Florida Judge orders reality TV stars to hand over their phone passwords to police

[spartaman64]

14 hours ago, snoopunit said:

do the police not realize they can access the SMS transcripts by going directly to the phone company?

 

14 hours ago, Orangeator said:

If the phones contain information that incriminates them on charges other than this extortion case, then they could easily have a case saying that it is self incrimination.

 

14 hours ago, djdwosk97 said:

For now.....but as I said, lines can be moved. It starts with only criminals and then it moves on to innocent civilians. 

 

And regardless, even a criminal shouldn't be required to testify against himself. 

 

 

13 hours ago, babadoctor said:

So, my neighbor has the suspicion that I did something illegal, and tells the court this, then the court unlocks my phone and gives it to the neighbor?

Then the neighbor reads through all of my private info?

 

 

13 hours ago, djdwosk97 said:

No, it comes down to abuse of the law by the law. Not to mention the bill of rights was put in place to protect the rights of every citizen, this violates the fifth amendment -- the right to not testify against yourself -- under no circumstance should a person be required to testify against themself. 

 

 

6 hours ago, SoftPoison said:

A judge extorting the defendants for phone passwords with the threat of jail time in an extortion case. Well isn't that ironic...

"Police arrested the defendants last July and seized their phones, having intercepted text messages allegedly sent to Ms Goddard."

i think people are missing the fact that they are not just going by the word of Ms Goddard but they have the text messages intercepted and i guess they are going to search for the photos on the phone. but in the end i think they have enough evidence from just the text messages to convict them but the next step would probably be to remove the pictures that are being used as blackmail and im not sure how they would make sure of that without the password to the phones

[79wjd]

46 minutes ago, spartaman64 said:

 

 

 

 

 

"Police arrested the defendants last July and seized their phones, having intercepted text messages allegedly sent to Ms Goddard."

i think people are missing the fact that they are not just going by the word of Ms Goddard but they have the text messages intercepted and i guess they are going to search for the photos on the phone. but in the end i think they have enough evidence from just the text messages to convict them but the next step would probably be to remove the pictures that are being used as blackmail and im not sure how they would make sure of that without the password to the phones

They could wipe the phone.

[mr moose]

47 minutes ago, spartaman64 said:

 

 

 

 

 

"Police arrested the defendants last July and seized their phones, having intercepted text messages allegedly sent to Ms Goddard."

i think people are missing the fact that they are not just going by the word of Ms Goddard but they have the text messages intercepted and i guess they are going to search for the photos on the phone. but in the end i think they have enough evidence from just the text messages to convict them but the next step would probably be to remove the pictures that are being used as blackmail and im not sure how they would make sure of that without the password to the phones

raises a good point.  If you assume someone had very private photos of you on their phone, shouldn't you be entitled to know for sure that the photos have been deleted? or receive proof they didn't have the photos in the first place?

[goodtofufriday]

16 hours ago, snoopunit said:

do the police not realize they can access the SMS transcripts by going directly to the phone company?

These days theres more things like whatsapp or even snapchat messaging. 

Its also more time consuming to get sms records. 

[PlayStation 2]

16 hours ago, NinJake said:

Don't be stupid is the best alternative!

 

Destroy the phones before they got caught/confiscated.

 

Don't be stupid.

 

Unlock phone unless they have more they are hiding and deal with their consequences legitimately.

 

Don't be stupid?!

Look at how that worked out for Hillary. 

Long story short, the whole thing is unraveling. 

[Misanthrope]

17 hours ago, NinJake said:

Don't be stupid is the best alternative!

 

Destroy the phones before they got caught/confiscated.

 

Don't be stupid.

 

Unlock phone unless they have more they are hiding and deal with their consequences legitimately.

 

Don't be stupid?!

Those are some solid choices don't get me wrong, but my first choice would be "Don't be a fucking piece of shit blackmailer" would be the first one.

[AnonymousGuy]

You can't be compelled to provide information you don't have.  "I forgot" and "I don't recall" works wonders.

[rhavimarques]

18 minutes ago, AnonymousGuy said:

You can't be compelled to provide information you don't have.  "I forgot" and "I don't recall" works wonders.

i've never actually forgotten a phone password so i'm not sure, but in the end wouldn't the phone be wiped anyway?... i mean... if the owner of the phone doesn't have access to it anymore i'm sure he can't make a valid argument to it not being wiped...

 

in my opinion this case is going about this the wrong way... if they have the information that he did indeed try to extort the victim into paying, just write that down, and if those (or any pictures, for that matter) of her get leaked online, the police already know who did it... now put yourself in that guy's shoes:

 

you tried to make some money threatening to leak some nudes from a chick, but now, not only do you go to jail if you leak them, but if any other @#*hole leaks nudes of her you'll also go to jail, because you didn't provide the evidence/pictures you had of her, so there is no way of knowing if the ones leaked were yours or not... boy you're (@#&ed now, aren't you?

