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posted by martyb on Thursday June 25 2020, @03:52AM   Printer-friendly
from the 12345 dept.

It's unconstitutional for cops to force phone unlocking, court rules:

Indiana's Supreme Court has ruled that the Fifth Amendment allows a woman accused of stalking to refuse to unlock her iPhone. The court held that the Fifth Amendment's rule against self-incrimination protected Katelin Seo from giving the police access to potentially incriminating data on her phone.

The courts are divided on how to apply the Fifth Amendment in this kind of case. Earlier this year, a Philadelphia man was released from jail after four years of being held in contempt in connection with a child-pornography case. A federal appeals court rejected his argument that the Fifth Amendment gave him the right to refuse to unlock hard drives found in his possession. A Vermont federal court reached the same conclusion in 2009—as did a Colorado federal court in 2012, a Virginia state court in 2014, and the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in 2014.

But other courts in Florida, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania have reached the opposite conclusion, holding that forcing people to provide computer or smartphone passwords would violate the Fifth Amendment.

Lower courts are divided about this issue because the relevant Supreme Court precedents all predate the smartphone era. To understand the two competing theories, it's helpful to analogize the situation to a pre-digital technology.

There's much more to the matter than just the excerpt shown here -- it's well worth reading the entire article so as to not argue from ignorance.


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Thursday June 25 2020, @04:03AM (10 children)

    by fustakrakich (6150) on Thursday June 25 2020, @04:03AM (#1012300) Journal

    What possible reasonable logic could compel me to aid anybody in my own prosecution? It's ridiculous.

    --
    La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
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  • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25 2020, @04:24AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25 2020, @04:24AM (#1012303)

    If you confess, the Lord will go easier on you. Have you not read Foucault's "Discipline and Punish"? Made the point that several times, during the pouring of molten lead into wounds, cutting out of the tongue, and everyone's favorite, the drawing and quartering, they would pause to ask the condemned if he repented, to save his immortal soul. So nice of them, really.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25 2020, @05:32AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25 2020, @05:32AM (#1012313)

      > Have you not read Foucault's "Discipline and Punish"?

      Spoiler alert: Punish is better.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by shortscreen on Thursday June 25 2020, @06:02AM (1 child)

    by shortscreen (2252) on Thursday June 25 2020, @06:02AM (#1012318) Journal

    First we need to find out what possible reasonable logic could compel someone to carry around an electronic device that spies on them on behalf of corporations/government.

    • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday June 25 2020, @03:30PM

      by Freeman (732) on Thursday June 25 2020, @03:30PM (#1012438) Journal

      Convenience and addiction.

      --
      Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Thursday June 25 2020, @02:12PM (4 children)

    by Thexalon (636) on Thursday June 25 2020, @02:12PM (#1012404)

    What possible reasonable logic could compel me to aid anybody in my own prosecution?

    That's easy: The cops and prosecutors create a scenario in which a conviction, even if you didn't commit the crime, isn't the worst thing that could happen to you.

    For example, for minor offenses, just raise the bail to much higher than you can pay and more than 10 times any fine (so going to a bail bondsman will cost more than pleading out), and now the short-term rational thing to do is to plead out even if you're innocent, because you'll lose absolutely everything you own if you go to prison and bail is more expensive than pleading out.

    For more serious offenses, the way you convince innocent people to accept guilt is to make the pre-trial confinement take longer than any punishment, and/or make the pre-trial confinement in as dangerous a place to be as possible. And of course you make any bail completely beyond the ability of the prisoner to pay it, even with loans from family or friends or a bondsman involved. So you make it so you can either sit in jail for 3-5 years risking getting beaten, raped, or killed every day before you go to trial, or you can plead guilty and only have to survive 2 years in there.

    And if that isn't an option, just have the cops be able to kill you with impunity for any reason they feel like or no reason at all. Including when you're already under arrest or in jail awaiting arraignment. So you can either take your conviction and 10 years in prison plus your curtailed rights once you get out, or your life is entirely over. Your choice.

    And this is the mockery of justice that many if not most Americans live under, right now.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25 2020, @05:15PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25 2020, @05:15PM (#1012488)

      you forgot the other option: going out in a blaze of glory for anything that could cost you over $x amount of time in jail. \

      Better to be dead than a slave.

      https://invidio.us/watch?v=XJTjIlH3sbE [invidio.us]

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Thursday June 25 2020, @07:44PM

        by Thexalon (636) on Thursday June 25 2020, @07:44PM (#1012587)

        That "blaze of glory" is likely to kill some decent folks. Possibly including members of your friends and family. And even if it doesn't, you've now deprived your friends and family of whatever you were contributing to them. So no, it's usually not a rational choice.

        --
        The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
    • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25 2020, @07:22PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25 2020, @07:22PM (#1012574)

      That's easy: The cops and prosecutors create a scenario in which a conviction, even if you didn't commit the crime, isn't the worst thing that could happen to you.

      Which in the Democrats' minds is A-OK if the target happens to be someone who worked with Trump. Though in Flynn's case, it was threats made to prosecute his family rather than extended stays in prison that got him to plead guilty.

      There is still a right to a speedy trial in this country. However if your defense attorney asks for continuances, the clock gets pushed out, which is why many languish in jail waiting for their trials.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday June 25 2020, @10:44PM

      by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Thursday June 25 2020, @10:44PM (#1012678)

      That sounds like a dreadful place to live.

  • (Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Friday June 26 2020, @02:00PM

    by wisnoskij (5149) <{jonathonwisnoski} {at} {gmail.com}> on Friday June 26 2020, @02:00PM (#1012837)

    The fifth and surrounding laws and rights are pretty specific. You are not required to testify against yourself.

    But you are required to aid the state in investigations. For example, if you have a key to a safe, you are required to hand it over. Similarly, you cannot hide or destroy said safe.

    The fifth very specifically makes it legal to claim your innocence and not give an accurate and thorough summary of your crimes to the courts. It does not pertain to any other circumstances.

    You very well might not want to provide the police with evidence against you, but that does not make it legal.