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Encryption cited as evidence of criminal intent.
PGP Ruled as Relevant For Criminal Case
waytoomuchcoffee writes “A Minnesota appeals unamimously ruled in a child porn case that “the existence of an encryption program” on the defendants computer could be admitted as evidence of criminal intent. The article doesn’t mention if this can be taken into account for sentencing too.”
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/25/0019217&from=RSS
This obsconed from slashdot.org
Posted by Hemos on Wednesday May 25, @12:38AM
from the stupid-stupid-courts dept.
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This is just scarry…..
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Comments
I don’t find this as big a deal as you, I guess. How is this any different than a court ruling that the loaded gun in a murderer’s apartment is relevant to a case? They didn’t rule that PGP itself is criminal.
Well the distinction is that the primary purpose of a gun to to cause harm. It’s core function is destructive in nature.
Let’s use an example scenario: What if the government outlawed the possesion of crack. They then come into your home, with a valid search warrent. Should they be allowed to used the existance of a family safe as evidence of crack posession?
The argument I’m making here is that lack of visibility on the government’s behalf does not constitute wrong-doing on your part.
The assumption of innocence starts to get erroded when they assume you’re doing evil.
int4resting…