Man jailed over computer password refusal (UK)

[killadoob]

You are saying a man needs to prove himself innocent instead of the state proving him guilty?

This follows logically from your statement about child porn hiding behind "privacy". How do you know he has child porn? First you need to prove it.

Ummm yes and by cracking the code i am sure they will prove if he is guilty or not, by not giving them the code i would say he must be guilty. What person in their right mind would go to prison if they are guilty of nothing?

A person willing to go to prison over privacy must be guilty of something. Simple give them the code, they see no child porn you don't go to prison.

 

[Alan]

The right to remain silent does not exempt you from being forced to allow access to your property for the cops to conduct an investigation. It doesn't render search warrants and such invalid

Indeed. It's like the cops arriving at your door with a search warrant and you refuse to unlock the door because by allowing them in you would be "incriminating yourself" :erm:

 

[thatdamnJoe]

There must be some sort of evidence like IP address or such. Otherwise the police would be knocking on ALL the doors to enforce the law on ALL people. Now if the police can produce evidence as to why they came knocking on only one specific door…then where there is smoke there must be a cigarette or smoking gun?

I'll talk in SA legal terms for the sake of argument - the principles are very similar in most legal systems.

The prosecution adduces evidence tryign to prove a crime has been committed. The defence need only adduce enough evidence to create reasonable doubt that the crime has been committed. The accused need not provide the prosecution with evidence to help convict him.

If the prosecution case is strong enough that may mean he needs to provide access to the encrypted volume to prove its contents. I dont need to tell you that just an IP address is far from enough to prove that a specific person has accessed specific material.

 

[Wikkelspies]

They were investigating child sexual exploitation, which is fair, but I would have thought that they would have needed a court order in any case to search someone's personal property?

I am sure they had a court order. What they appear not to have had - unlike what one sees in movies - is a geek who could tunnel into the hard drive, or enough time on a supercomputer to run a password cracker - even supposing a 50-character password could be cracked in our lifetimes. Don't know enough Maths to risk an opinion on that one, but I think that password crackers rely on more than just trial and error. They use other clues.

In any event, no one could remember 50-characters unless its in the form of a phrase. The kid has to have it stored somewhere. I'd have it on a USB drive, but then I scarcely ever bother with more than eight characters apart from the key to my home network.

 

[Wikkelspies]

If policemen showed up at your door and accused you of treason charges - without any proof at all. And then accused you of hiding documents proving that in a secret volume thats password protected(they also happened to create the volume themselves so you couldnt give them the password even if you wanted)- given your approach, how do you propose to prove your innocence? And corrupt cops are by no means a fanciful invention, they exist in any administration in the world.

The police would have to give the defence access to the hard drive purporting to be evidence. IT experts for the defence could prove quite easily that the drive in question had never been inside the defendant's computer.

There are various ways of doing this, all related to the fact that most software nowadays has built in piracy protection which identifies the machine on which the software is being used and writes that information to the boot sector of the primary hard disk. For the police to fabricate evidence on a hard disk of their own, and then claim that it is yours, is well nigh impossible. Whatever their 'experts' might be able to do, the defendant's experts would discover.

I am reminded of the case of ZA Sux. This was a website hosted in California where people posted negative and overtly racist comment on South Africa. The site was being administered from Natal, and the webmaster took so few precautions that he was traced to his home. When the police arrived to shut him down, the warrant was to search for illegal firearms - don't ask me how they knew he had one; perhaps the same way they found out what he was doing, on the Net!

I'm not sure whether he was ever charged with any offence relating to the content of the website but it has not, as far as I know, resurfaced under another name.

The point I am making is that if police cannot nail you on the main charge, they will always find something to remind you to pull your head in - if you are a person of interest to them.

 

[MickZA]

@thatdamnjoe

Scenario 1: witness to a murder claims to have seen the accused commit the act and then lock the smoking gun in a safe - police are granted a search warrant to examine the contents of the safe to substantiate the witness's statement, search warrant is limited to the gun.

