[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law#United_Kingd...
Forced key disclosure with sentencing for failure to disclose (like in the UK) is particularly odious. If I have a hard drive full of random data, the UK government can imprison me for up to five years just by accusing me of terrorism or child pornography possession and demanding that I turn over the key to the hard drive. They don't have to prove that I did what they're accusing me of, or that I even have a key.
Tell that to Ladar Levison. ;)
This is far far from decided or well settled. I can think of countless instances where it is likely false.
The really interesting legal question to me is as neuroscience advances, it is likely in the near future that scientists may be able recover one's key (or other relevant information regarding crime) through studying one's brain by imaging or the use of other sensors. Under current case law there is a really really good argument this would not be testimonial (i.e. it is similar to taking your fingerprints or blood), yet provides the same information they could obtain by compelling your testimony.
Does the 5th Amendment prohibit the government from scanning your brain to obtain information about a crime? I think there is a significant number of judges who would find under current law it does not.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law#United_State...
IANAL, but it does not. It protects against self incrimination. They can make you incriminate someone else just fine, and if you try to object on 5th amendment grounds they can grant you immunity to whatever they might find there.
Bullocks. Just yesterday they replaced the keypad on a door I've used a hundred times before and I completely blanked on the combination. It was the same 4-digit number it was before but the keypad was different and that was all it took. On the other hand, the passwords for the computers are 14 random characters, and nobody ever wrote them down because a) they were explicitly forbidden to and b) everyone used them so often they didn't need to. Except that half the time anyone would go on vacation for more than a week they would forget and have to beg the backup admins to restore their home directory because the local data was encrypted but the backups weren't.
The idea that it isn't "reasonable" for people to do these things is belied by the fact that they regularly do. And having the police break into your house and turn your life upside down by carting off with half your stuff is exactly the sort of shock that will interfere with your ability to remember.
They aren't calling it unreasonable because it's unreasonable, they're calling it unreasonable because they'd rather put innocent people in prison than let guilty people go. The prosecutor is willing to lie about what is reasonable and the judge is willing to believe the lie. But at that point it doesn't matter what you actually do because facts and logic are no longer in play. They're just making things up. If they don't get you for not providing your encryption key then they'll just make up something else for you to be guilty of.
Is forgetting (or losing) the key a crime?
Honestly, if I have a 32 character master-password on a strip of paper in my wallet and I just happen to lose my wallet before I get raided, then I'm pretty sure that I could show that I simply don't know the key.
Because realistically would you write down the pass key in only one place? That's all of your data after all. Your livelihood if you're a developer etc. You may get asked what sort of things losing that password has cost you, if you're the sort of person who has that level of security that probably means you're locked out of all sorts of other systems (thanks to now not having access to private keys) so they can be subpoenaed to see if you've managed to log into your hosting account recently despite not having the private key to do so. And if you magically have preserved your private keys elsewhere why should you be believed that your passkey solely exists on a piece of paper in your wallet...
What about your friends, co-workers etc who might be compelled to testify as to having seen you work on your computer and have never seen you get your wallet out at any point.
And as soon as that isn't believed all other testimony you may give is tainted because you've just lied to the court. Good luck with any mitigation in the event of a guilty plea as well because you've demonstrated you haven't acted in good faith.
They often work hard to find workarounds or ways to charge you with other things to punish you anyway. The most obvious example is being innocent until proven guilty, and yet there are a lot of cases where the police shot someone to death because they raided the wrong home for example (which is why the tool is called SWATd I believe)
Yes, they would put you in jail, but more for being a bad liar than for having a faulty memory.
That might fall into the too clever by half bucket; but if you set it up now; you can claim it was intended for protection from criminals.