Man jailed until he unlocks encrypted hard drives in child abuse images case

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 (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 (11 days ago, 265 comments)

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?

> 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.

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

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

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?

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

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

> 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.