Forcing defendant to decrypt hard-drive is unconstitutional, appeals court rules

[Os Cangaceiros]

http://m.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/02/laptop-decryption-unconstitutional/

The story involving the woman involved in a possible fraud case being forced to decrypt her hard drive was one I was following with some interest. I didn't really understand what they'd do to her if she didn't. Hold her in contempt of court? You can only hold someone in contempt for a certain amount of time, and if what was locked in the hard drive was incriminating to the point that it would lead to a fraud conviction, why would she open it even if ordered to? :confused:

[Q]

Certainly interesting verdict, given the current political climate that is moving the other way.

What may help to get such verdicts in more countries is to propagate encrypted harddrives as "normal". TrueCrypt (http://www.truecrypt.org/) is one solution that is open source, free to use, easy to use and incredibly powerful and versatile.

[MarxSchmarx]

I didn't really understand what they'd do to her if she didn't. Hold her in contempt of court? You can only hold someone in contempt for a certain amount of time, and if what was locked in the hard drive was incriminating to the point that it would lead to a fraud conviction, why would she open it even if ordered to? :confused:

Although contempt of court can be a crime with definite terms of imprisonment, in some parts of the US the defendant can be held indefinitely until they comply with the court. This is a subtle but substantial distinction - the idea being that one can control just how long one spends in custody (as opposed to those who are sentenced to concrete terms) means that they are not subject to the usual rules of incarceration. If one continually refuses to comply, in principle one can spend their life in jail.

Actually, this has been known to happen:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123137263059962659.html

[Os Cangaceiros]

That's interesting. It does seem to be rare though that it happens. It's interesting that the most serious charges (federal charges) have a definite time span for contempt, but rather trivial matters like back child support don't, in some cases. I know that certain individuals suspected of eco-terrorism who have refused to co-operate have "run out the clock" on their contempt confinement.