5:30am, loud knock at the door. You open the door a crack to see who it is. Cops bust in. You're immediately handcuffed and sat outside. Cops take anything with a screen, usb plug, etc. All your media. All your computers. All your external hard drives.
Every one of these devices will be imaged, and archived prior to being searched. The data will be kept for years, to protect against inevitable appeals, etc.
But you know, good luck with your plan.
I don’t think it’s better in other European countries.
[1] https://www.ccc.de/de/updates/2018/hausdurchsuchungen-bei-ve...
Also German lawyers seem to be far more trigger happy in a lot of cases than dutch like with copyright and not having your company info on your site etc; seems there is more litigation there like an industry looking for people to ‘sue’. Why aren’t people protesting or are they?
Ah, those famous words.
It's better to not do or have anything illegal. Make it so you can say "I have nothing to hide", but don't give them access voluntarily because of that.
But they won't risk it for someone with a CSAM match or anything similarly uninteresting, and local authorities won't even be aware that it's something their government can do.
Still, don't do anything illegal, but I think for most people it's legitimate to have a threat profile that assumes that encryption is effective.
Also, why don't they just beat the shit out of you to get the key?
Other good points were brought up - why not dismiss the hard drive as evidence and use other “proof” such as network logs, computer thumbnails caches from the defendants personal computer, etc?
Personally I’m not sure if those ideas were ever explored.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/02/man-who-refused-...
There's a further consideration of whether you can refuse if the literal string of the password itself would incriminate you, but I don't believe that has been conclusively litigated.
Sure, it could be a gradual decent into such a reality, but it will take a long time.
There's a constant push, at least in the US, for regulation on encryption. It's gotten consistently shot down thus far, thankfully. But it's a never-ending battle. And one day people will most likely become complacent enough to let go and feel the liberty melt away.
Just like the last couple generations have gotten increasingly soft on our right to bear arms. They've been conditioned to believe that it's dangerous, and boomer-like, and no longer important.
Sure, the US freedom of speech amendment protects more powerfully than in most countries. But I wouldn't be so confident once the rest of the world has given up