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A comment on EFF: forced disclosure of encryption password violates 5th Amendment.

Re:EFF: forced disclosure of encryption password violates 5t... by Sapient on Friday July 08, 2011 @09:58PM (#2744783)
I am not an American, but I can't imagine that this will ever hold up.

In a world where filing cabinets and office safes are vanishing, the courts would be cutting off access to a major source of evidence they need for successful prosecutions. Financial crimes would become much harder to prosecute, and many "digital" crimes could become impossible.

I just cant imagine your government allowing that. The only alternative I can imagine is them making unbreakable encryption illegal for civilian use.

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Re:EFF: forced disclosure of encryption password violates 5t... by ajross on Friday July 08, 2011 @10:35PM (#2744842)
Illegal strong encryption was, in fact, the law for many years. It was changed only when it was realized that the lack of robust security was harming the emerging "e-commerce" markets. Certainly it wasn't due to a concern about 4th and 5th amendment rights.
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Re:EFF: forced disclosure of encryption password violates 5t... by jdhopeunique on Friday July 08, 2011 @10:53PM (#2744879)
Certainly the export of strong encryption technology was illegal, but the domestic use was not as far as I'm aware. Which law made strong encryption illegal?
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Re:EFF: forced disclosure of encryption password violates 5t... by nl on Saturday July 09, 2011 @06:46AM (#2745430)
Strong encryption was never illegal, but there was speculation that the Clipper chip[1] was the first step towards making it so.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip

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