quote:
Seems important to consider that he put in the password for border patrol agents while at the border and allowed them to look at password-protected parts of his machine.
I do not believe that this is relevant, and from looking at the court's opinion, it is actually unclear as to whether or not this is what he actually did. But for the sake of argument, let us assume that he actually did that, I don't believe that it matters.
Here is why: say the cops come to my house and find me standing over a dead body in the driveway. I tell the responding officer that I killed him. Say I told him this after Miranda warnings given. Later, after being taken to the PD or whatever, another officer comes to me and asks what happened. I tell him that I decline to answer his questions. Is that not allowed under Miranda, that a suspect has the right to refuse answering questions at any time during the process?
Of course it is! The fact that a suspect might have previously admitted to wrongdoing in no way, shape, or form precludes him or her from exercising his Miranda rights later on.
Realistically, it is kind of stupid to now expect that even with a Grand Jury summons that the guy is going to give up his password. All he has to say is "I don't remember it" and what are they going to do? That is all ANYBODY has to say when confronted with a similar situation "I do not remember the password."
On a side note, I really bet that this case has greatly increased the sales for PGP. After all, what better advertising can they have? Here the U.S. Government, with all its super secret, super powerful computers, has been unable for MORE THAN ONE YEAR to crack this encryption. The product sells for around $150 and is very easy to install and use. How many millions upon millions of tax dollars have been spent on NSA supercomputers and now we know that a simple, easy to use $150 program cannot be beat by them.
