There is a general principal in US law, that one can be compelled to turn over physical evidence, but not the contents of one’s mind, as that is protected by the 5th amendment.
So, you can be compelled to turn over a key to a lock, but not a combination. There is a fairly long legal precedent.
This case asks what it means if the lock is unbreakable, or nearly so.
Case in brief: A Canadian, on crossing the US border, was told to show the contents of his hard drive, which he did, and some of the contents were deemed by the border guard to be likely child porn, though it’s unclear of this was simply random files in the cache, or Manga, or real kiddie porn.
The machine was confiscated, and subsequently turned off.
When it was restarted, its demanded a password, since the contents had been encrypted with PGP, and were inaccessible, and Magistrate Judge Jerome J. Niedermeier has ruled that compelling him to turn over his password violates the 5th amendment.
The prosecutors are appealing saying the standard stuff about terrorism, etc.
I’m with Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, who has said, “The consequence of this decision being upheld is that the government would have to find other methods to get this information, but that’s as it should be. That’s what the Fifth Amendment is intended to protect.”
He’s right. If you hooked up this guy’s drive to a supercomputer, and ran it for a few months, and maybe less if you brought in some experts from the NSA, at the cost of a few million dollars, you’d probably crack the password, because even the best people don’t choose truly random passwords.
Inconvenient, yes, but inconvenience is not a basis for emasculating the Bill of Rights.
I generally oppose any granting any power to the government to either judge one based on the contents of one’s mind (hate crime laws), or to force revalation of the contents of one’s minds.