Suspects can refuse to provide phone passcodes to police, court rules::Phone-unlocking case law is “total mess,” may be ripe for Supreme Court review.
Thought this was already established precedent.
Nope, each state is doing its own thing and the 5th ammendment is being trampled in a few of them. Biometrics and passwords are being forced and this is an amazing ruling for 5A advocates like myself.
SC needs to rule on it, but preferably not THIS supreme court
But biometrics have never been covered by the 5th amendment. Police collect facial photos and fingerprints and have done so for years. On top of that any DNA you unknowing leave at a police station can be used as evidence (strand of hair, spit on the rim of a water glass). I would never recommend commiting a crime but if you do and have evidence of it on your phone don’t use biometrics.
Forcing someone to press on their phone to unlock it via fingerprunt is a lot different than just collecting data.
IMO, forced/coerced biometrics to unlock a device SHOULD be covered by 5A
I dunno, how many Jan. 6’ers got convicted by the contents of their phones? :)
“well, this possible violation of the 5th could have similar results as this other time when i liked the results so…??? should we???”
My understanding was that most of them got got because their cell companies knew where they were, not because of the contents of their phones
But also, I’d rather let every Jan Sixer go free than imprison one innocent person because they looked up textiles.com two years ago and found out how to make meth
Not in a post Trump supreme court era it isnt
I’ll keep saying it; The Supreme Court is conservative, not partisan. They owe Trump nothing and have had a few surprising decisions lately.
I don’t trust them a bit, but neither do I trust they’ll always make the wrong call.
I don’t think that’s right. A group that very strongly believes in the Republican Party and its agenda and values would still be definitively partisan. Partisan has always been used in the context of following party lines, not necessarily one person.
Hey, thanks, that’s a useful (and probably fairly accurate) distinction and I’m happy to find that a positive shift in my viewpoint, if minor. The corruption might be a really big problem or it might be one guy who’s an aberration for being wildly outside the court’s norms, really unclear on that part. But I needed a solid reminder that it’s not quite yet another ruined and hypocritical institution we once held dear.
I mean, whether you say it’s legal or not, I wouldn’t give out my pass code to a police officer. You can get fucked on that one.
In France it’s illegal not to allow them to unlock your phone once they take you to the station. That’s why most of the time we clean our phones or use burners during civil desobedience actions.
This is a complicated situation, but in my opinion, probably the correct decision.
Given this is the ruling, if you do believe your phone is about to be confiscated, and you don’t want its contents to be used as evidence, it might be a good idea to turn off your phone. Although the police cannot compel a password, a biometric unlock is not a password. If you turn off your phone, it will generally require a password to enable biometric unlock.
Most phones have a way to use a button sequence force the next lock to require a PIN code. iPhone is just hitting the side button 5x for instance.
While it’s tough to have any sympathy for an offender like this, even the worst monsters are entitled to due process and their rights as human beings. Most of the article is about disobeying the court, so that really shouldn’t be news.
It’s the twisted logic that got them there that’s really suspect. If I can paraphrase, “we don’t have enough evidence to incriminate you so you must provide that evidence. The ruling stand because the police already know you’re guilty so incriminating yourself is not self-incrimination”. Yeah, I took some liberties with it, but not as much as the court
At least the ruling limiting jail time makes sense, you can’t imprison someone for contempt longer than the court proceedings, or impanelment, or 18 months, whichever comes first. I didn’t see any implications in the article, but hopefully it either applies generally to contempt, or any contempt charge has a similar limitation. You can’t just imprison someone indefinitely for refusing to speak
Totalitarians try to use cases like this to take your rights away. Never forget how this impacts the innocent. If they can force this man to unlock his phone, they can force any innocent person to do the same. If the police think you’ve committed a crime, accessing your phone will never make them think you’re innocent. The absolute best case scenario is that they don’t find anything useful to their case. The worst case scenario is that they find your social media account where you called arson based last year, and they will use that against you.
FTA:
“The Valdez case does not involve an order to compel a suspect to unlock a device. Instead, “law enforcement asked Valdez to verbally provide his passcode,” Utah justices wrote. “While these circumstances involve modern technology in a scenario that the Supreme Court has not yet addressed, we conclude that these facts present a more straightforward question that is answered by settled Fifth Amendment principles.””
So now, every cop everywhere is going to be like “Yeah, I’m going to need you to unlock your phone.”
“Do me a favor”
What about biometrics?
An app can clear your phone with a specific password, can’t remember the name…
Wasted on F-Droid.
Pretty sure the 5th Amendment doesn’t protect against obstruction of justice if you knowingly wipe your phone while under custody
How could they know?
Just yell at them “WTF DID YOU DO? MY LAST GRANDFATHER PICTURES ARE GONE!”
And tadaaaaa
What if you have face unlock?
Last I heard biometrics were not protected. As in you have to unlock your phone upon request. A code, pattern or other thing you know was treated differently from using your body to unlock your phone.
No one has ever accused criminals of being smart
I’m sorry, but this headline is weird to me because “I forgot my passcode” if a cop ever asks me for it.
That’s for including jurisdiction in the headline like we’ve all been asking for. V helpful.
