The Electronic Frontier Foundation has a court in Colorado asks a requirement of the prosecutor to suggest that a defendant is forced to enter a password. The civil rights movement called the requirement unconstitutional.
The case revolves around a woman who is suspected of fraudulent practices during real estate transactions. During a police investigation, the police, a laptop seized when the information through the use of encryption was encrypted. The TO wanted the judge to the defendant would require the necessary password to give or to an unencrypted version of the stored data to hand.
According to the EFF, this requirement is unlawful, because the woman than is possible for herself incriminating material would suggest. The EFF contends that the mandatory introduction of a password by a defendant is a direct violation of the civil rights in the fifth amendment of the American constitution are laid down. In this section, it is prohibited that a defendant is forced to participate in his own condemnation.
The EFF believes, further, that the Public Prosecutor is insufficient guarantees issued that the information of the laptop against the defendant would like to use. The civil rights movement believes, therefore, that a judicial judgment in this case great consequences for the application of encryption by citizens.
The Us case is also reminiscent of the recent kinderpornozaak in the Netherlands. Added to this was the data on hard drives of the hoofdverdachten also have a strong encryption. Among other things, the CDA suggested that suspects of serious abusive criminal activity, under the threat of higher sentences to be forced to passwords. Furthermore, the Amsterdam deputy public prosecutor Jet Hoogendijk for encrypting files to ban.