[ChineseChef]

14 hours ago, babadoctor said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presumption_of_innocence

I am aware of the concept and its current implementation.  What I am saying is that the judicial system in the US seems to be switching from a presumption of innocence to a presumption of guilt.  While it is happening very slowly, it seems to be happening none the less, which is a frightening trend.

[babadoctor]

2 hours ago, ChineseChef said:

I am aware of the concept and its current implementation.  What I am saying is that the judicial system in the US seems to be switching from a presumption of innocence to a presumption of guilt.  While it is happening very slowly, it seems to be happening none the less, which is a frightening trend.

Oh I see.

 

You could argue in some sense that when we want to send illegal immigrants back for crimes they commit to any degree, it would follow this logic too.

 

Send one back with no fair trial after doing some horrendous crime >>> X amount of time later... >>> anyone who is illegal who commits any type of crime gets sent to jail, even saying illegal immigrant did a crime they did not will get them sent to jail because its the norm now

 

Am I following, or am I stupid for bringing this into this conversation?

 

 

[ChineseChef]

55 minutes ago, babadoctor said:

-snip-

The illegal immigrant angle is slightly different.  Since it is based off the fact that their mere presence is a crime in itself.  They are here illegally, so what they may or may not have done is irrelevant to their being here illegally.  Whether they should be allowed to be here and what changes should be made to immigration laws is kind of irrelevant to whether or not they are currently breaking immigration law as it is now.

 

But for my argument, in relation to this particular case, its more akin to where if the state/gov can't prove you have some info/doc/file on your computer, they should simply have to let you go.  As they are unable to show evidence that you have the item in question.  Before digital encryption, there wasn't really a lock box that couldn't be forced open by the authorities.  But now with modern encryption, it can be feasibly "impossible" to break the encryption on a device/file.  So for this case, they are basically unable to prove what files are on this phone.  And since they can't crack it within a reasonable amount of time, they are forcing the owner to unlock the phone using information only stored in the owner's mind.  So the balance has shifted from the state finding and collecting evidence without your involvement, to forcing you to provide the evidence of your potential wrongdoings.

 

A great argument I saw for what the authorities should be able to force you to do is the "coma test".  If you were in a coma or otherwise unable to respond, would the authorities be able to collect the evidence without you?  Basically, you should never have to do or say anything in the assistance of the state to aid in their prosecution of you.

 

Slippery slope time.  This will start with forcing people to unlock or decrypt devices/files in a court setting.  Then it will become common practice for trials to involve unlocking devices/accounts.  Then the police will get authority to force an unlock in specific situations.  Then it will start to be abused and/or simply used for common situations.  Eventually, getting pulled over for speeding could involve you being forced to give the police officer full access to your phone and car (once they become more automated/integrated).  Eventually, they could simply mandate some kind of backdoor access to all devices, which is bad for everyone because hackers will gain access to it.

[Dabombinable]

8 minutes ago, ChineseChef said:

The illegal immigrant angle is slightly different.  Since it is based off the fact that their mere presence is a crime in itself.  They are here illegally, so what they may or may not have done is irrelevant to their being here illegally.  Whether they should be allowed to be here and what changes should be made to immigration laws is kind of irrelevant to whether or not they are currently breaking immigration law as it is now.

 

But for my argument, in relation to this particular case, its more akin to where if the state/gov can't prove you have some info/doc/file on your computer, they should simply have to let you go.  As they are unable to show evidence that you have the item in question.  Before digital encryption, there wasn't really a lock box that couldn't be forced open by the authorities.  But now with modern encryption, it can be feasibly "impossible" to break the encryption on a device/file.  So for this case, they are basically unable to prove what files are on this phone.  And since they can't crack it within a reasonable amount of time, they are forcing the owner to unlock the phone using information only stored in the owner's mind.  So the balance has shifted from the state finding and collecting evidence without your involvement, to forcing you to provide the evidence of your potential wrongdoings.

 

A great argument I saw for what the authorities should be able to force you to do is the "coma test".  If you were in a coma or otherwise unable to respond, would the authorities be able to collect the evidence without you?  Basically, you should never have to do or say anything in the assistance of the state to aid in their prosecution of you.

 

Slippery slope time.  This will start with forcing people to unlock or decrypt devices/files in a court setting.  Then it will become common practice for trials to involve unlocking devices/accounts.  Then the police will get authority to force an unlock in specific situations.  Then it will start to be abused and/or simply used for common situations.  Eventually, getting pulled over for speeding could involve you being forced to give the police officer full access to your phone and car (once they become more automated/integrated).  Eventually, they could simply mandate some kind of backdoor access to all devices, which is bad for everyone because hackers will gain access to it.

And, other countries would follow suite as well, using the precedence set in the US.

[snoopunit]

@ChineseChef

 

I think eventually, every car/device will be so interconnected within the system that they won't even need to pull you over and request access to any information. We can already hack into these devices, albeit illegally, so it's only a matter of time before those remote accessibilities become readily available to the authorities, at least in the US.