Hello Mary, long time... Saturday, November 13, 2004, 06:54:09, you wrote:
MB> As no doubt was made clear earlier, in the U.S. this law exists, MB> too, and for the reason just given above. And also the right, just MB> confirmed on this thread as existing in Great Britain, to view MB> encrypted material on hard drives. But to seize a hard drive in MB> the U.S. for that purpose, it's my understanding that a court MB> order must still be obtained. However, the U.S. "Patriot Act" MB> seems to be under continual re-interpretation. Yes indeed. In the US a court order has to exist. But it may be sealed (meaning you cannot get to it, read it, or have your councellor/barrister read and counter the order), if it is given under the Patriot Act. See, for example, the now famous IndyMedia case, where hardrives were collected from IndyMedia servers from US and UK (and possibly other places). The UK government will not comment on the case, and in the US, a court order exists, but cannot be discussed. No charges have been made against IndyMedia (to my knowledge). But, still, charges *may* be brought in the future. BTW, the harddrives have been returned, seemingly intact. Also, the enforcement agency (usually the FBI in the US, I guess) can receive a 'blanket' warrant, allowing it to go to your home/office/whatever, and collect anything and everything that the enforcement agents consider interesting. That means, then, the harddrives, the CDROMs, any and all pieces of paper found, the trash can, the contents of the shelves, your cell, etc. You will not have a chance of calling in witnesses, and to argue on what can be collected. And, done that, if an encrypted file is found, you may be required to provide the keyphrase. And... you yourself do not know _why_. It is, after all, National Security. Need-to-know and all of that. It may happen that later they find nothing against you, and all collected materials will be returned. This may take some years (see Steve Jackson, some years ago -- and this was _before_ the Patriot Act!). By this point in time, if you depended on the collected material to survive, you are already under... Encryption of data will, then increase your privacy in relation to your peers, not in relation to the government. No key escrow is actually required in this process, since refusal to provide the encryption keys is a tacit admission of guilt. The most astonishing piece of it all is that you can be sued without actually knowing the real contents of the charges, and without being able to see/discuss/counter incriminating evidence collected against you. What was it, again, this guy Ben Franklin once said, about liberty, rights, etc? -- ..hggdh.. Using The Bat! v3.0.2.6 and BayesIt! 0.7.4 on Windows 2000 5.0 Build 2195 Service Pack 4
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