UK: Teenager jailed for refusing to disclose password

[Asher]

Summary?

[MikeH]

Did the police leak the sex angle to alleviate bad press?

[MikeH]

Is it fair to leak that someone is potentially involved in kiddy porn, with no evidence, and no charges in that area, when it can literally ruin their life?

[MOBIUS]

For anyone actually interested in the law, or the details of the case, on this David Allen Green's blog is worth a read. Either at New Statesman or Jack of Kent.

I met him at the inaugural Cardiff Skeptics night the other week!

He was down to help launch it and lend his support to my friend who was at the centre of the Stupid Scientology storm...

[MikeH]

A great win that was.

[MOBIUS]

Jesjes!

[onodera]

He should've used a whatsitsname, a second password that shows a harmless system with 6 toolbars in Ie and an inbox full of letters from his mom.
I don't think you can equate a password with a physical key. If the police find a real paper diary written in a cypher, do you have to decypher it for them?

[Dauphin]

Isn't the American way to say "you can't force someone to give you the password, but you can force them to provide an unencrypted version of the data".

[DaShi]

David Allen Greer will be on Bones tonight.

[The Mad Monk]

Oerdin, your Good Friend on another site agrees with you.

[C0ckney]

Is it fair to leak that someone is potentially involved in kiddy porn, with no evidence, and no charges in that area, when it can literally ruin their life?

yeah the more i look at this, the more it looks like the police are trying to protect themselves from bad press.

it makes you wonder though, because there is a very easy way for this guy to clear his name and remove any suspicious regarding child pornography.

[Dinner]

Boris, people have an option even when it comes to a search warrant. Of course if they don't open the door the police will just break it down so most people choose to open it. Of course these days it seems like most warrants are no knock warrants so it doesn't really matter.

[Dinner]

THIS !!!

Oerdin seems to be equating a right against self-incrimination with a right not to have possessions/property (including a computer) searched. It is obvious that an alleged offender's property may be searched if proper cause exists and the fact that he has a clever "lock" on his computer doesn't change this. I am assuming the government can access programs to break through the encryption??

No, I'm saying he can indeed have his property including his computer searched but demanding he decode it for them seems to go to far in my mind. They're basically demanding he incriminate himself.

[Asher]

Boris, people have an option even when it comes to a search warrant. Of course if they don't open the door the police will just break it down so most people choose to open it.

[Dinner]

For anyone actually interested in the law, or the details of the case, on this David Allen Green's blog is worth a read. Either at New Statesman or Jack of Kent.

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2010/10/police-drage-password-sex

It's actually much more complicated than the screaming banshees in our media make out. You really need to read the entire article, there's no easy summary.

Good links. Thanks.