption
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okket
Recent discussions on this topic:

"Judge won’t release man jailed 2 years for refusing to decrypt drives"

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15200451](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15200451)
(4 days ago, 46 comments)

"Man Who Refused to Decrypt Hard Drives Still in Prison After Two Years"

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15155523](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15155523)
(11 days ago, 265 comments)

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module0000
Sounds like an awfully circumstantial case if they take it to court right now.
I have _no_ sympathy for people who are guilty of this crime, and if he is
guilty then he should be punished. However, without proof that this evidence
exists, how long can(realistically) someone be held in contempt? The evidence
is the defendant's sister claiming he _does_ know the passwords, and that
there is child abuse images on the drives. Someone claiming something (IANAL)
is circumstantial evidence, isn't it?

I'm really just curious how this works.. if the state doesn't want to go to
trial without a piece of evidence they believes to exist, how long can they
hold you and deny your "right to a speedy trial"? Is this normal for judges to
hold people in contempt to buy time to gather evidence?

~~~
shakestheclown
Fourteen years is the longest contempt term so far I believe so it can go
quite a while. I remember wondering how long the Judith Miller case could go
on in contempt, but that was only 85 days apparently.

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parenthephobia
> In ruling against Rawls, the court of appeals has decided that his
> constitutional rights against being forced to self-incriminate are not being
> breached. This is because of an exception to the fifth amendment known as a
> “foregone conclusion”, which is when authorities already know something
> exists – in this case, police say they know there are child abuse images on
> the hard drives because they have a witness who saw the files (Rawls’
> sister).

> Why don’t they go to trial without the files allegedly stored on the
> encrypted devices? It comes down to reasonable doubt.

If there is genuinely reasonable doubt that the disk contains CP, then it
cannot be a foregone conclusion that the disk contains CP.

If it _is_ a foregone conclusion that the disk contains CP, then the judge
should simply instruct the jury to that effect. The jury might disagree, but
that's why we have juries: so that the justice system doesn't imprison people
for years without independent oversight.

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amelius
I guess this Unix command can get you into big trouble:

    
    
        dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/yourharddrive

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eesmith
Yes, it could.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoliation_of_evidence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoliation_of_evidence)

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throw2016
Privacy does not matter, rule of law also doesn't matter, interfering with
citizens personal effects also doesn't matter, torture is ok, surveillance and
banana courts are 'lawful'. Given these are fundamental defining principles of
democracy what do we call our current system. Lip service?

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Nanite
Suggest you adjust the title to the original: 'Man jailed until he unlocks
encrypted hard drives in child abuse images case'

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empath75
Regardless of the technical legal reason he's in jail, the actual reason he's
in jail is for downloading child porn.

~~~
gruez
>some guy's rotting in Guantanamo bay withou trial for refusing to admit he's
a terrorist

"Regardless of the technical legal reason he's in jail, the actual reason he's
in jail is for being a terrorist."

~~~
kahnpro
"for being _accused_ of being a terrorist"

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nippples
> The case has become a battleground for civil liberties campaigners, who
> believe that citizens should have the right to protect their critical
> information and to be protected from self-incrimination.

Somehow I remember there had been a recent very high-profile precedent being
set for having the permission to "delete private data" and "wiping computer
data" before handing over your computer to law enforcement.

