Contempt of court

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From: Mike Godwin <mnemonic>
Message-Id: <199306172005.AA00334@eff.org>
Subject: Re: Contempt of court
To: nobody@rosebud.ee.uh.edu
Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1993 16:05:37 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: <9306171750.AA02648@toad.com> from "nobody@rosebud.ee.uh.edu" at Jun 17, 93 12:52:05 pm
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nobody writes:

> People should not be able to be forced by a subpoena duces tecum to provide
> incriminating documents.  The fifth amendment protection against self-
> incrimination normally extends to personal papers.  There are cases
> which show that corporate officers cannot avoid turning over corporate
> papers even if they incriminate themselves, but personal papers are
> provided much wider protection.
 
This is true, but it's not precisely the issue with regard to encryption
keys.

> But none of these involve giving testimony against themselves.  Producing
> a personal diary or notes which provide incriminating testimony should
> be protected by the fifth amendment.
 
Providing the key would not be seen as legally identical to providing
the unencrypted document.

> By this reasoning, someone may be able to be forced to reveal an encryption
> key, since that is not testimony.  But if the resulting documents, when
> decrypted, are personal and contain damaging, incriminating statements,
> they would not be usable in court.  To introduce them in court against
> the wishes of the defendant would be a clear violation of his fifth
> amendment rights.

Unfortunately, this has not been Fifth Amendment law for a long time.
If a search and seizure takes place at your house, and the investigating
agents find your diary, they can use it against you. If the diary is
in code, they can attempt to decode it.



--Mike

Mike Godwin says:
[Lots of stuff that add up to "Gee, what fifth amendment"]

I wonder when the last remaining clause of the Bill of Rights will be
declared to be meaningless tripe. FDR destroyed the 9th and 10th
amendments with his threats of court packing. PC is destroying the 1st
amendment. The fourth and fifth amendments are nearly gone thanks to
things like the war on drugs. Lots of people have been claiming the
second amendment doesn't mean what it says, and the supreme court has
refused to take a case since the Miller case in the 1930s. The court
recently held that you can execute a person even if there is evidence
that he's innocent without giving the evidence a hearing provided he's
technically exhausted his right to appeal. It seems like its only a
matter of time before other than stopping the government from
quartering soldiers in your home except in time of war, there will be
nothing more the courts will prevent.

Fun, ain't it?

Perry

Perry Metzger writes:
...
> technically exhausted his right to appeal. It seems like its only a
> matter of time before other than stopping the government from
> quartering soldiers in your home except in time of war, there will be
> nothing more the courts will prevent.
> 
> Fun, ain't it?

Ah, but this happens all the time! For example, at a recent dinner for
Dave Nolan, founder of the Libertarian Party, a middle-aged Santa Cruz
couple told us the story of how police/DEA/SWAT/BATF/not sure which
"took over" all the houses on their block to wait for a suspected drug
dealer to come out of his house.

By "take over" I mean the middle-aged couple was awakened by knocks on
the door at dawn, told they had 5 minutes to pack a few things, and
then told to get out of the house, that the SWAT team was using their
house as one of their command posts. Several other houses were as
well.

Around mid-afternoon, the blissfully-oblivious suspect wandered out
into into driveway and was immediately surrounded.

Now this may not be "quartering of troops," technically, in that they
didn't sleep over, eat the food (so far as I know), etc., but I sure
would call it something very similar.

And what do you think would happen to me if I answered the door with
my Heckler and Koch submachinegun, as I sometimes do (perfectly legal,
since it's on my property...so long as I don't "brandish" it)? My
guess is the pigs would shoot first.

With the Clinton Clipper rolling along, with the New World Order
looking like a liberal left police state, it's time more than ever for
the long-discussed "Cypherpunks Shooting Club."

Time for us to fight back.

"Kill the code grabbers."

-Tim May

-- 
..........................................................................
Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
tcmay@netcom.com       | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
408-688-5409           | knowledge, reputations, information markets, 
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA  | black markets, collapse of governments.
Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available.
Note: I put time and money into writing this posting. I hope you enjoy it.

In message <9306172054.AA09055@snark.shearson.com>, "Perry E. Metzger" writes:
> technically exhausted his right to appeal. It seems like its only a
> matter of time before other than stopping the government from
> quartering soldiers in your home except in time of war, there will be
> nothing more the courts will prevent.
> 
	I read somewhere on the net a *very* interesting interpretation of
the 3rd amendment, which cypherpunks might find interesting.
	It was claimed that in colonial times, the British authorities
quartered troops in people's homes as a form of surveillance. E.g. Tom
Jefferson is suspected of conspiring with friends to communicate
privately :-), thus the local British military leader learns of this
suspicion and quarters troops in Tom's home.
	Under this interpretation, it was claimed that the 3rd amendment
provides protection from government surveillance.

	I think it's stretching things a bit, but a very interesting way
to look at it.

--
| Sameer Parekh-zane@genesis.MCS.COM-PFA related mail to pfa@genesis.MCS.COM |
| Apprentice Philosopher, Writer, Physicist, Healer, Programmer, Lover, more |
| "Symbiosis is Good" - Me_"Specialization is for Insects" - R. A. Heinlein_/
 \_______________________/ \______________________________________________/

Sameer, the roots of the Third Amendment are not in surveillance, but
in the English Crown's desire to minimize the costs of maintaining troops
abroad.


--Mike


> In message <9306172054.AA09055@snark.shearson.com>, "Perry E. Metzger" writes:
> > technically exhausted his right to appeal. It seems like its only a
> > matter of time before other than stopping the government from
> > quartering soldiers in your home except in time of war, there will be
> > nothing more the courts will prevent.
> > 
> 	I read somewhere on the net a *very* interesting interpretation of
> the 3rd amendment, which cypherpunks might find interesting.
> 	It was claimed that in colonial times, the British authorities
> quartered troops in people's homes as a form of surveillance. E.g. Tom
> Jefferson is suspected of conspiring with friends to communicate
> privately :-), thus the local British military leader learns of this
> suspicion and quarters troops in Tom's home.
> 	Under this interpretation, it was claimed that the 3rd amendment
> provides protection from government surveillance.
> 
> 	I think it's stretching things a bit, but a very interesting way
> to look at it.
> 
> --
> | Sameer Parekh-zane@genesis.MCS.COM-PFA related mail to pfa@genesis.MCS.COM |
> | Apprentice Philosopher, Writer, Physicist, Healer, Programmer, Lover, more |
> | "Symbiosis is Good" - Me_"Specialization is for Insects" - R. A. Heinlein_/
>  \_______________________/ \______________________________________________/ 
>