Scenario 2: witness claims to have seen kiddie porn on the accused's computer - police are granted a search warrant to examine the contents of the hard drive for forensic checks to substantiate the witness's statement, search warrant is limited to evidence of kiddie porn.

Please discuss the legality of the above scenarios and why, if that is the case, they should be treated differently.

 

[ponder]

What person in their right mind would go to prison if they are guilty of nothing?

A person willing to go to prison over privacy must be guilty of something. Simple give them the code, they see no child porn you don't go to prison.

A person with principals not prepared to have their legal rights violated?

 

[ponder]

The prosecution adduces evidence tryign to prove a crime has been committed. The defence need only adduce enough evidence to create reasonable doubt that the crime has been committed. The accused need not provide the prosecution with evidence to help convict him.

This logic is seems not to apply to many people here.

 

[sjm]

Indeed. It's like the cops arriving at your door with a search warrant and you refuse to unlock the door because by allowing them in you would be "incriminating yourself" :erm:

No, this is more like the police arriving at your door, asking for your key & you telling them that you don't have it. They can break the door down if they want, you're not preventing them from doing that. You're just telling them that you don't have the key.

 

[thatdamnJoe]

Ummm yes and by cracking the code i am sure they will prove if he is guilty or not, by not giving them the code i would say he must be guilty. What person in their right mind would go to prison if they are guilty of nothing?

A person willing to go to prison over privacy must be guilty of something. Simple give them the code, they see no child porn you don't go to prison.

there are many people in prisons all over the world who are willing to sit for principles

Political prisoners ring a bell?

 

[thatdamnJoe]

@thatdamnjoe

scenario 1: witness to a murder claims to have seen the accused commit the act and then lock the smoking gun in a safe - police are granted a search warrant to examine the contents of the safe to substantiate the witness's statement, search warrant is limited to the gun.
Scenario 2: witness claims to have seen kiddie porn on the accused's computer - police are granted a search warrant to examine the contents of the hard drive for forensic checks to substantiate the witness's statement, search warrant is limited to evidence of kiddie porn.

Please discuss the legality of the above scenarios and why, if that is the case, they should be treated differently.

Who says they do?

When police enter your home with a search warrant looking for x, they actually do that, they search around and try to find x. They dont ask you to point it out.

Granting a password is akin to assisting in pointing out evidence, thereby doing the police's job for them. They are in effect asking the accused to "prove" himself innocent by providing access to certain information(pointing out x), whereas they should be proving him guilty by doing their own investigative work(searching through the house).

The principle of innocence until guilt is proven is a very powerful control on state machinery. It stops police from throwing you into jail for being unable to prove a negative.

 

[zippy]

In case anyone didnt or couldnt read the OP's link

He was formally asked to disclose his password but failed to do so, which is an offence under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, police said.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/23/contents

This legislation has survived all challenges to it.

This is also not the first case. From this wiki link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_Investigatory_Powers_Act_2000

The first person jailed under RIPA Part III, for not giving police access to encrypted material, was a schizophrenic man who was not judged to be a threat to national security, and the encrypted material in question was not suspected of securing illegal material. He said he was refusing on principle, on the basis that he should have a right to silence. He was jailed for 9 months for refusing to hand over his decryption keys, or otherwise decrypt the data, and was later moved to a secure mental hospital part way through his sentence.[22]

Under UK law the right to silence does not cover refusing to give up passwords or encryption keys to electronic files.

 

[ponder]

In case anyone didnt or couldnt read the OP's link



http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/23/contents

This legislation has survived all challenges to it.

This is also not the first case. From this wiki link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_Investigatory_Powers_Act_2000



Under UK law the right to silence does not cover refusing to give up passwords or encryption keys to electronic files.

