re keeping your mouth shut was hard drive security in article apr cadkey com eric cadkey com eric holtman writes in article apr yuma acns colostate edu holland cs colostate edu douglas craig holland writes i m not a lawyer so correct me if i m wrong but doing that could be considered obstruction of justice which could land you in prison for quite a while the thing that s great about the secret key is it is idea encrypted so even if the fbi do get the key they re sol unless they know the magic word if they try to force you to give them your pass phrase just say oops i forgot since the burden of proof is still on the prosecution in this country if you keep your mouth shut how can they prove that you didn t forget your pass phrase well i m no lawyer but i ll supply some ancedotal evidence which may change your mind note i do not agree at all with what went on in this case and neither will most of you that doesn t change the fact that it did happen right here in america even about three or four years ago there was a rather nasty custody case in or around washington d c the upshot was an ex husband was suing for visitation rights which were granted the woman believed that the man had been sexually molesting her children much like allen farrow but not as famous anyhows she spirits away the kids and refuses to tell the court where they are and denies him visitation rights she keeps her mouth shut and what happens she sits in jail for almost a year on contempt of court until the legislature passes a special law limiting the time a person can be held if they hadn t passed the law she d most likely still be there the kids were in new zealand i belive now story finished commetary starting imho the only reason the legislature moved was because there was an outpouring of public sympathy for this woman most people believed she was right and were outraged not likely to happen for joe random drug dealer child molester or perfectly innocent privacy lover who might have something to hide innocent until proven guilty doesn t mean you get to walk out of court humming a happy tune because the fbi can t read your disk just ask those held for contempt those who can t make bail etc etc again i disagree totally with the concept of holding someone based on suspicion but people who keep thinking that it won t happen are bound to get a rude shock when it does also not a lawyer etc but if i remember correctly the contempt of court business is used in order to compel cooperation with what is perhaps questionably different issue the legitimate business of that court quite literally the party is found guilty of holding the court in contempt now the original scheme as suggested here would be to have the key disappear if certain threatening conditions are met once the key is gone there is no question of contempt of court as there is nothing to compell the key is no longer there to be produced obstruction of justice would be a different issue but if the suspect in question would have some legitmate reason to protect his data from prying eyes however extenuated i think that this charge would be a hard nut to make perhaps it is time for a lawyer to step in and clear this all up vincent a kub wd dbx saints should always be judged guilty until they are proven vkub charlie usd edu innocent geo orwell w cherry st it is good to die before one has vermillion s dakota done anything deserving of death phone or fax to anaxandirdes king of sparta
