Court Urged To Find Forced Decryption Unconstitutional

Self-incrimination, dudes

You shouldn't have to surrender your constitutional rights in order to safeguard your electronic privacy.  In a new amicus brief we filed today, we told a federal court in Wisconsin that ordering a man to decrypt the contents of computers seized from his apartment would violate the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.

The case involves the FBI's attempts to decrypt the contents of more than ten storage devices and hard drives found in the apartment of Jeffrey Feldman in the course of a child pornography investigation. After spending months trying to decrypt the drives, the government applied for a court order forcing Feldman to provide the government with the decrypted contents of the drives.