subpoenas of personal papers

I just saw a news story that bears on one of the perpetual questions on
this newsgroup:  can you be compelled to turn over your encryption
key?  In Doe vs. U.S. (93-523), the Supreme Court declined to rule on
whether or not someone can be forced to turn over his personal
appointment calendar.  By doing so, they let stand an Appeals Court
(2nd Circuit) that he could *not* invoke the Fifth Amendment.  That
court ruled that ``testimony'' was protected, but not personal papers.
There was a Supreme Court ruling in 1886 protecting such papers, but
that's been eroded over the years, and the Supreme Court has ruled
several times that business records are not protected.  And in a
concurring opinion in 1986, O'Connor wrote ``The Fifth Amendment
provides absolutely no protection for the contents of private papers of
any kind''.


		--Steve Bellovin

> 
> I just saw a news story that bears on one of the perpetual questions on
> this newsgroup:  can you be compelled to turn over your encryption
> key?  In Doe vs. U.S. (93-523), the Supreme Court declined to rule on
> whether or not someone can be forced to turn over his personal
> appointment calendar.  By doing so, they let stand an Appeals Court
...
> concurring opinion in 1986, O'Connor wrote ``The Fifth Amendment
> provides absolutely no protection for the contents of private papers of
> any kind''.
> 
> 
> 		--Steve Bellovin

IMHO, that still does not indicate that you can be compelled to
'testify' your key.  Sure, they can try to decript them...

sdw
-- 
Stephen D. Williams  Local Internet Gateway Co.; SDW Systems 513 496-5223APager
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I really doubt that a judge would accept the argument that a private key was
a statement. Their position is going to be that it is a physical entity
identical with (from the legal perspective) a personal diary. They could also
take the positiont that the key is a part of a process whereby they gain
access to your papers and hence cant be incriminating in and of itself. If
this is the position they take then the 5th does no good. If it can be showsn
that the complete range of answers to a question can't be incriminating then
you are the same creek.

On Mon, 24 Jan 1994, Stephen Williams wrote:

> IMHO, that still does not indicate that you can be compelled to
> 'testify' your key.  Sure, they can try to decript them...
> 
> sdw

  Are you trying to say that you have a 1024 byte private key memorized, 
and not stored in a file?  You actually type yours in every time you wish 
to decypher a message?

  I am truely impressed.


-ck