Thus spake Eric H. Jung ([EMAIL PROTECTED]): > > Tony's point was that you could arrange not to have the > authentication > > tokens anymore. You better hope they believe you when you say you > > don't have it, though. > > >Not having the authentication tokens counts as refusing to surrender > >them. > > Per US law, if a judge subpoenas you to hand them over and you refuse > and/or remain silent, it means indefinite jail time (until you hand > over the tokens) and/or fines.
Where is your source on this? As I understand it, there are a few fundamental principles of the US legal system that should render this statement completely false. One is Habeas Corpus.. You can't just throw someone in jail indefinitely without a criminal charge and a trial. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writ_of_habeas_corpus Though it seems Bush&Co are violating it with "enemy combatant" charges, I do not think they have the political power (at least anymore) to name an anonymity provider as an "enemy combatant" (especially if they are a natural born US citizen). The same applies to the 72 hour warrant deal, at least as far as I can tell from http://www.fff.org/comment/com0601c.asp Second, if it is a criminal charge, you are not under any obligation to testify against yourself in a criminal court of law (5th ammendment). There are various exceptions to this, main one being if you are not the person charged of the crime (though I think you can still claim that such testimony may incriminate you for unrelated matters). I suppose it could also be argued that the passphrase does not count as testimony, but it sure seems like it is. Finally, some googling on subpoena compliance seems to indicate that punishment for subpoena non-compliance is 'contempt of court' charge and fines. http://www.rcfp.org/cgi-local/privilege/item.cgi?i=questions That page advises you not to answer any subpoenas without challenging them first, among other things (ie one state's court cannot usually subpoena someone from another state). Contempt of court charges for non-compliance may be repeated, but any contempt law I can find on the web has some form of maximum limit. The longest I've seen so far is North Carolina, which is a max of 1yr in 90 day increments: http://www.rosen.com/ppf/cat/statco/laws.asp Also, dunno how accurate it is, but Wikipedia seems to claim that the key disclosure provisions of the RIPA (Part III) are not yet in force in the UK: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_Investigatory_Powers_Act_2000 We seriously have to watch our paranoia on this one. This is one of those situations that if we believe we have no rights, it will be very easy to knock us over, simply by playing off our fears and demanding keys without any legitimate basis to do so. If any Tor operator is arrested/detained in the US, they would do well to refuse to surrender any passphrase until they are actually in court and ordered to do so by a Judge (and then only after voicing protest, to allow for clear appeal to a higher court). Cops will probably just lie to you and try to convince you that you are required on the spot. Ask for a lawyer immediately. This is not just to protect the Tor network either. With computer laws as crazy as they are, and with the IPPA coming down the road, soon simply having something like an Open Source DVD player or archiver on your machine will be enough to land you in jail for a while, if it's not already... -- Mike Perry Mad Computer Scientist fscked.org evil labs