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posted by janrinok on Sunday August 21 2016, @07:39PM   Printer-friendly
from the what-privacy? dept.

Encryption tools that keep your digital communications hidden from prying eyes are becoming more widespread, and Canadian police say they need a law that compels people to hand over their passwords so cops can access those communications.

The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP), a lobbying organization with membership from across the country, passed a resolution at its annual conference on Tuesday mandating that the group advocate for a law that would force people to provide their computer passwords to police with a judge's consent, CTV reported.

"To say this is deeply problematic is to understate the matter," said Micheal Vonn, policy director for the BC Civil Liberties Association. "We have all kinds of laws that do not compel people to incriminate themselves or even speak."

A law that compels people to give police access to their devices, which may contain messages, photos, and data that have nothing to do with any active criminal investigation, doesn't fit within Canada's current legal landscape and would be "tricky constitutionally," Vonn added.

"I'd question whether this proposal is constitutional," said Tamir Israel, a lawyer for the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic at the University of Ottawa.

"It's rare to force people to help police investigate themselves, and for good reason," Israel continued. "It shifts the focus of criminal condemnation away from actual criminal activity and onto compliance. So if an individual legitimately objects to handing over their password, that alone makes them criminal."

[...] "This has been a standard component of what the chiefs of police do—they argue for laws that would make policing easier," Vonn said.

"But is it a good idea from a civil liberties perspective? No."


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  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @07:48PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @07:48PM (#391185)

    Canucks AKA little Americans.

  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday August 21 2016, @07:53PM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 21 2016, @07:53PM (#391188) Journal

    Petty tyrants and martinettes always want more laws that give them more power and authority. More news at 11:00.

  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @07:53PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @07:53PM (#391190)

    No child brides.

    Obey us. Give crypto keys.

    When will mmmallleeesss stop obeying?

    What are they living for?

  • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday August 21 2016, @08:33PM

    by Gaaark (41) on Sunday August 21 2016, @08:33PM (#391207) Journal

    I want a law that forces cops to not be criminals, not to beat people up, not to....

    And hookers should be able to strip search me any time they want. But I don't want blow: booze is fine.

    --
    --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @12:30PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @12:30PM (#391587)

      Meh, gimme a nice joint any day over booze. Blow is strait poison.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday August 21 2016, @09:01PM

    by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Sunday August 21 2016, @09:01PM (#391231) Journal

    There goes the last bastion of sanity in the Western Hemisphere. Fuck. So much for moving to BC...

    --
    I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
    • (Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Sunday August 21 2016, @10:45PM

      by Scruffy Beard 2 (6030) on Sunday August 21 2016, @10:45PM (#391303)

      That's what happens when I troll Soylent News instead of fighting "the man" :P

    • (Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @11:08PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @11:08PM (#391316)

      Too many muslims. Find somewhere else. It is going downhill here.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @09:02PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @09:02PM (#391232)

    I have a really bad memory... stress makes me forget things and you cops are putting me under a lot of stress. I really can't remember.
    Also, what is this encryption you talk about? You mean this thing? Right here, that huge blob of random data? I'm just generating random data because I like bell-curves!

    I know, I know... they'll throw me in jail for contempt of court.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by Capt. Obvious on Sunday August 21 2016, @09:20PM

      by Capt. Obvious (6089) on Sunday August 21 2016, @09:20PM (#391246)

      Bell curves? My random data is uniformly distributed!

    • (Score: 2) by fnj on Sunday August 21 2016, @11:27PM

      by fnj (1654) on Sunday August 21 2016, @11:27PM (#391332)

      I think the password was 6. It's been a while. "What if I'm wrong? I got a condition. I get confused sometimes".

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @04:46PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @04:46PM (#391715)

      no, they want to up the penalty. that's what this is all about. they want to make it cost prohibitive to keep your password.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @09:04PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @09:04PM (#391235)

    People who really want privacy - good and bad guys alike - will turn to steganography and carry the art forward to dizzying heights.

    Go ahead and look at my stuff! Nothing to see here!

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @09:12PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @09:12PM (#391240)

      Steganography, you say?

      People who really want privacy - good and bad guys alike - will turn to steganography and carry the art forward to dizzying heights.
      Go ahead and look at my stuff! Nothing to see here!

      I see what you did there...

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @09:34PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @09:34PM (#391255)

        It is quite cold and cloudy in St. Petersburg this time of year, Stanley. One could quickly find that statistic through Google.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @10:34PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @10:34PM (#391288)

          Our mulberry bushes have aphids this year. I look forward to autumn.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @06:04PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @06:04PM (#391759)

            Mulberry bushes
            have aphids this year. I look
            forward to autumn.

            FTFY

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @09:36PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @09:36PM (#391258)

    Fear ye not for we shall endure. We will be protected because the only way to stop a bad guy with a password is a good guy with a password ... your password.

