Court rejects appeal, rules defendant must decrypt laptop
updated 05:10 pm EST, Fri February 24, 2012
Can't hide behind 5th Amendment
A federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that a defendant must decrypt her laptop so that files on it could be used by the prosecution in a case of alleged mortgage fraud. The defendant's lawyer had appealed a ruling to decode the data, arguing that decrypting the data was tantamount to a breach of protection against self incrimination under the Fifth Amendment. The court, however, agreed with the prosecution, which had argued that there could be no appeal until the defendant was either found guilty or acquitted.
The grounds for the case began in 2010, when Colorado federal authorities armed with a search warrant seized the laptop and asked the defendant to type in her password so that files on it could be decrypted. She refused. In January of this year, US District Judge Robert Blackburn ordered the defendant to enter the password and gave her until the end of this month to do so. The defendant's lawyer quickly appealed.
The appeal was heard in the 10th US Circuit Court of Appeals. Lawyers for the government argued that there was nothing to appeal since a verdict had not yet been rendered. If the defendant is ultimately found guilty, then her lawyer could validly file an appeal to have the case thrown out. The court sided with the government, stating that it did not have the 'jurisdiction' to consider the appeal. [via Wired]
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Jul 2006
Brute Force?
In the passed two years, couldn't they have brute force hacked the password? I'm not up on that sort of thing, but it does seem possible. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong.