Judge orders woman to give up password to hard drive

Judge orders woman to give up password to hard drive

technolog.msnbc.msn.com

In the future, your hard drive may not be your hard drive: A federal judge has ruled that a Colorado woman, charged in a mortgage scam case, must turn over the password needed to decrypt her hard drive so that police can view the files on it.

Ramona Fricosu was given until Feb. 21 to comply with the order by U.S. District Court Judge Robert Blackburn. The judge said Fricosu's defense — the Fifth Amendment's right against self-incrimination — did not apply in the case, in which she is charged with bank fraud, wire fraud and money laundering.

(visit the link for the full news article)

I made a thread about this exact situation a while back saying that passwords are protected under the fifth amendment:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

This woman is refusing to give up her password so that the police can find data on her harddrive. It is an obvious violation of her fifth amendment for her to give up the password or write it down, or type it out or to reveal it in any way which would incriminate her. Thoughts.

technolog.msnbc.msn.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Other interesting things you may want to look at:

US vs Boucher
en.wikipedia.org...
How the Fifth Amendment Saved my Life

Can she not just say that she forgot her password? I have so many passwords it is getting beyond a joke these days....

Absolutely it is a violation. Hopefully she will appeal all the way to the Supreme Court. But who knows what they would do these days.

Peace

reply to post by THE_PROFESSIONAL


Haaaa ha..

Throw me in jail I aint talking to nobody.

I hope she never gives it up either.

Screw them.

Please help us convict you so we can take all your money and throw yiou in prison.


Ha ha silly freaks.

Go shovel snow I say.

reply to post by THE_PROFESSIONAL


Thought?

She should have re-written over the hard drive ten or fifteen times the night she knew she was being charged.

Or the fireplace... Whichever is more convenient.

I marvel at the sheer stupidity of people that hold evidence against themselves.

(BTW - I am NOT saying its right for them to make her give up her password. I do NOT agree with the ruling. I just don't agree with her keeping the hard drive around either, heh.)

reply to post by YouAreLiedTo


There is alleged evidence against her, it is not proven If you cannot access the drive how do you know there is evidence against her

personally i hate those craigslist scammers , so if they figured out she's behind a few then she's in a lose lose situation right now. Either keep the password and make yourself look more guilty among what else they'll do to her, or give up the password and be guilty n/e ways. It's not a violation of any right in my opinion, if anything she's withholding evidence.

Hey I am siding with the courts, the judge did the right thing, HE GOT A WARRANT.

Nothing wrong with gettin' a warrant. She shouldn't'a' (should not have) done the crime!

She could just say "oops I dont remember what it is..."

What are they going to do? im sure it wont be any worse than what they will do if she gives them the info to decrypt it. Allthough, im sure they have the facilities to decrypt her info without the password.

Another reference point...

A federal judge in Vermont has ruled that prosecutors can't force a
criminal defendant accused of having illegal images on his hard drive
to divulge his PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) passphrase.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Jerome Niedermeier ruled that a man charged with
transporting child pornography on his laptop across the Canadian
border has a Fifth Amendment right not to turn over the
passphrase to prosecutors. The Fifth Amendment protects the right
to avoid self-incrimination.

Niedermeier tossed out a grand jury's subpoena that directed Sebastien
Boucher to provide "any passwords" used with the Alienware
laptop. "Compelling Boucher to enter the password forces him to
produce evidence that could be used to incriminate him," the judge
wrote in an order dated November 29 that went unnoticed until this
week. "Producing the password, as if it were a key to a locked
container, forces Boucher to produce the contents of his laptop."

Link to court opinion:
www.volokh.com...

When lower Federal Courts routinely disagree... you know this will need to go to the SCOTUS for final adjudication eventually.

Frankly, self-incrimination protections should be the rule.... if they haven't enough to warrant trial and conviction otherwise... they haven't done enough investigative work. No one piece of undisclosed evidence should ring the death-knell of personal sovereignty.

reply to post by THE_PROFESSIONAL

Thoughts.

Simple enough, this is a joke and is an indication of the sickening levels we are allowing our governments to go do to restrict our freedoms.

As i stated in another thread on this subject, my solution would be a custom linux boot loader with a drive wipe software set to run the instant an "encryption password" is entered into a phony screen. Using a similar method to a rootkit, i'd ensure that program resumes when the laptop is booted, before being able to access any operating systems.

Since the data is encrypted, a single wipe pass would be ok, but for pure safety I'd suggest a 7 pass zeroing out of the drive with any software. The RCMP in canada use D.S.X. but anyone can easily get any number of disk wiping apps for free, legally, usually in the form of linux boot disks or flash key bootable programs.

If I were going to travel around with a laptop with "private" data, I would ensure the following:

"fastgate" or similar "preboot" mini os ability

a bios that is easily flashable, and customizable

A BIOS that allows you to set a boot password, and drive password, and a setup ( bios ) password
Preferably one with "stringent security" so removing the cmos battery does NOT wipe the password
Best case is a security chip (most HP business class notebooks) that has no back door password

encryption software that locks itself out after a set amount of failed attempts.

Aforementioned linux boot selection with fake encryption password prompt, that starts a drive wipe when the password is supplied (or isn't)

some of this sounds complicated, but thanks to the linux community, most of this is already done for you, creating a linux boot loader for your machine is literally a 4 minute process that anyone who can use notepad.exe can handle.

I'd suggest doing this BEFORE it becomes illegal, which would be the next logical step.

If she has nothing to hide and didn't do anything wrong...why not just comply...then when it is all over...make a new password.

Just to piss them off
Pull out the hard drive in front of them, and run a super strong natural magnet over it, since it is your property, then you should be allowed to destroy what is on it, correct?

That would shut them up.

Time/date deadman switch. If you have not "checked in" over a certain number of days. The hard drive automatically reformats even with the right password. Not even the owner can stop it.

reply to post by caladonea


If you have nothing to hide why don't you walk without your clothes? It is for privacy and security

Originally posted by truthinfact
Hey I am siding with the courts, the judge did the right thing, HE GOT A WARRANT.

Nothing wrong with gettin' a warrant. She shouldn't'a' (should not have) done the crime!

I think the argument is that she doesn't want to be a witness against herself. The fifth amendment doesn't say it's OK to be a witness against yourself as long as there's a warrant:

secure.wikimedia.org...

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

I would say providing the password is being a witness against yourself, though I'd agree there may be some ambiguity, so this case might need to go to the supreme court. I have no love for mortgage scammers, but she is entitled to her fifth amendment rights.

Originally posted by caladonea
If she has nothing to hide and didn't do anything wrong...why not just comply...then when it is all over...make a new password.

That is the same thinking they used during the witch hunts...

"Only a witch wouldn't take the test!"

-Victim, "Fine, I'll do it, I have nothing to hide..."

"Oops, the test killed them... But at least we know she wasn't a witch!..."

Or the nazis...

"Only someone hiding Jews wouldn't let us search their house..."

Victim, "Fine you can search my house for Jews... I have nothing to hide..."

"Oops, we accidentally burned your house down while investigating... But at least you weren't hiding Jews!..."

how the link reads is they already have enough information to take a look at her hard drive. The only thing I could see is that she has other incriminating stuff on it. But when they get a warrent to search your house for one reason and come back 5 reasons what do they do with the extra 4 reasons. Imo this has already been played out. Why did people get the false impression that you would be safe from the law if it was done electronicly. The standing laws should just be applied to electronics.


They already have laws about with holding evedince right?

I don't really feel like arguing fifth amendment rights at the moment but think about this. If the hard drive belonged to Ben Bernake and contained all the federal reserve's financial transactions for the past decade, would you support his fifth amendment rights?