Colorado woman must turn over computer password

I think "they" did fine with the concepts. Our problem has always been interpretation and the bullshititry of two-party politics. As cliche' as it is to repeat outside the idealistic ivory pages of a textbook, these things are a part of a living document that we are free to interpret and reinterpret all the time. If we fuck up our rights, it's not because somebody in a powdered wig wasn't specific enough, it's because the current generation (which tends to be two or three generations behind when you're talking about the SCOTUS) is swinging the pendulum hard one way or the other (strengthen individual protections vs. law enforcement interests). Surveillance and privacy law is rife with examples of this pendulum effect... every 15 or 20 years you can see decisions swing back the other way. Then you get Omnibus Crime Control Act (1968), USA PATRIOT (2001), fuckin' Kyllo, etc.

The problem with surveillance and privacy law is that most of the time it is eroded away in an "emergency" and not replaced.

Y'know, all in the name of stopping the bad guys of that particular era. Commies. Mobsters. Drug dealers. Terrorists.

The threat comes and goes. Our individual protections, however, are never restored to the same level.

/1984

/7th grade civics

 

I changed it for you, Cynth.

/great at regurgitating shit from his undergraduate days

/wanted to be a lawyer before he found a better job

 

If there was one thing I learned from endless classes and police ride-alongs: you can get away with nearly anything once as long as you drive to another city, pick a random target and avoid confrontation. You want a new TeeVee? The amount of unsolved crimes in the US is amazing.

Well, depends on how you see the system.

I tend to see it as hungry for law enforcement victories and willing to throw individual rights in the toilet because, well, individual rights are for poor people and minorities. What hurdled us into the Age of No Privacy, however, wasn't the doing of the turtle-reactionary legal system... it was social media and that damn WWW. The thing that changed was us... and as any 4th Amendment expert will tell you, once you change the standards of the Reasonable Blowup Doll ("reasonable person"), you change law. Our boy KirStang actually has a law degree but I'd imagine he'd agree with me here.

Why? Life is all about your battle drills. You don't get points for creativity in too many areas.

 

I don't know what you all are talking about here, but there's been a seminal shift in the "Reasonable Expectation of Privacy" test since the recent SCOTUS decision to make GPS tracking devices "illegal" under the 4th amendment. Back to work, ya'll.

 

See?

Pendulum'd!

 

well yes, much of the law hinges on what a reasonable person would do or expect. If social norms change, then what's reasonable changes, too.

 

I've always been iffy about the fifth amendment. It flies in the face of truthfulness and honesty.

On the other hand, there have been situations where the innocent have confirmed or provided incriminating circumstantial evidence and had it used against them in court. It's there to protect the innocent but as with many such protections, it better serves the criminal as the criminal usually knows it's incriminating and "takes the fifth" where the innocent, being innocent, probably don't consider it's incriminating nature.

Baraka brought up a good point. How is so much evidence gained from the hard-drives of child predators? Are they all volunteering passwords or all too stupid to encrypt anything? Are their drives being hacked for the information? Are prosecutors unable to get access to this woman's computer any other way?

If she is refusing to give up her password because there's evidence there that will incriminate her, well....... I'm unsympathetic.

If she is refusing to give up her password because it contains other files to which she has a right to keep private, then I am more than sympathetic.

 

Yeah, without it we can't expect law enforcement to be truthful and honest. 4th-5th-6th are crucial procedural pillars.

 

Yea. That's a pretty uneducated statement. Next time you're in Law Enforcement's cross hairs, remember what you said about the 5th.

 

Huh, seems like this is kind of a tempest in a teapot:

http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/02/28/44254.htm

 

not a tempest in a teapot at all -- this is very important stuff.

 

Agreed. But now there's actual precedence. Which makes it less brain-hurty for our Cannuckistani friends.

There's a lot less guesswork now, unless and until SCOTUS takes it up.

 

I'm assuming you're talking about my statement and not Plan9's.

You obviously didn't read my entire post, kirstang. In fact, I suspect you spent even less time whipping off that scholarly little piggy-back retort of yours.

My personal opinion of the 5th amendment is that it is used more frequently by "guilty" suspects to avoid questions posed to them when the truthful answers they'd be required to make, under oath, would help to convict them. Yeah, it rubs me the wrong way, but there can be no other way.

I acknowledged my understanding of why we need this sort of protection. 50 people on the court docket, 49 of whom are honest-to goodness guilty (they know they did it) and then there's the one innocent guy. They all walk free that day due in part to the protections afforded them by the constitution.

An innocent man walked away a free man. It's a good day.

So you can put your water pistol back in your lunch box, kirstang.

 

Yea, in fact I read your entire post. It's not used more 'frequently by guilty suspects' than it is a measure to stop the government from railroading you. Believe me, the government has plenty of resources to slam you and convict you for something as silly as a spilled drink. Or maybe one of your coworkers is having a bad day and wants to get you arrested. It happens. You don't give the government shit because the next day they can come back and find little inconsistencies in your statement to make you look guilty as sin, when you are in fact innocent. So, no, it doesn't "fly in the face of truthfulness and honesty," because law enforcement likes to take 'truthfulness and honesty' and twist it around to bite you.

It's not scholarly, it's practical. The 5th amendment is there for a reason, and that reason is to protect you from the government. I think my post might be more edifying if you study the reasons for the 5th and how it culminated in Miranda.