Recent news about the U.S. Department of Justice attempting to force a woman to hand over her laptop encryption keys raises some interesting issues about applying the U.S. Constitution to electronic media.  Ramona Fricosu has attempted to “take the Fifth” and is refusing to hand over the password to her encrypted laptop, which she and her lawyers see as forced self incrimination. The Department of Justice sees things differently, claiming that she is preventing them from “assembling information that could become evidence during a trial.”  Another twist here is that the Department of Justice is not seeking the password itself, but is asking Ms. Fricosu to type it in for them, leaving them to examine the files on her computer.  It’s by no means clear whether a court can compel you to decrypt your laptop and it looks like this case will set precedent on appeal, likely all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.  Prior cases (e.g. United States vs. Boucher) were not precedent setting and did not include a complete refusal to cooperate.

Other countries, including Canada and many in Europe, have specific laws on key disclosure.  There’s a summary on Wikipedia if you’re not under U.S. jurisdiction.

In the meantime, I’m planning to continue to encrypt important data including my laptop disk, whether I can take the Fifth or not.