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Comment by aheilbut | Hacker News Reader

There is long-established precedent for compelling the provision of testimony and/or physical evidence within our legal system. Do people seriously think that USB sticks have some special privilege?

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True, but in this case the prosecution didn't know whether or not the drive contained anything relevant to the terrorism case.

It does not matter. It's the same as refusing to allow police to search your home when they have a warrant. You can be held in contempt and be throw in jail for it. This is not different, it's been the law for a very long time.

You don't have to testify against yourself. Giving away password is exactly this.

This was in the UK. They don't have Miranda warnings or protection against self-incrimination.

Most of the democracies in the world have those same rights. But not the warnings, that's a US idea, and they universal, not conditional on a cop giving them to you.

If the information was in his head and not on a thumb drive then yes, but it was on a piece of physical evidence, therefore the password is the same as a key to a storage locker or the combo of a safe. Refusal to provide either will result in a charge of contempt, exactly what happened in this case.

Nope. This is my knowledge and my words. You can have any number of "metaphor" you want, but direct, literally, word by word, meaning of legislature trumps all metaphors.

Information - the password, is in his head.

The UK legal system can be characteristically illiberal in many ways. This is one of them, yes.

In what country can an accused not be compelled to furnish physical evidence?

In the US you have the right not to answer questions (yes, occasionally you don't, but in most cases you do). The police is free to take possession of everything you have, sure, but you can't be forced to answer questions about it, at least in principle. I believe this applies to other legal systems. No such luck in the UK, and not just about passwords.

In the U.S. you can, under the threat of contempt of court, be forced to hand over keys to storage lockers, access to financial accounts, and things of that nature. Passwords are an unsettled issue in the U.S. On one hand, it's like furnishing the keys to a lockbox, which the police can compel you to do. On the other hand, it arguably involves testimonial actions, which the police cannot compel you to do.

I'd be interested in someone knowledgable writing a comparison of the UK & US systems.

For example, do judges need to issue the paper work or can a senior police officer do it?

In the U.S., it would have to be a judge.

Yes, but (afaik & ianal) this sort of compelling power refers to stuff that authorities already know you have, and there are clear limits to what can be asked for which type of investigation. An encrypted drive could contain documents of completely unrelated nature, but this is not contemplated by this UK law: it's all or nothing. This is what tripped this particular case here, and tbh I think it also wasted time for anti-terrorism authorities, who spent weeks trying to crack a useless USB stick. Had the defendant got a chance to negotiate immunity for unrelated charges arisen by disclosure, he'd have fessed up straight away and saved everyone some precious time.

Judge still can order you to disclose password or put you in jail for contempt of court.

In Brazil the accused can't be compelled to aid prosecution. For decades drunk drivers walked away alleging they were "forced" to blow a breathalyzer, until specific legislation was passed a couple years ago. You still can't be forced to use a breathalyzer, but now you are presumed guilty.

Not that you are likely to get any jail-time if you kill someone while drunk-driving here...

What if he had really forgotten the password? There can not be any way of proving the opposite. Such laws should not exist.

Then he wouldn't have gotten this additional sentence. This sentence was added only after it was revealed that he was, in fact, able to produce the password. It's perhaps not written as well as it could be in the article, but if you read carefully, it's clear this sentence was not given when he claimed to forget, but later when he reveal the password after having claimed to forget.

I think its perfectly reasonable for someone to later remember a password. Its happened to me a lot. I realise they probably had some reasonable suspicion into him previously, but on the surface it reads like they are just throwing the book at him rather than legitimately investigating terrorists.

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