  • (Score: 2) by fnj on Sunday August 21 2016, @11:22PM

    by fnj (1654) on Sunday August 21 2016, @11:22PM (#391325)

    Eat shit, coppers. You can't "force" a free man to do anything against his will. You can pound William Wallace to jelly, tear his limbs off and pull his insides out, but his last word will still be FREEDOM! Sir Thomas More will be remembered and respected after the names of statist pigs through the ages are all forgotten and spit on.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @12:50AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @12:50AM (#391367)

      Don't worry. They're working on ways to get around your free will, which is a fragile illusion at best. Soon it will be part of interrogations to inject designer drugs specifically meant to induce a specific kind of fugue state in which memory is not impaired but executive and higher cognitive functions completely shut down.

      They have always been looking for a truth serum. They pretend that polygraph tests can detect lies, but it's an inside joke they all go along with. It's meant to firmly implant the idea into your subconscious that there could not possibly be an effective truth serum. They are learning more and more about consciousness and cognition with MRI and CT research. A lot of that research is proving a vast benefit and improving lives. Yet for every thing a human invents out of the purest of intentions, another human will find an evil use for it.

      There are many kinds of drugs in trials. They tested LSD and marijuana hoping there was an easy truth drug. There is not. They've exhausted the diversity of artificial weed and now they're moving towards other substances such as bath salts. The other day, there was a story in the news about a kid who had been taking another one of these drugs that stabbed a couple sitting in their garage and was found eating the face of one of his victims. Let the data come in for a little while, cross it off the list, have a DEA crackdown, and work on the next one to make available. It's a new form of MKULTRA, and they do not care how many people die and how many lives they ruin.

      If it cannot be had with drugs, then they will keep trying. When we have brain-computer interfaces, they will have that much more power at their disposal.

      Eventually the research will find the exact pathways needed to be depressed or excited to completely shut down free will. Under the influence of the truth drug or hack they'll find eventually, the suspect will truthfully and openly answer any factual question asked without suspicion.

      This is the future of the human race.

      Your freedom is irrelevant. Resistance is futile.

      • (Score: 2) by fnj on Monday August 22 2016, @03:05AM

        by fnj (1654) on Monday August 22 2016, @03:05AM (#391430)

        Yes; drugs, mind control, and torture can subvert free will, in the sense of breaking down the subject. But they can't make anyone a willing accomplice. The best they can do is make zombies, and even then, results are not guaranteed (really investigate what James Stockdale, John McCain, and others endured without yielding).

        Magic truth serum is a fairy tale.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @03:12PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @03:12PM (#391666)

        MDMA is a surprisingly good truth serum, I've found.

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by juggs on Monday August 22 2016, @01:35AM

    by juggs (63) on Monday August 22 2016, @01:35AM (#391387) Journal

    This has been in force in the UK for many years now as part of The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA), Part III. Up to 2 years in the big house for not revealing a password to police.

    In fairness, they do have to provide some form of evidence that supports their view that the password is being withheld rather than forgotten - last access / modified times on files being a dead give away for one.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by fnj on Monday August 22 2016, @03:14AM

      by fnj (1654) on Monday August 22 2016, @03:14AM (#391433)

      No, file access and modify times are not a giveaway. You can never prove that someone knows something but will not reveal it. It isn't possible. It's always possible that George knew the password last Thursday but does not remember it now. He may have written it down and burned the paper since. Anyone who pretends that it is possible to know the contents of George's brain is either mistaken or a filthy corrupt liar. All you can do is convince a kangaroo court judge, who will then blatantly subvert justice by locking up the victim for contempt.

      • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @08:08AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @08:08AM (#391507)

        Brits are disarmed, there's nothing they can do about it: just how women want it.

      • (Score: 2) by juggs on Tuesday August 23 2016, @12:47AM

        by juggs (63) on Tuesday August 23 2016, @12:47AM (#391950) Journal

        I agree - unless George states he knows the password and then refuses to reveal it. There have been very few convictions under this particular legislation (as in single figures). I get the impression that judges on the whole are not particularly favourable toward it, but that's just my impression, I'm not aware of any speaking out and saying so explicitly.

        Picky detail, those few locked up are not locked up for contempt of court, but for the specific offence of not revealing the password as legislated in RIPA.

        Maybe the police just wave it around to 'encourage' people to remember their passwords during the bluffing phase. I really have no idea and hopefully I never find out personally - might do some reading on the few cases that have ended up with convictions though.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @12:36PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @12:36PM (#391590)

    We didn't ask for free doughnuts as well.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @05:01PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @05:01PM (#391724)

    you actively work against The People every chance you get and you dirty pigs wonder why you get shot(though still very rarely, despite all the "news" to the contrary). expect more justice to come your way, you dumb mother fuckers who can't do anything productive with your lives. just continue to sit on your fat asses and steal from working people(even drug dealers are more honest than you).

  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday August 22 2016, @05:49PM

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 22 2016, @05:49PM (#391750) Journal

    There have two passwords. The real one and the fake one.

    You give the petty tyrant fascist police state dictators the fake one.

    Once entered, the device seems to have a reasonable, minimal set of information:
    * minimal set of apps
    * minimal set of contacts (grocer, pet groomer, hospital, etc)

    Any other information on the device was destroyed by the fake password.

    --
    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.