Well maybe they should look at their laws again. Seeing they don't have a constitution per say but it's encoded in their common law one only has to ask how those laws do not infringe on the 'right to silence' law and due process. Somewhere there has to be clash & the higher law would prevail one hopes. How the fsck can you have a fundamental law protecting peoples rights not to incriminate themselves and then have certain exclusions, it's bollocks if you ask me?

 

[killadoob]

Well maybe they should look at their laws again. Seeing they don't have a constitution per say but it's encoded in their common law one only has to ask how those laws do not infringe on the 'right to silence' law and due process. Somewhere there has to be clash & the higher law would prevail one hopes. How the fsck can you have a fundamental law protecting peoples rights not to incriminate themselves and then have certain exclusions, it's bollocks if you ask me?

Evidence in my opinion. Let's say someone mugs a person. The mugged person can ID him or there are witnesses but this case for instance revolves around the evidence on his pc.

There is no way to convict people who can hide what they do behind a password.

Not sure if it makes sense but to me it seems about right. I guess it is the same as a murderer being allowed to store a gun in something that can never be opened. He would walk free because you cannot access the evidence needed to convict him.

 

[ponder]

There is no way to convict people who can hide what they do behind a password.

Not sure if it makes sense but to me it seems about right. I guess it is the same as a murderer being allowed to store a gun in something that can never be opened. He would walk free because you cannot access the evidence needed to convict him.

No it does not make sense to me. The murderer like many can simply deny knowing anything about the gun or it's location or say it was stolen, if you do not have the gun for ballistics evidence then they can't prove you shot the person, all they have is a slug and they can't force you to reveal the location of the gun. Why should I surrender a password that would incriminate me, it's the same as telling them where I hid the gun. No sane legal representative would advise his client to divulge that information.

With your logic every criminal should be forced to confess to a crime. I have information in my head that would incriminate me but I don't have to tell you, how is that different from using a password to secure information?

 

[cr@zydude]

Well maybe they should look at their laws again. Seeing they don't have a constitution per say but it's encoded in their common law one only has to ask how those laws do not infringe on the 'right to silence' law and due process. Somewhere there has to be clash & the higher law would prevail one hopes. How the fsck can you have a fundamental law protecting peoples rights not to incriminate themselves and then have certain exclusions, it's bollocks if you ask me?

Statutes override common law. They don't have a constitution, so the statute is legal.

 

[ponder]

They don't have a constitution, so the statute is legal.

Which is something parliament can change when they feel like it via majority vote.

In this case I would have done exactly what the defendant did purely out of principal.

 

[shaunvw]

I'm guessing they could keep on jailing him all the time he refuses to comply.

No you can't do that its called double jeopordy in america, you can't charge they same person for the same crime without substantial new evidence (the evidence part is when your found innocent the first time). Most if not all countries have this law.

 

[zippy]

Well maybe they should look at their laws again. Seeing they don't have a constitution per say but it's encoded in their common law one only has to ask how those laws do not infringe on the 'right to silence' law and due process. Somewhere there has to be clash & the higher law would prevail one hopes. How the fsck can you have a fundamental law protecting peoples rights not to incriminate themselves and then have certain exclusions, it's bollocks if you ask me?

They still need a warrant from a judge. They can't just knock on your door and ask for your passwords. Obviously they had enough evidence to obtain the warrant.

Then there is the trial itself where the evidence can be thrown out if it was obtained improperly.

This guys identity was successfully kept confidential throughout this process.

At least this pervert is off the streets for a few months and is now known to everyone. Hopefully the f***er will get it soon

I prefer the legal system on the UK as opposed to the one you have in SA where rapists, murders and thieves seem to be the symbols of freedom and the model citizens.

 

[zippy]

No you can't do that its called double jeopordy in america, you can't charge they same person for the same crime without substantial new evidence (the evidence part is when your found innocent the first time). Most if not all countries have this law.

This is not America. What they do in America is not relevant to the UK.