> What if he no longer possess them? He could have deleted them.
If that's the case he should give the FBI the key. That way he'll prove he wasn't possessing child pornography.
If that's the case he should give the FBI the key. That way he'll prove he wasn't possessing child pornography.
Or maybe he believes that damn pesky constitution (sarcasm) applies to everyone including the government when it comes to search and seizure, and to himself when it comes to right to due process of law, and the protection against self incrimination to name just a few.
Or maybe there is child pornography on there and he does not want to charged and tried and vilified in the court of public opinion. Right now he can stand on "higher ground" by making a constitutional law argument than exposing a secret that he may be ashamed of (guessing here).
Or maybe he truly does not know the password? Despite the governments best efforts they have not been able to crack it so it must be quite secure/complicated.
Who is defending him? I cannot in good conscience call him a perp as he has not been charged with, let alone convicted of, a crime. I am only pointing out that there are a myriad of possibilities one of which is that there is child pornography on the drive. However, we do not know that for a fact.
But just as I said, he may fear decrypting the drive because of what is on it (only he knows at this point). He may think it is better to be seen as the little guy being bullied by big brother than to be vilified by those who will presume him guilty of having "CP on that drive" and becoming "the perp" without due process.
Forgive me if I am incorrect but don't our laws apply equally regardless of the crime one is suspected of commiting?
The All Writs Act is a law, and it allows exactly what is happening here. The question at hand is about whether that is in conflict with the fourth and fifth amendments. Equal protection is an entirely different thing and not at issue here.
The practical thing happening here is that the prosecution almost certainly could build a case on the evidence they have, but in practice they don't have to because the judge is willing to hold the guy in jail on procedural grounds.
Again, I'm saying there is a good argument that this was a bad decision and that the All Writs Act shouldn't be construed to allow this. But that's an academic point. In the real world, chances are very near zero that there is any "injustice" going on in this particular case.
Once more: this was a practical decision by prosecutors to deliver as much justice as they could given limited resources. It seems all but certain (yes, in the "beyond a reasonable doubt" sense) that there is no objective injustice involved in holding this guy.
The thing with the law and rights is, is that they are the same for everyone. Eroding them for this guy also erodes them for you.
Don't you think its wrong to be able to hold someone forever without evidence? Isn't one of your rights that you don't have to incriminate yourself?
Or do you think that some people should have less or more rights than yourself?
As I said earlier I am not taking a position on whether what he did was right or wrong or on the moral aspects of the subject matter but here in the US the government must have a warrant to search electronic devices and that warrant must name the material they are seeking. If they list images related to child pornography, child molestation, etc they cannot go looking for evidence of drug dealing per se. But let's assume they find evidence of drug dealing, do you not think they will simply broaden the scope of their investigation and go looking in every corner of s life to now prove something they previously were unaware of before they hypothetically gain access to the drive.
Probability isn't sufficient, in this philosophy, because it's a trap. Of course probably he has on these drives what prosecutors claim, or worse, evidence of his direct involvement. And the trap is the injection of lack of sympathy into the decision making process; of course any reasonable person will say, eww he's almost certainly a creep therefore I'm not sympathetic to his indefinite incarceration. But that's exactly what the philosophy was supposedly designed to avoid, any possibility that innocent people get jailed; not preventing guilty people going free.
This is why you see a lot of effort by prosecutors defending against introduction of new evidence to prove innocence; because proving innocence well after a guilty verdict, itself shows the possibility of jailing innocents. It taints the system. And then you get these ever more perverse notions that executing those who later prove themselves innocent is not an unconstitutional execution when that person had received a free and fair trial finding them guilty of a capital crime. http://www.businessinsider.com/antonin-scalia-says-executing...